Yesterday, like many others, we woke up heartbroken.

By now, all of us know of the tragedy that transpired yesterday—a man made the decision to drive an hour and 45 minutes to a prominent gay club in Orlando on Pride Weekend to kill as many people as he could. He sadly accomplished that task.

Even writing about this I feel conflicted, giving more exposure and voice to this far-too-widespread, vitriolic hatred of The Other that exists in the world today, especially in our own, very flawed country.

Yet I feel that I can’t write anything today without talking about this tragedy.

And so I’ll simply write this:

From what we know now—and, granted, that may well change any second now—the suspect’s father told reporters that his son was angry after seeing two men kissing.

Fine.

Be angry. Whether I condone your anger or not, anyone out there is welcome to be angry at two men, two women, a man and a woman, a black man and a white woman, who-the-fuck-ever doing what-the-fuck-ever together. Be-the-fuck-angry.

Just don’t gun us down. Just don’t end 50 lives or 20 lives or one life because you don’t like what’s going on—because it’s not what you believe in.

Those are lives.

Lives.

Not voiced differences of opinion—lifetimes of voiced differences of opinion, lifetimes of progress and lack-of-progress and who-the-fuck-cares because we’re not the judges of how people live their lives and never should be, so long as they don’t walk into a building and gun down scores of people they never knew and likely never would have killed—never—if they had taken the time and had the courage to stop and talk with any one of them.

I know stricter gun laws would help by making it harder for people to kill other people, but at the end of the day, I just wish we all had better ways to deal with anger and disagreement and lack of understanding each other than this.

We’re out of words; we just hurt.

Please, peace.

Again, we’re making some much-needed additions to our design portfolio of late, most recently with the work we did for literacy non-profit First Book and their visual take on an annual report, their 2014 Impact Report.

The report takes a wealth of facts, figures, and concepts and translates them into 39 pages of data visualizations and illustrations we did to help communicate the work of First Book and the quantifiable impact it’s had on their audience—kids and communities in need.

You can see more of the report in our portfolio; we’ve got a link to the full PDF there too.

Given the abundance of Bernie signs I’ve seen, the door-hanger I just came home to, and the impressive push Sanders’ campaign and volunteers for it have been making on the ground here in California (see text to the right), I have to say that I am cautiously optimistic about his chances to take our fair state tomorrow. All that despite the NY Times alert I literally received as I was typing this that Hilary now has enough delegates to be considered the presumptive nominee.

Obviously, vote your conscience, but the main thing is to get out and vote—the more people  voting, the better the system works…and the more likely Bernie is to get in the White House.

As the volunteer reminded me today, turnout is going to be YUGE! So fingers crossed!

Let’s hope 2016 ends up being the year we remember for electing a Democratic Socialist to the highest office in the land, not the year we lost all of our cultural icons.

Below, “Black Superman (Muhammed Ali)” recorded in 1975 by Johnny Wakelin.

I’ve used this journal before to sing the praises of the band Braids—once last March, featuring them on our monthly mixtape, then again last summer, after seeing the trio play a show at the Lyric Theatre here in Los Angeles and then again at year’s end when we named their most recent full-length, Deep in the Iris, 2015’s best album. So it likely goes without saying that I was excited at the opportunity to interview frontwoman Raphaelle Sandell-Preston recently.

The band’s just released a companion EP to Deep in the Iris—named Companion, as it happens—and, with it, Raphaelle recently penned an essay via Pitchfork—”Reclamation Through a Microphone: Braids’ Raphaelle Standell-Preston on How Songwriting Helped Her Process Sexual Abuse.” In the essay, Raphaelle talks through the inspiration for the EP’s title track and, more broadly, how her band’s music and talking about it has helped her work through personal tragedies, explaining, in part:

“The last few years I’ve found myself turning to my art to help regain a calmer and more understanding self amongst this mess. It’s been an attempt to regain control and agency over something that left me feeling powerless and confused for years. I found myself reaching to the microphone to scream, to bawl out those hidden moments in my life. In the midst of artistic exertion, I felt cleansed.”

We strongly encourage everyone to read the essay in its entirety.

