Michella, Isabel, Jaquita and I (+ friends + fam + many Ponies) got to see Light Asylum last niiiiiiigggggght!!! If you are a Seattle Pony, go tonight!! DO IT! I was so tired I was like “how am I gonna make it"?!” but I was NOT going to miss it (have missed it before and have lived with the regert!!), and so I took a cold shower and put on eyeliner, two things that can really help any time one needs to get it up for something. There were a great many of us complaining about how tired we were at the show, including Shannon who shared she had just been at some kind of queer raver camping experience with drugs and naked people, but regardless the spell worked, she brought the catharsis and we all got SO fucking pumped during her set! And then we reached a whole other level of pumped when she ended with IPC, a total rager of a song that honestly works better than any cold shower or eyeliner or any of the other multitudes of things I have done to try and get un-tired in my life. I got SO pumped I couldn’t even get to sleep when I got home! I had to take a melatonin! Thank you Shannon for sharing your powers!!!
And thank you Isabel for capturing the back of my head having one of the best moments of me whole life!
C’mon PONIES!!!!!
In-Person
TONIGHT Thursday, Aug 20 | 6:45 PM | Jaquita!
Sunday, Aug 23 | 10:15 AM | Malia!
Monday- Community Class, Aug 24 | 6:30 PM | Emilia!
Wednesday, Aug 26 | 10:15 AM | Malia!
Online
Tuesday, Aug 25 | Mat Pilates! | 9:30 AM | Emilia | Exercising + Listening 2 Records | !!!FOR “ACROSS TIME + SPACE” ONLY!!
Thursday, Aug 27 | Strength Training! | 9:30 AM | Emilia | Exercising + Listening 2 Records | !!!FOR “ACROSS TIME + SPACE” ONLY!!
Sunday, Aug 30 | August Mixtape Class | 10:15 AM | Emilia
All online/livestreamed classes are included in our video subscription Across Time + Space! Sliding scale $15-$30 month. 2x/week Exercising + Listening 2 Records, 2x/month livestream Mixtape Class, and a library full of specially made videos. Being a subscriber to Across Time + Space is also a very meaningful way to support Pony Sweat continuing to exist. THANK YOU SUBSCRIBERS!! <3
Hate working out at home, and have absolutely no need to join Across Time + Space? Another great way to support Pony Sweat is becoming a paid subscriber to this Substack! I originally started a newsletter in 2017 as a way to write about all the things Pony Sweat practice was constantly teaching me, and also to express my fandom for all these brilliant musicians. The newsletter has come a long way since then, but the themes remain and this platform is now where we share the music, art, culture, and philosophies that inspire and inform the Pony Sweat practice. I believe that this medium deepens our connection to our Ponying and to each other.
And Michella, Isabel, and I are passionate about making missives that will titillate and delight!!
All Pony Sweat subscribers (Substack and AT+S) get:
All the Monthly Mixtapes via Mixcloud!
Art by Michella- digital and pring in the mail!!
and the return of my Newsletter Letter (included below)
DO IT, COME ON!
Want to amplify this action to support Puerto Rico! Please donate if you can Ponies <3
REBUILD is working with the María Fund and frontline organizations including Comité de Organización Ambiental, Taller Salud, HASER, and Construyamos Otro Acuerdo (COA) to get water directly to impacted communities, including residents who may not be able to travel to public distribution sites.
For approximately $3,000, local partners can rent two full water trucks to deliver potable water to residents. Help put water trucks on the road!
Appreciate your attention and participation very much. Sending lots of love to those bods! My Letter to you this month is about the sacred practice of mixtape making. It includes an excerpt from the Pony Sweat book that I’m working on, and some prescient musings…. Hope you stick around!
<3
Emilia
Dear Ponies,
I consider a mixtape as a means of story-telling through the curation and order of beloved songs. The only way to communicate the particular story you have to tell is in THIS very particular way, through THESE specific songs. When I make a mixtape, I enter a portal connected to all Time, touching past/present/and future. The experience of story-telling/time-traveling through favorite songs is the creative process of mixtape making. Mixtapes are always about love, rage, longing, betrayal, heartbreak, flirtation with nihilism, triumph over evil, celebration, transformation, loss, death and/or rebirth.
I hope that in the listening of the songs I selected, in the order I chose, the recipient will understand the depth of my feelings despite me maybe not having all the words to describe them, or maybe lacking the courage to speak those words aloud. Over the last 34 years, I’ve made mixtapes for friends, family, lovers, partners, teachers, sponsors, my spouse, and for you Ponies at Pony Sweat. Every mixtape ever made has also been made for oneself. We come to know ourselves better through them. In that way, mixtapes are very “Take it in, Give it Away” and ♾️ energy.
When I started Pony Sweat in 2014, I was just putting together songs in no particular order. I was just doing what I imagined aerobics instructors did to put their playlists together. But pretty quickly, I fell into the familiar warmth of the old creative practice I had put aside! I realized, oh this isn’t just about making a fun playlist, this is carefully building a ritual that we perform every time we come together. And it deserves a whole month to be practiced and explored. So- that’s what we do!
Mixtapes are spells. They open up the spiral across Time + Space. We revisit our inner kids, we grieve the past, we envision brighter futures, and we become changed through the listening.
Mixtapes open up new worlds. As a tween, I only knew “punk” to be Bad Religion and the Misfits until my sister played me her mixtape from Chris that had X-ray Spex “Oh Bondage” on it. What?! Wait… WHAT!?!?! An entirely new world revealed itself to me. A world of punk feminism and punk fashion and the most perfect, potent expression of femme rage. With a SAXAPHONE!!!! I had heard A LOT of saxaphones (I’m the daughter of a jazz musician) but I had never heard a saxophone sound like that!! (Praise the inimitable Lora Logic!)
My hope with every mixtape is to provide some absolute favorite bangers, along with something maybe not everyone has heard and that I’m really excited about. Those are also my favorite kinds of mixtapes to receive.
Every time I sit to make a mixtape for Pony Sweat I ask my guides to help me. My prayer goes something like “Help me find the songs to express what needs to be expressed during this time. Help me make choices that help folks feel connected to themselves and each other. Show me the songs that will be a salve. Help me make brave choices and not let any fear or shame direct my decisions.” I light a candle. And I enter the spiral!!!
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