I scanned through Michael Schmelling’s photo book “My Blank Pages” (great title) before adding it to a pile to pack. My copy is one of a run he annotated with pencil.1 I wish more people did versions of this for their work. It’s nice to see the musings. For a photo class in high school I compiled a book of images taken over the course of a year. They documented my friends as we spent all of our spare time at various skate spots — schools, offices, parking lots — and apartments in Albuquerque. I made small notes against each photo with sharpie and asked a few friends to do the same. There was nothing particularly insightful written and I remember being slightly disappointed by this. The biggest revelation was learning a lot of my friends couldn’t write or spell very well, but it was a snapshot of that time nonetheless. Later, during one of many future moves, I threw it away. What now feels like an incredibly strange decision. I haven’t thought about this book in years and I doubt anyone ever found it. It went straight into a dumpster outside an apartment building I was living in. Going through your things has a tendency to remind you of ill-advised decisions.

I pulled Murray Moss’s “Tertium Quid”, a collection of press photo pairings, from a shelf. These are utilitarian photos, what Moss describes as, “…defined by its function, which is to infuse a text with visual meaning in the telling of a news story”. Their primary use isn’t to be visually arresting, but through the medium and with time, they are that. Press photo as a contextual layer reminds me of when data visualization became more prominent in popular culture. When colorful charts and graphs started appearing in magazines and newspapers as more than just a way to clearly communicate information. Andrew Kuo’s work for the NYT felt like the standard bearer during this early 2000’s trend. I’ve often thought there’s a nice visual through line between that work and Karel Martens. Martens came up recently at dinner with a friend. He told me that when we first met, on a video call for work, he noticed a Martens book on my shelf and it made him think, ‘oh…this guy knows a thing or two’. I found this both gratifying and embarrassing (for me). It’s unsettling to think I could have come across as performative, although at the same time, this is the type of gratification most collectors deep down want. We all want to be appreciated for our niche interests.

Kevin Aprill - Sunset Upon An Imaginary Beach Of Latent Energy

Kevin Aprill’s one and only record, is a reissue from a private press acetate. I guess that makes it a reissue of an unreleased record. Even for a private press record, it surprised me there aren’t any signs of the acetate online. Not even a lone owner showing off on Discogs. The only listings are for the reissue from 2013 on Del Val. Maybe Aprill lost interest after making the test press or couldn’t scrounge up the money for the next steps. More likely he planned to come back to it one day. Somewhere along the way the test pressing was set aside, to be found later by someone else.

Sunset Upon An Imaginary Beach of Latent Energy (great title) is the first record in this series that some would consider unlistenable. Particularly the back half. How anyone wouldn’t be enamored by the kazoo work alone is beyond me, but I’d also be a crazy person to think this is everyone’s jam. The vocals (and kazoo) sound like someone faintly shouting at you from an unknowable place and the record as a whole is sort of a freakier Robbie Basho meets Jandek. If that means anything to you, then you might enjoy this record.

Sadly there isn’t much to dig up on Aprill. No liner notes, no wiki listings, no reddit mentions, and the messageboard, Waxidermy, that I found this through has since gone defunct. Which as an aside, I think is a real loss for the niche world of online record nerdom, but that’s for another time. The only commentary I’ve found is Forced Exposure referencing a Byron Coley excerpt from the Bull Tongue Review. I haven’t scoured the depths of the internet to try and find what edition this was in, but my cursory attempts have been fruitless.

Listen: YouTube

Antony & The Johnsons, The Crying Light

I’ve listened to The Crying Light twice recently, once at home and another time while riding my bike in the early morning, up through and out of the city. The sun rising over the East and eventually, when I get there, Hudson River. The city groaning as a variety of engines rumble. Cars speed along because the traffic hasn’t slowed everyone’s pace yet. I’m grinding my way through in hopes I can make most of the lights and avoid stopping. It’s a trip encased in concrete and glass. Small moments of nature. Pockets here and there. Some large and small, dotted across the city.

I don’t think I ever digested the themes of environmentalism throughout this record. They stand out more prominently for me now than they did in 2009, although none of the concerns feel new, only heightened. Maybe what has changed most is that hardly anyone seems to talk about these issues now. Not in an serious way, mostly just a passing, “wow seasons are so strange now” commentary. If an artist released a record today about the dying world, about the crying light, would anyone care?1

“I’m gonna miss the sea”
“I’m gonna miss the snow”
“I’m gonna miss the bees”

“I need another world”

Listen: YouTube / Apple

Extremely creepy, penetrating, and lingering. A chime seems like it should be cheerful. Not much cheer to be had here.

Serpent’s Path (1998)

A revenge film about a father kidnapping those responsible for the murder of his daughter shouldn’t be this fun or funny.

Yum, Yum, Yum! A Taste of the Cajun and Creole Cooking of Louisiana

To never cook or enjoy cooking, is to miss out on some part of life. When I meet someone adverse to cooking, I think it often has more to do with a fear of failure than anything else.

Michael Clayton (rewatch)

A friend asked me recently how this movie holds up and I thought, ‘what do you mean? You only need to see it once to know the answer to that’.

The Maestro: King of the Cowboy Artists

Imagine you are a body builder who decides to become a cowboy artist, refusing to take money for your art, and later in life you return to body building. You would have lived an incredibly full life.

The International

Baffling dialogue and performances, but a shoot out at the Guggenheim is a great idea.

