The Letter

The cold came first, then the pinched nerve arrived to make sure the point landed. Three weeks off the newsletter, which I mention only because the gap deserves an honest accounting and not because I need to dwell on it. The body collected its debt, I paid it, and here we are on the other side of it — mid-July, the summer finally feeling like itself, and more to report than I can reasonably contain in one dispatch.

I'll start with Dark Parlour Society, because something clarified during the weeks I spent mostly horizontal, which is that being forced to slow down and stop producing things creates an unusual amount of room for thinking.

DPS has a new identity statement, finalized and true: a society for exploring Victorian, Edwardian, and Art Nouveau Oakland — through gathering, curiosity, and the historical record. This replaces the earlier "Experiments in Wonder" framing, not because that was wrong exactly, but because it was incomplete. What DPS actually is — what it's been reaching toward since the beginning — is hyperlocal Oakland history. Not the Victorian era generally. Not period aesthetics as a vibe. The specific, particular, documented history of this city during the fifty years between the transcontinental railroad terminus landing here in 1869 and the end of the Edwardian era. The weirdo history. The primary source history. The Oakland Tribune on microfilm at the library, which I have now spent several hours with and which I can confirm contains absolute treasure. "Bustles Are Returning." "Flapdoodle." A Washington woman who sued her corset supplier for $500 and won. This is the material. This is what DPS is for.

The banner is getting its proper treatment — I've been hand-sewing the gold trim and adding black tassels at the corners, working on it in the evenings and once outside on a quilt in the sun, which felt exactly right. I also acquired my first Oakland-specific cabinet cards: photographs taken at the Webster Studio, "Oakland, Cal." stamped on the back in that unmistakable embossed serif. I now own pieces of this city's visual record, and that means something to me I'm still finding words for.

The weeks otherwise were full in the way weeks are when you've been forced to be still and then suddenly aren't. I made two dresses — the animal print one, cut from a pair of vintage bedsheets in a single day, which I wore immediately and without apology; and a black and white gingham with a handmade peter pan collar that I wore out yesterday with my new haircut, which is a bob, and felt so genuinely cute I had to report it in writing.

Grand Opening Bakery for breakfast with my best friend — a pastry counter laid out like a still life, the best kind of morning. A double date at the Exploratorium with a couple who build festival installations together, taking the ferry over, which I had somehow also never done. Otis in a thrift store mirror wearing a red Mario hat, Otis at a flea market elbow-deep in a tray of crystal prisms, Otis watching squirrels at a creek hidden somewhere in Piedmont with his shirt off and a small plastic dog for company. Red roses on the black table every week now, which makes the whole apartment feel different. Clara Bow and Douglas Fairbanks mocktails made with fresh lavender and citrus from a friend's garden. And Friday — the Kissel hotel, karaoke, then dancing at Thee Stork Club in my burgundy satin dress and lace-up boots, which is the kind of sentence I'm glad to be able to write.

Summer is happening. I intend to be in it.

Four years is a long time to carry something. The divorce was finalized this week — the day before Otis turned five — and whatever else I feel about the timing, what I feel most is the particular relief of a weight that has finally, actually, been set down. We had been separated since 2022, when Otis was just one year old, and what I had hoped might resolve in a reasonable amount of time became four years of something tumultuous, exhausting, and in the end largely financial in its ugliness. I represented myself throughout all of it. The chapter is closed.

I had known the date was coming, and so I had tried to plan accordingly. The original plan was a trip to Solvang, which my body promptly vetoed by producing a cold the moment all my obligations were complete. I have decided to take this as evidence that my nervous system was simply waiting for permission to decompress, and I appreciate it doing so on a schedule. The pivot was a one-night stay at the Claremont Resort in Berkeley — a place I've had drinks at and brunch at but never actually stayed, and staying, it turns out, is entirely different. The room had six skylight-style windows looking out over the East Bay. There was a pool day with snacks and good sunglasses. A whole branzino for dinner with views to match. It was exactly what was needed.

In the surrounding days I gave my mind some quiet by picking up a crochet project — a chainmail gorget pattern I found on Etsy, which sounds extremely niche and is, but the rhythm of it in the evenings was meditative in exactly the right way. I made two.

