Evan

When I got assigned Halloween, I was a bit nervous. This is a cool project and I'm not that cool when it comes to Halloween (not anti, just uninspired). Then, because of the work I do, I didn’t get to writing this until today, November 7. Sorry it’s late, but I hope it’s a good-enough recollection (and, for better or worse, reflection…)!

It was a wild day. I work in the labor movement, and that work has been subsumed by the election. My work – organizing and supporting workers across the city to build power, bargain better contracts, and win strikes –  was subsumed by the election. What that meant for Halloween was a morning with Martin Sheen, who stopped by to thank the union canvassers who knocked over 200,000 doors in Philly. We were all a bit nuts, overworked, and – grossly put – “nauseously optimistic”. So, that morning, after a beautiful drive down Kelly Drive with my trusted companion Huckleberry the Moose, I got to work, set off on my tasks getting ready for Martin Sheen, then spent the mid-morning taking pictures of Martin with our canvassers. It was fun and funny, and in hindsight, really bizarre.

The afternoon, after a devastating experience with a chipotle burrito, I feigned consciousness while working on various spreadsheets. Organizing is both easy and hard. So many spreadsheets, so much manual data entry, so many texts, emails, and countless following up. Each bit isn’t particularly hard, but the constellation they form is almost impossible to comprehend. The day’s comprehension was a spreadsheet with thousands upon thousands of rows that needed manual editing (if you’re a programmer and are reading this thinking “oh, Evan just needs to automate it, there should never be thousands upon thousands or rows of manual editing!” Well, you’re wrong, this is the way….).

I drove home to see my wonderful girlfriend, her wonderful dogs, and her irritating but wonderful cat. On the way, detoured along some small streets, there were tons of joyful trick-o-treat-ers and among them was a beautiful old dog with butterfly wings on! Once home, Cecilia and I had a quick dinner, took the dogs out back, then went off to see Not So Silent Cinema’s performance of Nosferatu at Harmonie Hall. A quartet of musicians accompanying the iconic silent film that goes on a bit too long, is quite funny, and also genuinely terrifying. The music, composed I think about a decade ago for the film and performed regularly, straddled the very best elements of live chamber music and cinematic music – recurring themes, aleatoric materials, timbral explorations, improvisations, and some good good lushy bits. Then there was a cake after, then off home to bed. 

There was a lot of joy on Thursday, October 31, 2024 for me. I’m grateful for all of it, and now, writing this a week later, I am thinking about the risks that joy faces. Fascism will come for all of it, from the Martin Sheens to the burritos to the spreadsheets to the beautiful drive home to the wonderful love of my partner to the silent movie music. It will come after you, your friends, the people you love, the places you love, and those whom, like you, love others. I’m not an accelerationist, but now that we’re accelerating, we better not get the fucking speed wobbles. The hill we’re rolling down is one we can absolutely survive, but we need to get it right before we lose control. So, join your union, start a union, build worker power. It’s not just better in a union, it is now, more than ever, necessary in a union. Organize or die. 

Spreadsheets and solidarity forever,

Evan

Evan Kassof is a composer, conductor, sound artist, and labor organizer living in Philadelphia. He makes operas as the Music Director of ENAensemble, and has operas premiered and performed in Philadelphia, Budapest, and London. His music sits at the intersection of science, labor organizing, and dramatic expressionism – meaning his music is often microtonal, written in Excel, and made in genuine collaborative partnership with others. He has collaborative, ecologically-informed augmented reality works installed in Wyoming and Philadelphia, residencies at Pine Meadow Ranch (Oregon, 2023), Tongue River Artist Residency with flutist Chelsea Meynig (Wyoming, 2024), and the Kent County Cultural Alliance (Maryland, 2025). As a labor organizer, he’s winning strikes, transformative contracts, and helping workers build their power across the city. More at evankassof.com or on Instagram at @evankassof