Two Songs, One Day: July 1

Two Songs, One Day: July 1

Present Day, June 20, 2026I Am Crying and Holy War arrive together on July 1. I want to explain why these two, and why together.They are the two poles of what witness costs. Holy War is the external: what I have watched across five centuries of religiously sanctioned...
What Institutional Violence Looks Like

What Institutional Violence Looks Like

Florence, April 26, 1478Giuliano de Medici was stabbed nineteen times in the Cathedral this morning during High Mass. Lorenzo escaped, barely, through the sacristy. The signal for the attack was the elevation of the host. They used the consecrated moment. They always...
Twelve Tracks, Five Centuries

Twelve Tracks, Five Centuries

Present Day, June 18, 2026The full arc of Sanctified Hunger, as briefly as I can describe it:Well Trained is the precondition: the systematic surrender of judgment that institutions require before they can operate without resistance. I Was Never Yours is the refusal:...
Everything Counted, Nothing Wasted

Everything Counted, Nothing Wasted

Leipzig, Good Friday, 1729Johann Sebastian Bach performed his St. Matthew Passion at the Thomaskirche today. A three-hour work for double choir and double orchestra. I sat in the back of the nave and did not move for the entire duration and when it ended I could not...
Well Trained: The First Track

Well Trained: The First Track

Present Day, June 15, 2026The first track on Sanctified Hunger is called Well Trained. I chose it as the opening because it describes the precondition for everything that follows: the systematic training of human beings to surrender their own judgment in increments so...
The City Mourned an Artist

The City Mourned an Artist

Rome, April 7, 1520Raphael Sanzio died yesterday. Thirty-seven years old, on his birthday, of a fever. Rome has gone into a mourning I have not seen extended to an artist before and do not expect to see again in my lifetime, which is a more complicated statement than...