And then there was Otis's birthday. Five years old. We went to a local play-place with his cousin, came home, cut into the Death by Chocolate cake he had selected by name, and opened presents — thank you sincerely to everyone who sent him something in the mail, he was delighted. He's heading to Monterey with his father and grandparents for a second celebration, which I love for him. Kindergarten is two months away. I have already begun thinking about back-to-school shopping, which is a form of illness I have no intention of treating. Something about this particular milestone feels like a genuine exhale. I feel more settled in how I can simply enjoy our time together. That matters more than I can say.

On the DPS front, this week I made some decisions that have been quietly forming for a while. The experiments are wonderful and I'll keep making them, but the thing I care about most — the thing that is actually the point — is getting people together in real spaces. Community. Presence. A third place that isn't a bar or a coffee shop but something weirder and more intentional. I've been calling it a park salon, or a collective workspace, or a gathering space, and I don't have the name quite right yet, but the vision is clear: DPS out in the world, regularly, somewhere people can find us. To that end I ordered what I needed — including a custom banner that has arrived and is now hanging on my wall, which I love deeply and which still needs more of the DPS treatment before it's ready to go out. I also made the call to switch the vending machines from quarters to tokens, since digital payment for a token is simply more practical than hoping someone has exact change.

I also received a beautiful invitation — my dear friend Ayrn is getting married in Death Valley this winter, and I am her maid of honor. The invitation arrived in a dark envelope with a copper wax seal and a green laser-cut filigree wrap tied in burnt orange ribbon, which is the level of invitation I respect. Something luminous to look forward to on the other side of all this.

While moving through the week's quieter hours I found myself in an antique shop in Martinez, where I came across a collection of Victorian cabinet card portraits — and discovered, somewhat to my astonishment, that some of them were photographed right here in Oakland. I noted the studio markings and intend to dig into the history. These photographs have been quietly forming the seed of what would be Experiment No. 3, but I've made a conscious decision to let that idea wait while I build out the in-person side of DPS first. The community piece is the mission. The experiments are expressions of it, not the other way around.

Summer is here. The pool confirmed it. There will be more days like it before the season is out.

This week has been, in large part, a production week. The kind where you clear the table, put something on in the background, and simply work — methodically, for hours, in a way that feels almost meditative once you stop noticing time passing. The Experiment No. 2 compounds are coming together: the Rx pamphlets trimmed and sorted into their three stacks (Vague Unease of Unknown Origin, Summertime Sadness, Melancholia), the chamomile tea bags labeled and assembled, the match striker stickers — a dotted burgundy paper cut to size and placed on the back of each tag — all of it accumulating into something that, from a distance, begins to look like a real thing that exists in the world. The golf pencils arrived this week too. Black, with DARK PARLOUR SOCIETY printed in gold. There is something about seeing your name on a pencil that makes the whole enterprise feel very official.

A few times this week I escaped the production table for something more restorative. An appointment at a downtown Oakland medical office took me into one of the more quietly beautiful lobbies I've been in recently — dusty blue walls, copper globe pendant light, a pink wingback chair catching the afternoon sun. I photographed it immediately, because that's just who I am. And on another evening, a new friend prepared what I can only describe as a proper meal: salmon with capers, roasted asparagus, dressed greens, a bowl of cherries on the side. I do not take food I did not have to make for myself for granted.

While doing the long assembly hours, I've been keeping YouTube company rather than music. This led me, as YouTube tends to do, somewhere unexpected. I started by looking up how to build a tea garden on a balcony and fell deeply in love with a channel called Our Cottage Garden — a woman with a genuine zest for sharing what she knows and an infectious enthusiasm for what she's growing. She mentioned something I had never heard before: when you steep tea, you should always cover the cup. Covering it traps the volatile oils and aromatics, which would otherwise evaporate, and forces them to condense back into the liquid. A tiny adjustment that changes the entire chemistry of a thing you've been doing — a small act of honoring the ritual, allowing it to fully embody all that it can offer.

From there, the internet brought me a disgruntled Werner Herzog piece about his new film, Bucking Fastard, and his decision to decline an invitation to Cannes. Which naturally led me to look up what the film was actually about. Which led me to a short documentary made in the 1980s about the Chaplin twins, the real-life pair the film is based on, who died in 2020. Which led me to realize I have not watched a Herzog film since Grizzly Man in 2005 — which I remember as being so heartbreakingly good that I've apparently been preserving the memory of it by not revisiting it. That ends soon.

