Soft Spot

by James Taylor-Foster

softspot (InOtherWords) is a family of thoughts and observations made during 2020 and 2021. Conceived in a state of fragmented flow, an unsteady portrait of a year emerges. Drifting through field notes and fears, recent histories and cosmic concerns, it is a thing as nebulous as it is precise.softspot is a fragile space seeking to make sense of a complex now. Through a collaborative process of editing and exchange between James Taylor-Foster and OK-RM, it is a dive into the recent past. Imagined as a container for the near and the close, the project contains a patchwork of prose, verse and visual work that oscillate between the subjective and the objective. Written through the lens of one writer and augmented by a conversation of contributions and references, the book represents a study in how words can be written – and how they can be held in a hand.Each softspot contains three copies of the same book. You’re invited to keep one and to gift the others as you wish.

406 pages, Paperback

Published August 1, 2021

Reviews

[nathan · Rating 3 out of 5]

READING VLOG

My friend is telling me that earth is getting too hot and the snow caps are melting. My friend is telling me that there is a tree he passes each day, to see how it ages. My friend is telling me that there’s comfort on the internet, that it’s plush enough to sleep on, to sleep to the sound of tape peeling from a cardboard box or fingers tapping on a glass bottle. My friend is telling me that he is ending, but he’s been having a good time, so far.

This feels very much like the links and hyperlinks we share on Discord or WhatsApp chats, creating private conversations through text and images that pile and pile, lost to time and being left on read, constant sharing without reply or end. But as soon as you get to them, click through, become informed, you are as you are,

human.

[hajin yoo · Rating 4 out of 5]

I used to think I could tell who someone was by the way they ate a sandwich