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Jessalyn Aaland

@jessalynaaland.bsky.social
114 followers 84 following 132 posts

🙂 San Francisco Bay Area visual artist ✨ co-publisher @CurrentEditions.bsky.social ✨ linktr.ee/jessalynaaland

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Reposted by Jessalyn Aaland
Heidi J. De Vries @matokieslaughter.bsky.social · 12h
10/8/1897 Jewish Bund is organized secretly to defend against oppression and dictatorship. Vilnius, Russia
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Jessalyn Aaland @jessalynaaland.bsky.social · 26/08/2026
Are the residents of Livermore, Walnut Creek, and Pleasanton even prepared for the extra attention on their area code (925) during our nation’s time of mourning?!??!
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Reposted by Jessalyn Aaland
Marthine Satris @msatris.bsky.social · 09/08/2026
The Oakland Review of Books launchiversary party at Eli's on 8/20 is open to all & free to paying subscribers! Tickets are $15 or whatever it's worth to you to funnel money to writers who care about books & reading & this place we all share in the Bay. You coming? Let us know luma.com/6viuhae6
Oakland review of books (ORB) launchiversary party is on August 20th at Eli's Mile High Club in Oakland
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Jessalyn Aaland @jessalynaaland.bsky.social · 09/08/2026
On this episode of Hyphenate, I chat with old friend Randy Randall (of No Age) about booking shows at the Che Cafe, publishing with @currenteditions.bsky.social, and my essay for @oaklandreviewofbooks.org on Oakland DIY music
youtube.com
Hyphenate Jessalyn Aaland
YouTube video by RUINOUS MEDIA
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Jessalyn Aaland @jessalynaaland.bsky.social · 21/07/2026
The startup that lives below me is having a pickleball competition at 9am, while in the background a fire alarm has been going off for 10 minutes
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Jessalyn Aaland @jessalynaaland.bsky.social · 14/07/2026
In 2026, I’m glad there are still two things the left and right can align on: a mutual hatred of data centers and the bad Photoshop job covering up the fact that Mitch McConnell has exited the sentient plane.
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Reposted by Jessalyn Aaland
chris “bluesky” poster @chrisrd19.bsky.social · 12/07/2026
It’s like when your food is taking a long time to come out so your server brings some free bread to apologize for the wait.
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Jessalyn Aaland @jessalynaaland.bsky.social · 05/07/2026
“these are flags that have seen a lot”
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Jessalyn Aaland @jessalynaaland.bsky.social · 03/07/2026
“These bugs kind of suck!”
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Jessalyn Aaland @jessalynaaland.bsky.social · 02/07/2026
I love applying to artist residencies and not getting in so I’ve effectively paid $25-40 to be on someone’s mailing list
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Jessalyn Aaland @jessalynaaland.bsky.social · 02/06/2026
If you were here for the Oakland DIY music deep dive, I'll be talking archives & publishing with @currenteditions.bsky.social this Thursday, June 4. 12:30pm Pacific with SF Center for the Book online! www.sfcb.org/calendar/fro...
sfcb.org
From the Bench of Current Editions / Jessalyn Aaland and Paul Morgan — San Francisco Center for the Book
From the Bench is SFCB's series of short studio tours with friends near and far. From favorite tools to works in progress, you never know what you'll learn about from these amazing artists. Current E...
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Reposted by Jessalyn Aaland
Deathbomb Arc @deathbombarc.bsky.social · 28/05/2026
Important new article on the Oakland diy scene of the 00s, which played a huge roll in making Deathbomb Arc what it is today! www.oaklandreviewofbooks.org/please-do-no...
oaklandreviewofbooks.org
Please do not hang out in the street
Oakland DIY music spaces of the early 21st century.
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Reposted by Jessalyn Aaland
Ian Hetzner @ihetz.bsky.social · 27/05/2026
the oakland review of books has never been more up my alley than with this essay which is extremely my shit and of course george chen is in one of the first photos, and there's jacob smoking a cig down towards the bottom, and gaby and and and now i want a bali shag spliff and a sugar free sparks
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Reposted by Jessalyn Aaland
🌞liz🌞 @eafreem.bsky.social · 27/05/2026
I lugged so many generators and parts of drum kits and cases to such reasonable places as sutro baths, Joaquin miller redwoods, up a flight of stairs made from like, pallets…. and then Ghost Ship throws everything into the before/after. It’s beautiful and painful to remember.
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Reposted by Jessalyn Aaland
Katharine Khamhaengwong @katharinegk.bsky.social · 27/05/2026
made me a little nostalgic for an era when if i didn’t have plans on a friday night i could just wander around west oakland until i heard music
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Jessalyn Aaland @jessalynaaland.bsky.social · 27/05/2026
In the early to mid 00s, Oakland's DIY music scene thrived in warehouses, storefronts, and a converted AC Transit bus—I wrote about my experience during this magical era for @oaklandreviewofbooks.org (CW: fires, eviction)
oaklandreviewofbooks.org
Please do not hang out in the street
Oakland DIY music spaces of the early 21st century.
