Another world has always been possible: A Letter to Elysia Crampton @ DIS Magazine

by J J Cohen

ITM readers may be interested in this collaborative piece now up at DIS Magazine. I wrote it with Elysia Crampton while meditating on her latest album, American Drift (and lyrics from its songs drift throughout the letter I composed). You can read more about her work (including the importance of location, and being trans, and homes and belongings, and using sound as a fabric to create story) in an interview with Spin here and Fact here and Fader here. Elysia and I have been FB friends for a while, I think because we have Drew Daniel's friendship in common. She read my book and sent me a letter about doing something for DIS. I returned her note intercut with my own letter. She sent it back with her letter removed and a story told with images plus a soundtrack replacing her words. And thus the DIS piece. All of this was done by email: Elysia was moving from the Shenandoah to Santa Fe in the Yungas (a town her grandparents founded) and then to her farm in Rosario, Pacajes. I was in New Zealand, far from home.

I think this is my favorite line from what I wrote:
Another world has always been possible. Say fuck it and start.

But you'll see that is only one of many topics considered. Let me know what you think.