I also rewatched The Garden of Eden (2008), the film based on Hemingway's final novel — published posthumously, as his novels tend to end up being. I saw it when it came out and remembered loving the clothes and the locations. I remembered less of the plot, and this time I understood why. What it does do interestingly is sit with androgyny in a way that felt somewhat remarkable for a mainstream release of that era — there's a scene where the newly married couple bleach their hair to match each other, to become twins of a sort. Which pulled me sideways into thinking about one of my actual favorite couples: Katie-Louise and Lilian Nicol-Ford, married designers based in Australia who have been releasing capsule collections together under the name Nicol & Ford since 2017. Their most recent work does not disappoint. I am a devoted appreciator of a sheer bias-cut dress and a feathered hat, and their range of models across every collection is a genuine joy.

And finally, the most important news of the week: my five-year-old Otis has made his birthday cake selection. June 11th. Death by Chocolate. He has good taste.

Friday after work I was taken into the city — the Conservatory of Flowers in Golden Gate Park, which I had somehow never visited in the seven years I've lived here. I moved to the Bay Area in 2018. I have been to Golden Gate Park exactly zero times until this week, and I don't fully know what to say about that except: it was worth waiting for. The plants inside were unlike anything I'd seen before — a deep burgundy tropical specimen that looked designed by someone with very strong opinions, enormous Victoria lily pads floating in their round pond, a pitcher plant doing something quietly unsettling in the corner. Headed to the beach afterward, which turned out to be exactly the kind of gray, wind-whipped Ocean Beach afternoon that feels more like medicine than weather.

The weekend otherwise alternated between assembly and community. The production table has been cleared. The kits are assembled. Something is about to happen.

In between sessions I attended talks at the Bay Area Book Festival at the Brower Center — Saturday and Sunday both. The energy of being in a room with people who care deeply about writing and making and community is its own kind of compound. Noted.

And somewhere in there I started watching a documentary series on HBO called The Dark Wizard, about Dean Potter — a climber and BASE jumper whose entire life was organized around a kind of extreme seeking that I have no personal interest in as a sport and find completely riveting as a portrait of obsession. I'm two episodes in. When someone's passion is that total, that uncompromising, the story tells itself. I'll report back.

Keep an eye out for a midweek post — the official launch of Dark Parlour Society's Experiment No. 2 is coming, along with everything you need to know about how to participate and what to expect.

A week of making, discovering, and being called out by Rutger Bregman.

I found myself saying "only boring people get bored" this week - in response to a conversation about having limited options if you don't have money to spend in the Bay Area. Because in my experience, the Bay provides. Every time I go out looking, I find more than I set out to find. This week it was the Silent Book Club — which has an Oakland chapter, which I cannot believe I only just discovered — a gathering where people come together specifically to read alone, in public, in community. I'm attending my first event at the Bay Area Book Festival next week, where I've also registered for three talks (How to Find & Create your Literary Community, Maker, Mentor, Muse: the Spirit of the Work, and Heartware: Robots, Relationships and the Future of Us) as well as a zine making workshop. I love that the three talks I chose without thinking about it form something like a syllabus: community, then mentorship, then the future of connection itself. My subconscious has opinions.

On Wednesday I had a mocktail at Bar Shiru with a new friend I met at my first Dark Parlour Society event — which I want to formally nominate as an ideal venue for someone like me. Good ambiance, no music trying to talk over you, genuinely lovely.

Friday brought the May Summer Stroll — catfish po'boys for dinner and then what I can only describe as an epic coloring battle with Otis, which he won on volume alone. That morning I'd made it to Blake Garden, where I spotted my spirit animal in the wild: a miniature chocolate poodle on a leash, unbothered, magnificent.

On the making side: I worked through Batches 2, 3, and 4 of my caramel experiments and I'll be honest, only one of them was actually edible. The rose petal batch. It turns out caramel is a little more exacting than I gave it credit for. I also made it out to Oakland Chinatown to source some loose leaf jasmine tea, and to a Middle Eastern grocery in El Cerrito for rose items — dried petals, rose petal spread, rose syrup — all for ongoing Dark Parlour recipe experiments that I'll share more about when they're ready.