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Reposted by Jessalyn Aaland
Adam @grimisham.bsky.social · 27/05/2026
Great writeup/documentation of a the crazy and wonderful era of DIY show spaces in Oakland by Jessalyn Aaland that disappeared because of gentrification and the tragedy of the Ghost Ship: www.oaklandreviewofbooks.org/please-do-no...
oaklandreviewofbooks.org
Please do not hang out in the street
Oakland DIY music spaces of the early 21st century.
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Reposted by Jessalyn Aaland
Oakland Review of Books @oaklandreviewofbooks.org · 27/05/2026
"Please do not hang out in the street!" Let Jessalyn Aaland take you on a tour of the Oakland DIY music spaces of her early 21st century... www.oaklandreviewofbooks.org/please-do-no...
oaklandreviewofbooks.org
Please do not hang out in the street
Oakland DIY music spaces of the early 21st century.
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Jessalyn Aaland @jessalynaaland.bsky.social · 22/05/2026
If you're a fan of personalized license plates, California, or "ideas," you may enjoy my new book. Now available from @currenteditions.bsky.social!
currenteditions.biz
God Only Knows: A Field Guide to California Vanity Plates
By Jessalyn Aaland A personalized license plate is self-declaration in motion. And California has more than anywhere else. God Only Knows catalogs hundreds of these messages from Golden State drivers:...
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Jessalyn Aaland @jessalynaaland.bsky.social · 01/05/2026
WYD vs BYD
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Jessalyn Aaland @jessalynaaland.bsky.social · 18/04/2026
Wow 25 years later I kind of forgot how unhinged Hakim Bey’s writing is
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Jessalyn Aaland @jessalynaaland.bsky.social · 18/04/2026
An early 00s time capsule, our house’s New Farm Vegetarian Cookbook: - totally thrashed with missing front cover & held together with packing tape - an adapted “Melty Nutritional Yeast ‘Cheese’” recipe (I made food for bands playing the Che Cafe) - a 2005 Che show listing flyer used as a bookmark
A hand holds a copy of the New Farm Vegetarian cookbook. The front cover is missing. The first page is yellow and has splattered food on it. The spine is held together with packing tape.A hand holds a recipe for Melty Nutritional Yeast “Cheese.” There are adaptations for 15 people (“normal show”) and 20 people. It is written on a piece of pink and white lined stationary for the South Korean character Pucca. In the background is an industrial paper cutter and a refrigerator with a sign that reads “FOOD SUX”A hand holds a piece of a black and white text flyer listing shows in April, including Casiotone for the Painfully Alone, Parenthetical Girls, Why?, Wives, Of Montreal, From Ashes Rise, and Shoplifting. In the background is a bookcase full of colorful books, a tv, and green cabinets.A hand holds the back of the New Farm Vegetarian Cookbook, back cover intact. There is a rainbow arc on the yellowed page with black text listing food types, like TOFU and TEMPEH. On the bottom is a graphic of a woman riding a horse in a green field.
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Jessalyn Aaland @jessalynaaland.bsky.social · 12/04/2026
Someday in the future will it be impossible to come up with new band names because we’ve already used all the words?
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Jessalyn Aaland @jessalynaaland.bsky.social · 21/03/2026
Fellow 40-somethings: favorite nostalgia albums from your early 20s? Every few years I'm reminded of one of mine, American Analog Set's Know By Heart. Instantly I’m back in my small third-floor attic bedroom in Leeds, UK, studying abroad and homesick in 2002. It's grey, wistful, indie rock time.
youtube.com
Know By Heart - YouTube
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Reposted by Jessalyn Aaland
Emma Silvers @emmaruthless.bsky.social · 18/03/2026
so... Army -> Cesar Chavez -> Dolores Huerta Street, yeah?
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Jessalyn Aaland @jessalynaaland.bsky.social · 18/03/2026
Apart from the horrible news about an social justice icon being outed as a serial abuser, as someone who participated in research for a committee on public school renaming, I am curious to see how this goes in California. www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/arti...
sfchronicle.com
Cesar Chavez’s name is all over the Bay Area. Will streets, schools and parks get renamed?
In the wake of sexual abuse allegations against civil rights icon Cesar Chavez, groups began pushing to rename some of the dozens of California sites named for the labor leader.
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Jessalyn Aaland @jessalynaaland.bsky.social · 04/03/2026
Visitors arrived to find that all the viral flowers had been demolished. Read more below:
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Reposted by Jessalyn Aaland
Hyperallergic @hyperallergic.com · 02/03/2026
To management at museums whose employees may be in the process of unionizing: It’s time to stop excluding workers, boldly resist further capitulation to the Trump regime, and recognize your unions.
hyperallergic.com
Museum Leaders, Recognize Your Unions Now
Art institutions in the United States continue to force elections and exclude workers from eligibility to join unions, running counter to their own purported values and goals.
