Archive (Page 3) • S/FJ • Buttondown

November 2, 2020

I’ll stay out of your hair this week but I wanted you to leave you with a resource that’s done me right for the last four years. A brilliant couple named...

Friday, October 30 2020

October 30, 2020

I’m guessing you don’t want something “squished” but Jon Hassell squishes music and I love that he does. (Read along to this Hassell playlist.) He’s been...

Discussion: What's up with lists?

October 24, 2020

Welcome to the first S/FJ thread. Pitch in, be civil, give it your all, do it for your comrades. Which lists have inspired or vexed you? Are there lists that...

perfection + lists

October 23, 2020

Today’s post is connected to tomorrow’s post, the first of our subscriber-only discussion threads. Subscribe now to become part of this community. Or...

troublemakers + support

October 11, 2020

Troublemakers was a double LP that cost three bucks. I bought the compilation when it came out in 1980. I was thirteen. I read the liner notes over and...

Autechre + Sign

October 8, 2020

the buddies have a new album and I talked to them

Monday, October 5 2020

October 5, 2020

I want there to be a thousand movies like Lovers Rock, a thousand people recording the world with their eight-year-old eyes, asking their aunts and uncles...

Sleaford Mods + Billy Nomates were at the 100 Club and we weren't but yet we were

September 27, 2020

(Photos by Thomas Jackson of TyneSight Photographic for Sleaford Mods. Thanks to Talia Miller of Rough Trade.)The past two months have been brutal for the...

NRFU vs. CASAC-T

September 22, 2020

How I almost worked for the U.S. Census Bureau

Restoration Hardware

September 11, 2020

Hua Hsu takes us back

Phil Collins and Daevid Allen

How does time map against itself? What stays put and what moves? What is it like for two teens hearing “In The Air Tonight” for the first time? What is it...

Monday, August 3 2020

A note on process: When a post is untitled beyond its date, that is a fridge list. Keep it close to hand because everything in that list will nourish you. No...

The Empty Seventies

The Empty Seventies begin on October 17, 1968, when Bullitt is released. The phrase refers to a body of movies and recordings, though other texts fill out...

Sunday, June 28 2020

“In collaboration with 12 other art institutions across the United States and Europe, The Studio Museum in Harlem’s Studio Screen will proudly present a...

the other barbers have fancy Plexiglass

Start here, with Anthony Almojera. My friend Carla is getting a puppy in a month. She asked me to give her some potential names. We’d been talking about...

Adam and the Ants + Garret Linn

My friend, Garret Linn, sent the below to me earlier this week. I don’t think I’ve seen Garret in decades. I was very glad to hear from him.At some point...

another melodrama of consent, the war of naming the problem

I wouldn’t give you two posts in two days unless there was some urgency. And there is—this week only, you can see John Akomfrah’s remarkable 1986 film essay,...

the number, another summer

If these cop cars had been going west on Flatbush in 1989, the drivers would have been looking into my living room. I lived at 76 6th Avenue, right above...

five minutes, June 3 2020

Alice Coltrane + Stephen Vitiello

This fifteen-minute film was made by St. Clair Bourne for a segment of National Education Television’s Black Journal television program. From the Smithsonian...

(Photo by David Grubbs of postcards he sent to his readers. “For the book launch I offered to send a chatty—or gossipy, if desired—postcard from my personal...

Tuesday, May 26 2020

I just looked at a photo of sushi. I mean that I looked at an iPhone photo of our quarantine splurge meal, from last week, like it was a baby rhino. It was...

Jennifer + Jenny + Dave

What is that band in the park playing? Subscribe now

Wednesday, May 20 2020

Our own Joe Levy hit us with a Little Richard banger in Rolling Stone today.He was different, born that way: His right leg was shorter than the left. He...

Ogmios + cars + London

What is the opposite of road rage? Zen motoring, it turns out. A London rapper named Ogmios is putting up big numbers in lockdown with his ASMR narration of...

