✅ List Dump: 12 July 2026
just a list of things I want to share in no order other than the sequence of remembering
Bismillah. We begin everything with the name of Allah. We recite Bismillah to initiate an act, acknowledging the intention and ethics that follow.
Words (not including the ones describing the words I am typing to tell you about the word count):
1,745
Welcome back to another list!
Check out the first one, or TL;DR: territorial mice, nipple injury, improv, an expensive orifice, dumplings, games, garden poems, friendship lore, and good times. And the second one, TL;DR: spite-based newsletter writing, gil scott-heron and nina simone wish you a happy 4th of july, castle rock, bad dating app AI, bone broth, speech disorders, open-toe sandals, harper’s findings
I was going to apologize, but never mind. I landed in Montpellier, FR yesterday, took my little vitamins and meds, then passed out. I actually called my mama and told her to wake me up on time so I could finish this newsletter, and she called me. Then I told her, “Please, don’t call me again. Let me rest.” That was some amazing jetlag sleep. I was supposed to publish a short essay on Thursday, but see #8. I busted my knee on Wednesday and needed to rest.
I am here in Montpellier, for the 5th (6th?) year in a row in the Bennington MFA Low Residency Dance program with my friend and co-conspirator, Yuchen Chang. We will teach writing, publishing, and adjacent acts to amazing movement artists.
Our favorite cafe is temporarily closed. It has been such a lovely homecoming each summer, and her not being open throws me off a bit. I love a good routine and a grounding location. Hopefully, we find a new little home.
I am now sitting on my patio, writing to you as I listen to the birds talk to one another. The birds sound like they are having an amazing conversation, and I do not yearn for translation. I could grab one of those sound-decoding apps, but I think, like humans, they deserve privacy, and I wonder about their rights to opacity, especially at a time of accelerated interspecies translation efforts and their akin projects of demystification. I don’t actually want to know what the birds are doing; I am just a bit envious that they’ve managed to elude some registers of datafication. And I often laugh about classification. I wonder if they have secret meetings where they laugh at us about our overconfidence concerning their origins and behavior. Whenever I have a moment to slow down, I am humbled by the beauty of non-human beings’ sound production. I like to think we are asked to pray Fajr so that we can learn to listen more capciously beyond human speech. The morning time is such a gentle moment. As I am typing, I am startled by the sound of rustling in the tree above me - the girls are fighting! Or mating? I do not know the schedule for these birds! But, I do know that something is biting me up bad out here, and since I decided to have a private hit girl summer in shorts on my private patio, my legs are now covered in only what I can assume are mosquito bites. Back inside me and these thighs go!
I did not hear the cicadas this morning, unlike yesterday when I arrived, so I went sleuthing. I literally typed in, “What time do the cicadas wake up in Montpellier?” I learned that cicadas come out when the ground temperature reaches 22°C. That is so cool! The cicada is one of the world’s loudest insects. In Montpellier, this sound can reach up to 100 to 120 decibels - considered “very loud” to “painful”. We only hear them when the temperature reaches 22°C because, below that, their diaphragms lose the elasticity needed for sound production. Because I am a glutton for animal facts, I did some research, and I am bursting at the seams, so I will share with you all!
Most cicadas are cryptic. In ecology, crypsis is the ability of an animal or plant to avoid detection by other animals. Think camouflage, strategic notutnality, mimicry, and subterranean vibes. We love an evasive queen! My other favorite cryptic insect is the mighty hawk moth. They vibrate their genitalia to jam bat sonar. Acoustic defense! Adding this to my noise studies research. I need to create a list of all my favorite cryptic insects!
They lay their eggs in the slits of bark.
The rapid buckling and unbuckling of their tymbals produce the loud sound we are most familiar with. The males are singing to attract mates. As I learned, only the males stridulate, but in the Subpsaltria yangi of China, both the males and females stridulate!
According to a Science.org article reporting on a preprint, “A fungus called Massospora cicadina attacks a cicada, destroys much of its abdomen, and releases the mind-altering drug psilocybin, a naturally occurring psychedelic in mushrooms, and cathinone, an amphetamine. This allows the infected insect (pictured) to continue to fly around as if a third of its body isn’t missing, researchers report this month on the bioRxiv preprint server. Infected cicadas are hyperactive, spend less time eating, and the males are hypersexual—all of which may help the fungus spread to other victims, The Atlantic reports.”
