About Me
Hi, I’m Jaime Brooks.
I have released music as Elite Gymnastics and Default Genders. I have written about music for The New Inquiry and other publications. Now, I am the proprietor of this publication.
I was born in the middle of nowhere, and I grew up on the move. People tend to encounter me during transitional moments, in the space between where everyone else is and where they’re ultimately trying to go. It’s very likely that if you’re reading this now, it’s because you are experiencing something like that now—you got tired of listening to crickets and asphalt, and when you looked to see if there were any other people around, you found me. Where I live is not where you want to be long-term, but for now, you might find it comforting to know you’re not the only one thinking about whatever it is you’re currently wrestling with.
The name “The Seat of Loss” is a reference to some X-Men comics I like. It’s from a story where Earth’s mutants terraform Mars and lay claim to it, renaming it “Arakko.” The mutant governing body they set up there is called “The Great Ring of Arakko,” and it consists of twelve seats that each function kind of like a cabinet position in the U.S. executive branch, except that there’s not necessarily one supreme executive position that rules over all the others. Which seat rules Arakko depends on what’s going on with Arakko more broadly. Three of the seats are tasked with leading Arakko in times of peace, for example, and three are tasked with leading in times of war. There’s the Seat of Victory, which leads when a war is going well, the Seat of Stalemate, and the Seat of Loss.
Whoever sits in the Seat of Loss spends all their time planning for situations that others find too awful to contemplate, hoping their expertise will never be needed. No matter how well things are going, whether Arakko is at peace or at war, the Seat of Loss constantly ponders worst-case scenarios.
I chose the name because it reflects something about my perspective, but also because I think it’s kind of my duty as a musician to name things after comic books. This is a proud and storied tradition that goes all the way back to Elvis Presley’s fixation on Captain Marvel Junior, Black Sabbath’s “Iron Man,” the image of Galactus on the cover of Can’s Monster Movie, and MF Doom’s Doctor Doom mask.
