THEME SECTION BROUGHT TO YOU BY HAIR AND NAILS
Dear Sam
An advice column, for humans | April’s Theme: s p a c e
Samantha Johns
Dear Sam,
How can I create a space that muffles loud activities, such as sex,
so as not to disturb people in my living space, i.e. roommates.
Dear Human Who Has Sex And Wants To Muffle It –
How fun! I understand your problem. I have a few solutions…
- A game: practice silent sex. No one gets to a make a peep.
- You can make consensual rules with your partner(s) like, the more noise you make the less pleasure you get, and so on
- Music, the age old trick of playing music. Note: a friend reminded me that you need to put the music where the listener is, not the lovers
- Talk to your roommates. Tell them you will probably be having sex in your home, and that sometimes sex means wild fun noises, and ask your roommates to help you problem solve this fun, fun problem
- Get those groovy sexy-designed felt sound tiles from Formuswithlove.se, or other companies, and attach them to your walls. (If you have a cat, it might start climbing your walls, but…)
- Who cares, fuck away, make noises
- Fuck in public spaces; a car, a grocery store bathroom, the airport
- Fuck at your lover’s place
I hope these ideas were helpful, Human Who Has Sex And Wants To Muffle It.
What a glorious problem to have, keep fucking!
Dear Sam,
A big question I have is: “how do we hold space for all of the broken, fraught, pained and sticky relationships authentically within artistic community, especially in gathering places like theaters, dance parties, events–when people will inevitably be in close proximity to each other?” It’s a community healing and growth oriented question more than anything, I guess! It’s one that puzzles me deeply.
Dear Human Who Seeks Safer Spaces and Community Healing –
I wrote a three page answer to your question and when I re-read it I found I was giving you the same message over and over again just in different ways, it went a lot like this: Let the pain go. Set it down, the heavy load of awful hurt. Move forward into the light. You are the light. Once you understand that you are the light, the others will too, and they will help you see your power and keep it floating. That is community.
Maybe what I am saying is, I don’t know how to deal with the confusing ecosystems of an ever-evolving art community, however I do know these broken, fraught humans exist everywhere; Starbucks, the MOA, a construction site in Eden Prairie, they are not specific to art communities. Everywhere there is hurt and damage, everywhere there is love and care.
So, how do we hold space for all this broken? I think we talk about, out loud and all the time. I think we ask a lot of ourselves before we ask it of others. I think it has to do with a real big fucking scary thing called understanding, patience, learning, calmness, and difference. No matter how big or small a city, you will eventually sleep with someone who has slept with someone who has slept with someone. We are always in close proximity.
Be your own guardian, and trust that others will care for you.
Dear Sam,
I live in a 300 square foot studio condo. I am tired of closing my blinds
or going to the kitchen to change clothes or just be naked. Please help.
Dear Condo Crusader –
I hear you. We all want a world where we get to be naked without any inhibitions, spatial or otherwise. Micro-living is hot, and I high-five your ability to exist in a 300 sq. ft. space. Different people want and need different things from their homes, but what I hear you saying is that you are dissatisfied with your living space, and after you shared photos with me I can see why. Sorry baby-o, but it has nothing to do with your blinds or naked abilities, it has to do with the fact that you’ve built a home on temporary solutions. This is not your problem alone, I see this in homes all over the metro, 300 square feet to 3,000. It’s time to make more confidant and ardent choices about your home.
Remove all items made of plastic. Whether it’s chairs or shelves, plastic reads as temporary, and we are not doing that anymore, we are only planting roots and getting naked and feeling good.
Furniture (in small spaces) should be doing double duty.
Your coffee table is storage; your closet, a desk nook.
Little spaces need light! You’ve got things sitting directly in front of your windows, making it hard to have easy access to open and close those blinds. Naked or not, stop denying yourself light. Some people are better with curtains then they are blinds, maybe give that a try. Also, walls love white paint, they do. They won’t always tell you, but I’ll tell you, forever and ever, paint your walls white! [Unless, of course, you have large pieces of white art, or a massive space, then you could use darker paint, otherwise just paint the damn walls white and stop thinking about it.] While you’re at it, get a light colored shower curtain; white.
Clear out clutter. Get rid of half of your everything. At least half, if not more. There is nothing you can say that will make this statement untrue, it’s just true. Get rid of your shit. You don’t need it. The end. (If you want you can hold it and talk to it about joy, but mostly you just need to get it out of your life.) It’s hurting you, and making it so that you can’t feel good and naked in your home. Honestly, this is a beautiful goal to have, feeling sexy and naked in your home, so remove all the everything else.
No need to line everything up against walls. You’ve got a whole room, let the objects help divide the space. Put your keyboard at the foot of your bed, or use rugs to define space.
Nothing taped or tacked on walls. Frame it and hang it. If it’s not worth a frame it’s not worth your walls/life.
Storage should go high, think vertical! Look up, so much space. Also, never ever use cardboard boxes to store things. Buy yourself a pretty thing, put all the pretty things in there. If you refuse to buy a nice box for it, it’s not worth keeping.
Tidy. Put doors on your closets, remove items from the floor, nothing hanging on doors, and lamps are always better than overhead lights; soft warm, not cold blue.
Google 300 sq. foot apartment layouts. You’re welcome.
Now, after you’ve done all this hard work, get naked and relax.
Samantha Johns is a Minneapolis based director and producer working in contemporary performance. She is also a poet, scenic painter, and spatial designer. She is currently writing a letter to every person she has ever known, 2,703 people and counting. There letters will culminate in a visual installation. samanthajohns.carbonmade.com
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