Speaking of Dark Parlour: inspiration struck on Tuesday and I knew immediately what the second experiment was going to be. I've been troubleshooting double-sided printing and Cricut cutting for one component of the project while trying to source everything else locally. I also finally tested my new custom DPS rubber stamp — the one with the lily of the valley logo — on a batch of fortunes I'd had made. They turned out beautifully and I'm looking forward to handing them out this month.

I made meaningful progress on the crochet tank top I've been working on — the body is finished and I'm into the final top ribbing. I'm hoping I can complete it before the month's over.

And two things I couldn't stop thinking about this week: I fell down a JW PEI rabbit hole and found myself genuinely moved by what they're doing — simple color palettes, dramatic and delicate details, and I'm not a bag person but the Siamese cat clutch stopped me cold. Also: the Harry Styles video for Dance No More, with choreography by Ryan Heffington. The Marc Jacobs gym look is iconic, but what really got me was the movement — joyful, accessible, genuinely felt. There's something in it that reminded me of George Michael, something about permission, about a body doing exactly what it wants to be doing. I've watched it several times now.

What I finished reading this week: Moral Ambition by Rutger Bregman — a book that made me feel called and called out in equal measure every time I picked it up. It's full of people whose names I knew but whose actual impact I didn't, and it keeps asking an uncomfortable question: what are we doing right now that future generations will look back on the way we look back at slavery? I had a lot of thoughts.

I updated the music page on jemdesanti.com this week — most of what I've made over the years is there now if you want to go digging.

Until next time, Jem

First Ever Dark Parlour Society Picnic

It has been one of those weeks that felt longer than a week in the best possible way.

It started with the monthly dispatch letters. After sitting down last Sunday and hand-addressing a stack of them, I realized fairly quickly that my handwriting, while functional, was not exactly rising to the occasion. So I did what any reasonable person does: I checked out three calligraphy books from the library, then drove to one of my favorite creative reuse stores in Berkeley and spent a happy hour digging through their supplies until I surfaced some lovely old ink bottles, a handful of nibs, and a pen holder. There is nothing quite like giving something a second life, finding an object that has clearly been well loved and bringing it home to be well loved again. The calligraphy itself is not technically difficult, but it demands you slow down, which turns out to be its own kind of medicine.

Mid-week I found myself at a new-to-me bar and restaurant in downtown Oakland called Lucy Blue — slight savory mocktail in hand, postcards spread across the table, doing what any reasonable person does at a bar on a weekday. The genuinely exciting part was seeing DPS dispatches landing in real people's hands. Recipients started sharing photos and notes about the activities they were planning in their own cities. That felt like something.

Most of the week outside of that was devoted to gathering and staging for the event I'd decided — last Sunday, somewhat impulsively — to throw this Saturday. Lucky for me I have accumulated a fairly unreasonable amount of beautiful glassware and vessels over the years, so the bones were already there. I also happened to find a lovely wicker picnic basket and an art deco-style wine box that immediately announced itself as the future home for something. More on that in a moment.

The something turned out to be caramels. For anyone who doesn't know me: I do not cook. I own no pots or pans. For the past three years my kitchen has been primarily the domain of a Tovala robot and the prepared foods section of Trader Joe's, and I have been perfectly happy about this. And yet. I was inspired by a Japanese confectionery called Number Sugar and their beautiful individually wrapped caramels, and I thought: I can do that.

Reader, I made caramels in a microwave, and they turned out beautifully. I have since acquired a few more supplies and am planning a rose extract version next — which, if it works, may become part of future DPS events. Possibly available for purchase. We'll see.

While out earlier in the week I spotted a bumper sticker that required me to zoom in quite a bit to fully read. It turned out to be a "Honk If You Love" sticker featuring Hans Holbein the Younger's The Body of the Dead Christ in the Tomb (1520–22, oil and tempera on limewood — the sticker was thorough). Morbid, yes. But it also sent me down a small rabbit hole on Holbein, and it made me think about the WWJD swag of the late 90s, which I genuinely wonder if we'll see return alongside everything else from that era that seems to be making a comeback.