I brought Tajin with me to Montpellier. This summer, I had a brief love affair with Hot Cheetos. I am not proud of myself. They are terrible for you, but I love heat and tang. Somehow, Tajin on anything kind of hits the spot, but be careful of the sodium! Upon learning that the desired flavor and sensation is citric acid, I have been chowing on a lot of naturally occurring citric acid — so a lot of citrus and tomatoes. I am allergic to mango, but one day, I will just take a Benadryl and have some mango with Tajin!
I unpublished everything published before 28 June 2026. I will be republishing bits of these in the coming weeks. At the time of writing, I did not know what I was coming into knowing now, and I wanted to return to the scene of presumed certainty to take another look, to linger, to stay with it. At a time of unchecked and compulsory growth, I want to honor what already exists. Instead of writing more and more, how can I return to existing writing and write from there? In my 28 June 2026 list dump, I wrote about compost as a method for poetry writing. As a death doula in training, KJR Studios engages with a poetics of life cycles rather than compulsory or uninterrupted growth. I revise, often publicly, using an ethos of activated compost piles. Nothing is disposed of. Nothing is wasted. Each gesture goes into the pile. There, it generates heat energy through active digestion and respiration – the ideas consume one another and share breath. I invite the worms and insects. When a new project launches, it launches from this compost pile where gestures and ideas have had time to be in a convivial relation.
This past Wednesday, I wore my sandals. Remember my open-toe sandal foray from last newsletter? Well, I wore them. I am walking toward Wooster Street to see the Pope. L show at the Drawing Center, and I completely fell forward. Banged up my knee and my ego. New York City is really that place where people will watch you fall. When I looked up after gathering what was left of my dignity, I saw a man in his truck, windows up, chomping on his sandwich, looking directly at me. This man didn’t flinch, lol! A security guard who happened to be in the area told me to be careful, like thank you, sir; I will remember that the next time, but this does not help me at the moment when my bags flew into the street, and the knee of my pants is ripped. My bum knee and I carried on to see a really lovely show. I got a free copy of the Pope. L book because the docent liked my work at MoMA PS1. The free book made up for the truly overpriced and underwhelming lunch at [redacted].
My flat feet and I are finally the proud owners of my first pair of orthopedic shoes. These Hoka shoes are very ugly, but my feet are very happy. I was told they aren’t ugly, so maybe I am just not used to them yet!
Not only are airports masterful in choreographing consistent inconvenience and performative bureaucracy, but airports are also fascinating contact zones where difference collides and holds. Traveling also reminds me that many people lack spatial awareness. Actually, I do not think it is a lack of spatial awareness; it feels like an intentional invasion of private, dignified space. I need a no-fly zone around my actual body. Like, why are you literally two inches from my neck and now annoyed that each movement I make causes you to get bumped by my bag or my arm? We all have assigned seats on the plane. And while we are here, the way people use reclined seats is absolutely maniacal. I am writing this to you with my computer not open to a perfect 90 degrees or an even more desirable 115 degrees to better see my little letters. Not my screen is bowed toward me at a 70-degree angle, forcing me to compete with the sun glare, poor eyesight, and a dimmed screen, so folks cannot see me typing about them.
I rewatched Idris Elba’s Hijack before flying, but I’m still pretty chill with no sedative. In the last twenty years of travel, I have noticed that airplane-centric movies and TV shows are not offered on flights. I am curious about the curatorial process for in-flight viewing.
I made a few new human friends this summer, but I also made a doggie friend! Meet Maxine! She is Anne’s doggie, who often hangs out at Shoestring Press, where I am working on some prints. She ate all my chicken!
See you next week for another list!
Thanks for being a pal!
All the best, always,
Kameelah 👽
How to cite this newsletter: Rasheed, K. (Year, Month Day). Newsletter Title. I Will (?) Figure This All Out Later. URL
You are so unintentionally funny. Number 11 sent me! Lovely list as always. Such a packed, thoughtful life you live, my dear!