Below, you can listen to the new EP in full and read on as we talked with Raphaelle about the songs, their attraction to our fair city of Los Angeles, and the reaction she’s gotten to her essay.

raven + crow: Alright, first off, thank you for taking the time to talk. Honestly, I’ve been a fan of Braids from early on, when you all were still a four-piece, but last year’s Deep in the Iris and your supporting live shows really just blew me away, honestly. Absolutely no question there, I just wanted to thank you for creating music that I very much cherish.

Raphaelle Sandell-Preston: Thank you for caring!

With that out of the way, you’ve got a new EP—what prompted that release? Was it material you’d recorded in the Iris sessions or something separate?

Three of the songs from Companion were written while writing Deep In The Iris. We couldn’t finish them for one reason or another, so we put them aside and promised to finish them when we had time. When we opened them up again in August of 2015, they just sounded like they belonged together, hence the name Companion. We then wrote the song “Companion” which became the thread that tied them all together.

I just read Carrie Brownstein’s memoir Hunger Makes Me a Modern Girl and much of what she wrote about how Sleater-Kinney was treated and approached so differently than male-centric bands really made me examine how I approach interviews with people I don’t personally know. I consider myself pretty conscious of others’ points of view and don’t think I’ve ever been overly or overtly obtuse, but its also really hard for many of us to truly step out of our own existence when interacting with others. All that to say, feel free to completely disregard this request (in which case I’ll simply point to your recent essay), but can you speak to what compelled you to write “Companion” and the meaning behind it?

I would prefer that you refer to the essay as it’s all in there and is put much more thoughtfully than I can do while on little sleep in the middle of tour. Thanks!

That essay really is very moving—I know it hasn’t been out there in the public eye for long, but has most of the feedback from it been positive?

It’s been extremely positive. I was expecting there to be the unfortunate shitty internet troller, but it hasn’t happened!

That’s awesome all around. Back to the music, one thing I’ve always wondered with you all is what precipitated such a shift in the sound of the band. Sounds evolve, I know, but I feel like what Braids sounds like really changed very drastically, in a way I very, very much like. But was it attached to Katie’s departure at all or more of a deliberate move?

Depends on what record you’re talking about. I guess with every record it has been a pretty big shift sonically, but it somehow always sounds like Braids. I think with Deep In The Iris we really found our grounding as a band. Flourish Perish was a huge time of exploration and we were pretty emotionally confused, it was a hard record to write. We’ve never decided to be different with each record, it has just come with the territory of going through a lot of changes as people.

How do you describe your music to people totally unfamiliar with it or anything else close to it—say well-meaning relative that’s far-removed from current pop culture?

I often say to border guards that it’s a more feminine version of Pink Floyd.

Excellent.I know you recorded Deep In The Iris in the Arizona desert and remarker thereafter how much you liked it there. What draws you to the desert, in general and specific?

We just liked how expansive and open it was and it felt like the exact opposite from anywhere else we had recorded.

So, in press releases and the like, you all are still described as a Montreal band. But last time we saw you play, at the Lyric, you mentioned something about how you all were moving to Los Angeles. Did that come to fruition?

We did the typical snow birding this winter, where we spent a couple months there. I don’t think we will make a permanent move there as we have so many ties to Montreal, but I think we will definitely be spending a lot more time in LA. It’s my favourite city in the world, which perplexes me… but it just is. We love the weather in LA, and also the majority of our friends now live there. I had a BBQ in LA and could invite 25 people who I deeply cared for, whereas in Montreal I could probably do a BBQ with like 5 people, 2 of whom are in the band. Big exodus. Sometimes cities go through waves of being really creatively exciting and stimulated. I think LA is currently that city.

Well we were beyond thrilled to see you all play again at the Echo. Again, thanks for taking the time to talk and have a wonderful tour this summer.

Glad you enjoyed the show!

Braids is finishing up a tour of the States now, playing shows in Philly, DC, and Brooklyn in the next few days before heading overseas. Please, do everything you can to see them live—they play one of the best shows I’ve experienced, honestly. Complete tour dates on their site.