On the topic of roses, because apparently that's the theme of May, the internet recently surfaced the AllSaints Ravaged Rose Eau de Parfum and I am trying very hard not to simply purchase it. It apparently came out some years ago, which means I might be able to track down a sample. If anyone has strong feelings about rose perfumes — deeply rosy, complex, not the kind that smells like a grandmother's powder room — I am very open to recommendations.

And finally: my dad recently sent a folder of old family photos he'd been digging through. I have included a selection. I have no further comment except to say: youth.

The Event

It was one of those days that felt officially like summer — warm, golden, the kind of afternoon the rose garden was made for. I set up the spread, laid out the caramels, got the vending machine positioned, and practiced calligraphy until the guests started arriving. We played some parlour games. I handed out caramels and read relationship matches. The vending machine was apparently quite arresting to passersby — I fielded several questions from strangers, which gave me the chance to explain what Dark Parlour Society actually is, which I always enjoy.

The one thing I forgot was sunblock on my back, so I now have what I can only describe as the most dramatic tan of my adult life. C'est la vie.

I'm already thinking about the next one. An investment in a large outdoor parasol feels essential. But we're halfway through May, and my custom DPS stamp just arrived in the mail, so the focus now is Experiment 2 — and June.

Oakland wandering, loaded machines, and an invitation among 6,000 roses.

Week of May 4–11

It's been a week of small movements adding up to something.

A BART ride across the bay to sit with a friend while she was measured for a custom corset — for her wedding. I got to hold fabric swatches and weigh in on hardware, which is exactly my idea of a good Tuesday.

A thrift run that produced something I cannot fully explain: a large, warped, beautiful wooden book stand. Possibly — I am choosing to believe this — a pulpit stand from a local church. I have never seen one at a thrift store before. I may never see one again. I do not know yet what I will do with it. It spoke to me and I answered. Some things are like that.

Wednesday I took to the streets — mindfully the day after Cinco de Mayo — and settled in at Otto's in the Kissel hotel in downtown Oakland. First time I've ever seen a non-alcoholic Riesling on a menu, out in the wild, just sitting there like it belonged. I ordered it and worked on the May fortunes. The afternoon was exactly what it sounds like: unhurried, good light, a glass of something interesting, and the pleasurable problem of writing luck for strangers.

Friday I took my son to Blake Garden — a hidden UC Berkeley garden tucked into the Oakland hills, full of terraced views and the feeling that you've wandered to the top of the world through somebody's backyard. That evening we made it to OMCA Fridays, which I recommend without qualification: free music, picnic energy, the kind of community that makes you remember why Oakland is genuinely special. And today — Sunday — we spent the afternoon at the rose garden. 6,000 roses in bloom, and a kid who was entirely unimpressed and also couldn't stop touching everything.

A borrowed Cricut arrived mid-week (thank you, bestie). Experiment No. 2 is already brewing. The crochet top is making progress.

The machines are loaded. Three of them, full of capsules — yellow, red, blue-purple — each one stamped with the Dark Parlour Society seal. The first set of fortune slips is printed. May 2026, 24 slips in the series. Slip No. 4 is called The Moth.

Standing in the rose garden today with my son — looking at the scale of it, the fact that it's just there, free and open — I kept thinking: more people should know about this. Not as a performance. Just because beauty is better shared. So we're doing something about that.

Parlour Lawn Party No. 01 — Among the Roses

Saturday, May 16 · 1–3 PM
25 people. Blankets on the lawn. Parlour games. A craft table. And the Go Wander machine making its very first public appearance — fortunes among the roses.

→ RSVP on Eventbrite

More soon. Thank you for being here while this becomes what it's becoming.
— Jem

I've been on Instagram since 2010. That's not a fact I say with pride exactly, but I don't say it with shame either. For a long time, it was just where I lived online — where I posted my zines, my jewelry, my process, my face. It was how people found me and how I found people.

And then, sometime in the last year, I deleted it. Not deactivated — deleted. Both accounts. The jemnifur personal account I'd had since 2010, and the Dark Parlour Society account I'd been carefully building. Gone.

This letter is about that, and about what came after. About moving into a smaller space. About what it means to document a practice without performing it. About the difference between making and marketing, and why I've spent so long confusing the two.

