11 August 2024: 🏜️🍦 Updates, 💬 Q & A: Hidden References, ✍🏽 OuLiPo N + 7, 📸 Photograph of the Week, and 🎫 Paid Subscriber Perks

Bismillah. We begin everything with the name of Allah. We say Bismillah to initiate an act to acknowledge the intention and the ethics we carry with all that follows Bismillah.

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☺️ Hello!

Table of Contents:

1. 🏜️ A Quick Update: Deserts + Soft Life Experiences

2. 💬 Q & A: What is your favorite hidden reference that you’ve made in a work?

3. ✍🏽 Writing Prompt: OuLiPo N + 7

4. 📸 Photograph of the Week: Jetblue Mint

5. 🎫 Reminders about paid subscriber perks!

1. 🏜️🍦 A Quick Update: Deserts + Soft Life Experiences

My house is a mess, but I am fully moved in! I am headed to Joshua Tree for a short residency in a few hours. I will be studying the physics of pressure and the law of superposition! Then, I am back in NYC to start work and prepare for a few shows. I am looking forward to the dry heat!

Oh! So I rode first class from JFK to LAX by accident, I think. Somehow, I was in JetBlue Mint. Someone else booked my ticket so I don’t know what magic they did, but it was a glorious experience. I do not treat myself to luxury experiences; I am very frugal. With a mix of housing instability trauma and guilt about doing nice things for myself as the world continues to devolve into the most wicked iteration I have had the displeasure of living through, I will skimp on nice things for myself. Well! After this cute little trip, I want to enjoy more nice and soft experiences. My first attempt: I booked a roomette for my train to Palm Springs! I will keep y’all posted. I think it will be cute! I have always wanted to do this, but just didn’t?

And I have a Delta voucher for an international trip I canceled last year! Where should I go?

2. 💬 Q & A: What is your favorite hidden reference that you’ve made in a work?

You can submit a question here or complete this form! Questions are due on Saturdays by 5 pm EST.

Dear Kameelah,

What is your favorite hidden reference that you’ve made in a work?

Thanks,

O

Hi O,

Now, if I share the answer to this, then it is no longer hidden! I do like the spirit of this question which I (choose to) read as “how to preserve some interiority in your practice? And now can you share it with us!” There are easter eggs throughout all of my work not for the purpose of obtuse or performative illegibility, but