beauty, bodies, being
The year ahead for Very Public Secret Society.
Happy new year, secret keepers!
Looking back over my writing in 2025, one word comes to mind: random. Good random! But still random. I wrote about movies and Narnia, a little bit of fantasy, paganism, and death. I want to change that this year.
At least for the first half of 2026, you can look for a series of posts around the following themes…
beauty
I am going to jump on a bandwagon and talk about the idea that beauty “will save the world.” There will be one post. There may be three.
bodies
As a precursor to the theme that follows, I am going to adapt the presentation on tattoos that I gave at Hutchmoot UK 2025 into a series of essays here. The body is the most sacred thing available to us and what we do with and through our bodies matters immensely. Our flesh as canvas—on which and through which we expand and express Beauty—fascinates me.
being
Bridging beauty and bodies, I want to talk about the representational nature of being. Ourselves as simulacrum of something more. Ourselves as icons of a greater reality and how we can bear that weight responsibly.
With one post every mid-month, I expect this thread of discourse to last until July. I anticipate a few posts about other things that strike my fancy in between. Y’know, movies, fantasy, paganism, death.
what else am i enjoying at the turn of the year?
📖 Reading: I’ve breached my 2026 goal of completing 20 audiobooks by listening to Art & the Bible, by Francis Schaeffer. It was a nice reset for someone who is frequently thinking about art and creativity thru the lens of faith and arguing conversing about popular art and culture with my fellow Christians. I own the book, but have never read it. Schaeffer’s reasoning added breadth to some of my instincts, while challenging my thoughts on how much a medium affects a message.
🎞️ Watching: I’m watching Watchmen, HBO’s 2019 limited series based on the DC comics. For someone who’s not a huge Watchmen nerd, it’s one of the best laid-out combinations of several storylines I’ve seen recently. The seventh episode, “A God Walks Into Abar,” is *chef’s kiss* elite on this front.
🎧 Listening: I’ve been going back and relistening to some of the music I really enjoyed over the last year—Kendrick Lamar’s gnx, numerous Fox Sailor albums, and of course Hans Zimmer. On the podcast front, I enjoyed a couple of year-end episodes from Honestly and the Reason Roundtable—fun stuff.
As for artsy things to look forward to, I have a small contribution to a Lorehaven piece on why I’m looking forward to The Odyssey, The Magician’s Nephew, and Avengers: Doomsday. Will share when it’s out.
What are you looking forward to in 2026?