Above, video still from Braids’ “Companion” video; band photo below by Karoline Lebrun.

Friday, we were on our way out the door when we caught the tale end of a short story on NPR, part of The New Yorker Radio Hour. As is often the case when you come into stories in progress, it was somewhat confusing, but there was also something oddly familiar about the tone and words, both wandering and sad.

At the end of the piece, we learned the story was “Memorial Day” by Peter Cameron, a very well-accomplished New York City author who escaped the insular writing world habitually by taking on a day job in the early aughts at the front desk of a non-profit conservation group I worked at in my early New York days.

Though Peter + I weren’t close, he was always quietly kind and I admired the humility with which he placed himself in what could easily be considered a modest professional position, especially in light of his many novels, his frequent writing for The New Yorker, and the many books of his that were made into films. And, though Katie’s read more of his work than I have, from the excerpts I’ve read and the one reading we attended while still in New York, his voice has always struck me as introspectively emotional and deeply reflective.

His story “Memorial Day” is no exception.

If you have a subscription to The New Yorker, you can read the archive of the 1983 printing of the story there; if not, you can hear it over at NPR.

Robert Allen Zimmerman—AKA Elston Gunn; AKA Blind Boy Grunt; AKA Bob Landy; AKA Robert Milkweed Thomas; AKA Dedham Porterhouse; AKA Lucky Wilbury; AKA Boo Wilbury; AKA Jack Frost; AKA Sergei Petrov; AKA Bob Dylan—is seventy-fucking-five years old today. Which is clearly crazy.

Also, I guess if you live in the public spotlight for 50+ years, you’re granted the option of taking on 10 nicknames. I got Chicken Legs in middle school + Trot Farter post-college, so I guess I’m doing alright, all things considered.

KCRW‘s celebrating Dylan’s dodranscentennial on their 24-hour music station Eclectic 24 noon through midnight today, with originals, rarities, covers, interviews, and music that’s inspired Dylan over the years.

Above, Dylan + Joan Baez performing “When the Ship Comes In” at the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom (AKA, the “I Have a Dream” march) back when we had all those race + class issues in America and there was all that civil unrest. Not like these days.

Footage of the performance below. Happy birthday, Boo.

Photo: Rowland Scherman – U.S. National Archives and Records Administration.

We just created this poster for a friend’s screening of the film Nineteen Eighty-Four, based on George Orwell’s seminal dystopian novel.

The event—which happens this Friday night at Echo Park’s Sweat Spot—is a fundraiser for Bernie Sanders with $27 donations going directly to Sanders’ campaign and featuring vegan street tacos by Let’s Taco ‘Bout It, a photo booth by Nicholas Iverson, and voter registration for those not yet registered.

It’s also, as one may have guessed, a bit of a comment on the world in which we may live if the wrong person wins this election in November.

Details + RSVP via Facebook and hope to see you there—feel the Bern!

If you’ve never been to Colonial Williamsburg—pride of our mutually native Virginia, along with ham, peanuts, and cigarettes—we’d recommend it. The historical park is some beautifully strange combination of Busch Gardens amusement park minus the rides and a giant, constant colonial-era LARP event (live action role playing), complete with battle reenactments, settlement tours,  and in-chartacer crafters, glass-blowers, townspeople, and shop keeps.

Years back, on a work trip to the park, I bought this deck of beautifully illustrated playing cards from one such shop keep and have them to this day. They’re reproductions of 18th-century playing cards featuring a selection of Aesop’s Fables, based on a deck printed by I. Kirk circa 1759.

Primary take-aways—Aesop loved the “long s” (a confusingly complicated writing practice we’re happy died out long ago), had a thing for foxes, and did not care for crows.

Greek jerk.

You can order online from Colonial Williamsburg…but then you’d miss out on the in-character shop keep’s totally amusing befuddlement over your strange paper money with confusing faces on it and/or shock at this off plasticine card you wish to somehow barter with. Oh, LARPing.

Stumbled across this long-forgotten photo, shot last year through a telescope at one of Griffith Park’s monthly star parties, which we’d highly recommend as one of Los Angeles’ top public free events. Next one’s Saturday.