Playing Normal

Thoughts on apocalypse (and a flash drop)

My brilliant and beloved coworker Tamara published a piece last week that sums up so many of the conversations we’ve been having lately, both as friends and co-owners of a tattoo shop. Every tattooer I know has been talking about it. Has the well dried up? How long can we last like this? How can we adapt?

It’s not just tattooing. Everyone I know is feeling the uncertainty of the times. This past month for me and my community has been filled with ER visits, hospital bills, precarious asylum statuses, ICE scares, breakups, scrambles for housing, rising prices at grocery stores and more friends getting laid off. The zionist occupation just killed over 400 people in Gaza this morning violating the fragile ceasefire. The US is bombing Yemen. HTS and other sectarian factions have murdered over a thousand people in Syria. An executive order is passed almost daily with the express purpose of targeting myself and my loved ones. Venezuelan immigrants are currently being deported by the US to prisons in El Salvador and Guantanamo Bay. There is still a correctional officer strike happening in New York State Prisons and at least 9 incarcerated people have been killed. To be paying attention to the world right now is to be continually horrified. But how could we not?

When survival feels like such a struggle, the slowdown in tattooing is just one part of the bigger picture. In my personal life, I also happen to be deeply in love. I am fasting. I’m spending a lot of time working on other projects and learning a lot. I feel myself slowing down with the tide of tattooing. I have more time to focus my energy on supporting my friends and fighting the long fight. I’m struggling to pay my rent (like everyone else in New York) but I’m refusing to be taken by a scarcity mindset. And I know that no season lasts forever.

I started writing this newsletter with the goal of talking about flash - the history of it, the present state of it and the potential that tattooing from flash has. But that all doesn’t seem super relevant right now. I do know that the tattoo shop has the potential to be a refuge. A much needed break from the world outside. I’ve seen it be a space where me and my clients have a chance to just breathe, do something within our control and make something beautiful.

I tattooed my uncle the other day - a memorial tattoo for my little cousin who we lost to an overdose a few years ago. I still can’t believe she’s gone. But it seemed like the tattoo was one of the only gifts I could give to my family that is still grieving. It felt so good to share that experience with my extended family and honor my cousin’s life in that way. And I guess I’m sharing this because I often don’t know what do to with all of the grief in the world. But I know how to make a tattoo and I enjoy making them very much.

When you come in to get a tattoo from me, I hope you know you don’t have to “play normal”. You can let me know if your budget has changed, or if your week was really hard. We can chat or just sit in silent acknowledgment. We can identify the world we live in before stepping back into it, hopefully more equipped than we were before. I’ve found that pretending everything is fine doesn’t really work for me. And there are ways to acknowledge the apocalypse without surrendering to it. There are ways to endure.

I’m thinking about Intifada Incantation: Poem #8 by June Jordan. Reading Mahmoud Khalil’s Open Letter from Immigration Detention. I’m listening to this playlist on repeat. Staying updated via the Resistance News Network on Telegram. I’m drawing A LOT of new flash for you to get tattooed. I would really love to start more large scale work (back-pieces, torsos, sleeves, full body compositions) so if you want to get something like that please email me. I’d love to hear your ideas and I’m willing to work with any budget.

Thank you, as always, for reading. Here’s the link to book and here’s a bunch of new flash:

All flash can be altered/ combined/ adapted. It can be done in color or black and grey. It can serve as an inspiration or be tattooed as is. And theres even more flash books and paintings at the shop. I personally love when people look through the books and choose a design on the day of.

Thank you, as always

Nassim