New York + Berlin

A five-minute audio message from the window.Subscribe now

Florian + Richard + escape velocity

After Florian Schneider died, I could only think of one person who might have met him. I emailed Ryuichi Sakamoto and asked if he had. The answer was yes:it...

meditation + not paying writers + trees

A new audio message! Meditation, cheapskates, birds, history! Five minutes!(Drawing by Sam Morrison.)Subscribe now

If you want to know what’s been going on since this Substack started, here’s a grip of posts:ghost towns: dub, politics, 1981, and Englandbicycles + rats +...

Michael Moriarty + The New-York Ghost + Alan Licht + Loren Mazzacane Connors + Vashti Bunyan

Q: The Winged Serpent (1982) gives us the pre-digital Manhattan of pay phones and wall clocks. Director Larry Cohen gives us pre-workout masters like Michael...

one year + Ema + my roommate

Four minutes of connection on a Sunday. News of an anniversary and a movie and a college memory. Also, the cop corona tape busts in—don’t miss it. Subscribe now

On October 10, 1980, Margaret Thatcher delivered a speech to the Conservative Party, something of a Top Ten hit for her followers. She spoke about repaying...

lizards + drones

I didn’t expect any quarantine art to be good: Maybe work done during this time, sure, but nothing reflecting on quarantine itself. Wrong. I love all three...

infection + confusion

Can a novel celebrate infection? Richard Matheson thought so, and that book is called I Am Legend. First published in 1954, it’s been the source material for...

why won't joggers wear gloves or masks

Staying in touch with six minutes of audio. Subscribe now

Ian Fenton + Mixlr

Today, a transmission from Ian Fenton of the frozen reeds label. Take it away, Ian.Way back on lockdown day five, I suffered a huge shock to the system. My...

(Loose Earl Grey, above.)It induces a peculiar blend of narcissistic hurt and relief, getting rejected by a crisis text line. Like, if they know what they’re...

John Prine + Gabriel Birnbaum

(Photos by Liam Wong)Try this excellent new pay-what-you-want Bandcamp release by Gabriel Birnbaum. Also try the official Spotify playlist for John Prine,...

Twitch + Erykah Badu

May a newfound splendor appear in my streaming face! — RM Rilke, The Tenth ElegyExperimental Sound Studio is presenting The Quarantine Concerts on Twitch,...

Bill Withers + Frank Ocean + Eleanor Penny

Bill Withers has died at the age of 81. I wrote this Withers column for The New Yorker ten years ago.Frank Ocean released two more songs and they feel just...

Calvinist + Robin C. Jones

My dad would have been 87 today. He died, suddenly, in 1997. Presenting this information suggests a response. He’s sad and we should feel sad now. I’m not. I...

Arthur Russell + Janet Baker + Deleuze

New York performance space Roulette has created “Roulette At Home,” which they describe as “a way for us to stay connected through special digital content in...

DJ Harvey + Sameed

Oh hell no with this rain. We need to light it up. For one dollar, you can get a three-hour DJ Harvey mix recorded at Rumors in LA. If you don’t know Harvey,...

Charlton Heston + Echo + Andy Zax

A sign on the FDR was blinking this sequence today:STAY HOMESAVE LIVES#FLATTEN THE CURVEIt was Variable Message Sign 6 on the FDR at Jackson Street. (If you...

John Ashbery + Stephen Trask

I don’t own a VR setup and the whole idea kinda creeps me out. That said, here we are trapped indoors and so, yes, Yale University, I would like to take a...

Phil Donahue + Albert Speer

The urges circle each other—to run through the streets, to never get up from this chair, to figure out exactly which corrupt official to blame, to remember...

Bandcamp + Spiritual Jazz

Today, Bandcamp is waiving its cut of all sales:To raise even more awareness around the pandemic’s impact on musicians everywhere, we’re waiving our revenue...

Rob Doyle + Maintenance

A piece on Rob Doyle’s new novel, Threshold, is up at Bookforum now. More importantly, here are three ways to take care of yourself.Via Bob Christgau’s...

Charmaine Lee + Twitch

Charmaine Lee is streaming a show from happylucky no. 1 with John Wiese tonight at 8 PM on Twitch. (You can’t go physically—it’s only streaming.) From the...

the Dan Snaithstival continues

From Dan Snaith:the daphni caribou thing is this way in my head:daphni stuff is very much functional club music - it lives in that specific musical world, at...