A worm, a train, a dollar, and a knob you turn.

April was my birthday month — a quiet look, I did it. Another year. 41. Let's go.

I took a 9-hour Amtrak from Oakland down to Santa Barbara. First time in Southern California. Train travel is now officially my favorite way to move through the world — this was my third trip by rail this year. Back home, I embraced a Japanese-inspired, serene and cozy bedroom vibe.

I read Piranesi by Susanna Clarke — one of those books where you start dreading the last hundred pages. Themes about being in the middle of something you don't fully understand and finding a way to love it anyway. Highly recommend. Also picked up Company of One by Paul Jarvis — the clearest articulation I've found of "enough" as a business philosophy.

A bumper sticker stopped me — a little illustrated worm: "you've been blessed by this worm, your dreams will now come true." The joke is permission. That's the energy I've been building toward.

Go Wander is the first experiment under Dark Parlour Society. Analog fortune capsule vending machines placed inside locally-owned Oakland businesses. For $1 you turn a knob: a fortune slip, a task, a song, lucky numbers, a wax seal sticker, and a postcard connecting all machines into a collect-all game across the city.

The Monthly Fortune is $7/month — I write your fortune by hand, tailored to you. A postcard arrives at your door. Subscribe at darkparloursociety.com.

More soon. — Jem

I've been on Instagram since 2010. That's not a fact I say with pride exactly, but I don't say it with shame either. For a long time it was genuinely useful. What I didn't notice was how slowly the water was warming. So I left.

I've been reading Cal Newport, researching phone addiction and what algorithmic exposure does to a person's sense of their own wants. What I've found on the other side of leaving: I'm less influenced. I'm getting clearer on what I actually like. What I genuinely want to make.

I'm finally renting my own space again. Small. Modest. Manageable — and that word has become genuinely precious to me. The jewelry work has been shifting too. The metal fabrication course changed that. Somewhere in the basic work — cutting, filing, bending, flame — I found focus. Dark Parlour is becoming something bigger than a jewelry brand. Something more like a philosophy.

I put Project Hail Mary on while I crocheted and finished all ten hours in a single weekend. Then Bride! — Maggie Gyllenhaal's film. I have already started sourcing fabric to make my own version of the Bride's dress, obviously.

The Pocket Ledger — a single-sheet printable commonplace book. → Download free.

More soon. Thank you for being here — genuinely. — Jem

Embracing life's upheavals with introspection, fresh reads, an inspiring metalsmithing class and fitness gains.

I've been noticing something lately — a lot of my friends are going through major life changes at the beginning of their 40s. We're the first generation with widespread access to mental health care. We're doing the work our parents' generation couldn't or didn't do.

January was a month of moving and grieving and rebuilding. I joined a gym. 5:30am. Lifting weights for the first time since leaving NYC in 2018 — a quiet solidarity I didn't know I needed.

My metalsmithing class at Richmond Art Center started. The teacher's name is Ricki and I got to LIGHT COPPER ON FIRE. You anneal it — heat it to make it malleable — then throw it into water and it makes this crazy sound and is instantly cool to the touch. So neat.

February. Open space. The work continues. —Jem

How I spent a decade pushing against garment-making, discovered jewelry by accident, and learned to separate being an artist from running a business.

It's December 31st at 7:31pm and I've already attended and left my "New Years Eve" party by myself at Book Society in Berkeley. I was dressed in Dark Parlour grandeur — silk bias cut dress, green fringe, 1940s hat, watch face choker in black.

2025 was the year I closed the chapter on garment making after ten years — from NYC to Oakland shipping containers to Jack London Square studio to living on my own. The work showed results, but certain things always eluded me.

I picked up jewelry making on a whim. Started sourcing lost pieces at antique stores, visualizing them as something else. And then making something come to life and WEARING it. Finally, something that worked WITH my brain. Upon finishing "The Alchemist" I had to acknowledge I am an artist. My purpose was never to make things to sell — it's to make something from my mind come into reality. This split my work into two paths: Jem DeSanti — my art practice. And Dark Parlour — custom mourning jewelry, when the technique develops.

Dark Parlour will launch in 2026. The collections will continue. The skills will deepen. —Jem