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Jessalyn Aaland @jessalynaaland.bsky.social · 25/02/2026
Never forget that in 1987 Andres Serrano made Piss Christ and today he’s MAGA and was friends with Epstein. “America”
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Jessalyn Aaland @jessalynaaland.bsky.social · 25/02/2026
“SECRET WORDS”
John Gast’s 1872 oil painting “American Progress”. A large, allegorical light skinned female figure (Columbia) with a star on her forehead floats across a landscape from East to West. She holds a schoolbook and strings telegraph wire. Following her are colonizers in covered wagons, stagecoaches, and trains. In the foreground, indigenous people and wild animals move away from the “light” toward the dark, “primitive” Western frontier
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Jessalyn Aaland @jessalynaaland.bsky.social · 25/02/2026
Hey remember when we thought Baron might be goth??
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Jessalyn Aaland @jessalynaaland.bsky.social · 16/02/2026
Is a pomelo a sexy fruit? The amount of pith removal required really feels like you’re undressing it
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Jessalyn Aaland @jessalynaaland.bsky.social · 25/01/2026
There’s a lot of bad stuff going on right now so can we all just take a second to appreciate this absolutely perfect eBay bio
An eBay seller bio for “Billy’s Stamps.” It reads: “I have been involved with stamps since I was 8 years old. That is 55 years. I have been selling stamps for the past 31 years.”
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Jessalyn Aaland @jessalynaaland.bsky.social · 21/01/2026
Copy and paste the bunny and then put something else in their hand (\_/) (°-°) />🎩< Guess who’s in charge now???
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Jessalyn Aaland @jessalynaaland.bsky.social · 20/01/2026
I desperately need to express a frivolous beef: WHY do all recipe web pages now have to have MULTIPLE sections of instructions before you just get to the actual recipe? I don’t want to have to scroll through a novel length narrative full of clunky ads when I just need to know it’s 1 TB of soy sauce!
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Jessalyn Aaland @jessalynaaland.bsky.social · 02/01/2026
Starting 2026 by listening to all the Coltrane (John+Alice) records in our house chronologically by year recorded. Thankful that Lush Life is first! (the first listen of a new year is a critical decision)
A vinyl LP, Lush Life by John Coltrane, rests atop a black turntable. The cover is purple with blue and white text. You can see records on the shelves above and below in the background
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Jessalyn Aaland @jessalynaaland.bsky.social · 31/12/2025
Shout-out to @archive.org for doing the community-archive work the early-00s DIY music scene could not. I’ve been able to reconstruct years of shows I booked at the Che Cafe in San Diego and venues across the Bay Area, shows that would otherwise be lost in the slippery fog of memory.
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Jessalyn Aaland @jessalynaaland.bsky.social · 18/12/2025
“Transgender for everybody” Sounds like a pretty sick country sign me up!!
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Jessalyn Aaland @jessalynaaland.bsky.social · 15/12/2025
Who is going to make the version of Frogger where instead of running between vehicles your objective is to get in their way and destroy them? But all of the vehicles happen to be ICE vans. It is the release we need!
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Jessalyn Aaland @jessalynaaland.bsky.social · 30/11/2025
Big News: my upcoming publication Girltalk is now available for pre-order! Find out all about it in the latest @currenteditions.bsky.social newsletter
currenteditions.substack.com
Winter Welcome (No. 7)
Please Take a Look!—current events from Current Editions
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Jessalyn Aaland @jessalynaaland.bsky.social · 05/11/2025
Is America even prepared for this much art & academia visibility in electoral politics?!
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Brendel @brendelbored.bsky.social · 05/11/2025
We did it for you Dick Cheney
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Jessalyn Aaland @jessalynaaland.bsky.social · 05/11/2025
I’m concerned today’s level of internet fun may surpass the day Queen Elizabeth died
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Jessalyn Aaland @jessalynaaland.bsky.social · 17/10/2025
“Every parade has a right to exist in New York City”
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Jessalyn Aaland @jessalynaaland.bsky.social · 13/10/2025
“The Warriors are losing and we’re watching this?!??!?” @hernberferd.bsky.social’s 86-year-old mom weighs in on tonight’s game
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Jessalyn Aaland @jessalynaaland.bsky.social · 31/08/2025
“How can I play Wordle with the Pope?”
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Jessalyn Aaland @jessalynaaland.bsky.social · 14/08/2025
praying for a miracle you read this
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Jessalyn Aaland @jessalynaaland.bsky.social · 13/08/2025
A power line just exploded outside our window in Emeryville. RIP to the bird that caused it!!!
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Jessalyn Aaland @jessalynaaland.bsky.social · 09/08/2025
Ok serious question: what are cults in 2025? It seems like now you’re just an influencer doing MLM. And since everyone is online and therefore you also have to be online, you a) can’t drop out and do drugs & b) can’t do the classic cult thing like get everyone to move to a compound and self-isolate
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Jessalyn Aaland @jessalynaaland.bsky.social · 04/08/2025
While in Pasadena for the LA Art Book Fair with currenteditions.bsky.social, we naturally had to pay our respects to Orean’s Health Express on Lake Street (RIP!). Founded by Orean Curtis Thomas in 1979, Orean’s was the first vegetarian fast food restaurant in the United States.
Woman with long brown hair in a purple shirt making a peace sign, posing in front of an abandoned building with iconic green A-frame architecture, chain-link fence in foreground, sign reads "Tierra Mia Coffee"
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