Crime 101

We need to stop projecting Heat onto movies. This is not a criticism of the filmmaker as much as the people that watch these movies and want it to be Heat or say it is Heat esque or say it’s bad because it is knocking off Heat.

The Drama

Kept hearing about the big “twist”, which didn’t feel like a twist at all. It’s a reveal and a plot point. Do people know what a twist is?

28 Years Later: The Bone Temple

Excluding the first film, the themes and ideas in this series have always been more interesting to me than how they are represented. I really felt this with The Bone Temple…or maybe I am just too squeamish.

The Firm

This would be a good double feature with The Devil’s Advocate.

Skyscraper

The allure of the skyscraper seems to have waned in recent years. Now, many of us, just associate them with excess rather than symbols of progress or achievement.

Perfect Days (rewatch)

Comforting still. A friend sent me a review saying this was capitalist propaganda. A funny interpretation that I don’t really agree with, although I do think it’s overly romantic.

Tokyo Melody: A Film About Ryuichi Sakamoto

There’s a darkness in Sakamoto.

Waterworld (rewatch)

I swear I saw this as a kid in the theater with my friend Jay, but the release date puts me at an age that doesn’t quite track. Did I make this memory up? I wish someone would take a swing at remaking this.

Resurrection

Works better and better the longer I think about it. While watching I wondered if it was working for me. Now I regret not seeing this in the theater. Spectacle in the many of the best ways that are similar, yet counter to most contemporary movies that would be described this way.

Who is Bozo Texino? (rewatch)

Bozo Texino is a tall tale and we don’t have enough of those these days. He existed, but who was he and was he multiple people? I remember finding out about this film through the work of Margaret Kilgallen.

The Hedonists

We’re all going to be made into clowns.

The Devil’s Advocate (rewatch)

The Firm but demonic.

No Regrets for our Youth

To have virtues. To learn virtues. To have your worldview challenged and dramatically shifted through your experience with another. It can be a subtle shift, but one I hope we all feel at points, maybe most often in hindsight.

Bad Day at Black Rock

Welcome to racist town.

Freakscene: The Story of Dinosaur Jr.

We should all be listening to more Dinosaur Jr. and maybe even being as hard on ourselves as these guys were, but not as hard on each other. Self hatred combined with compassion is much more interesting to me than tyranny.

Ball of Fire

Language, what a wild thing! If only these academics could hear us now.

Two Seasons, Two Strangers

A nice way to close out the month. Kind of sleepy, a bit slow, like if Hong Sang-soo merged with Ryusuke Hamaguchi. I also want to swim in the ocean. I also want to live in the mountains. I also want to escape or disappear.

Antony and The Johnsons, I Am a Bird Now

When I Am a Bird Now came out in 2005, I had already decided I wasn’t interested in Antony (now Anohni) and the Johnsons. This is the type of decision you make when you are young and think you know a lot about music. When you’ve made that a part of your personality and have the youthful arrogance to think that, without listening to a record, you already have a sense of whether it is or isn’t for you. As if your well of knowledge has equipped you with the special ability to know if something is good or bad based on surface level sentiment (to be fair, I think this is a skill you can develop later in life and through years of collecting, but it’s employed in slightly more thoughtful way). Passing over Anohni was, in hindsight, based entirely on not liking their first record’s cover art.

I don’t remember what changed. Maybe I am a Bird Now was played at work or by a friend, but a year or two after the release I was listening to it all the time. Anohni’s voice felt undeniable and strangely complimented the other band I was obsessed with at the time, The New York Dolls. Now in hindsight, there’s some thread with regard to presentation/gender that I never really considered then and could be interesting to delve into more now.

Fitting for where I began with Anohni, the cover of this record is especially good. A photo of the late Candy Darling on her deathbed, shot by Peter Hujar (still need to watch that movie from last year…). This quote from Darling could have been an Anohni lyric,

“Unfortunately before my death I had no desire left for life ... I am just so bored by everything. You might say bored to death. Did you know I couldn’t last. I always knew it. I wish I could meet you all again.”

Listen: Youtube / Apple

Wilson’s book is a great testament to the process of documenting another person who is themselves documenting. Can’t imagine how hard it is financially to pursue this type of work now. A true passion project. Reminds me of my friend Andrew Paynter, who has been shooting his close friend Geoff McFetridge throughout his career for the last 20 years. One of the better pieces of “content” I’ve worked on in the last couple of years was with the two of them. During the process Geoff talked a lot about the allure of the West and especially, the scenes from No Country for Old Men where Llewelyn stops by the local clothing store for the essentials, the basics.

Saw this partnership Apartamento is doing with Jil Sander. A library of essential books, basics in their own way. Surprised to see them use the name Reference Library, although at this point that’s a niche reference. A beloved blog from the aughts and 2010s. It’s a generic name in ways, but still caught my attention. Not really a good or bad thing, just curious. I remember the writer of Reference Library contributed to the early issues of Apartamento and had the now coveted, issue 1. A couple years ago I met two artists (Jake Booth and Paige Labuda) who had reproduced parts of it as a small book. Something I had a similar idea around at one point — focused more on that era of blogging than one blog in particular — but naturally I never got around to pursuing it.

The Antlers, Hospice

This was bound to happen, although I didn’t think it would happen so soon. I don’t really have much to say about Hospice. One of those records I’ve considered putting in the ‘for sale’ pile many times. I notice it occasionally when absent-mindedly looking for something to listen to and am surprised that I still own it. Finding it this way reminds me of things I’ve sold (recently, it was Be Your Own Pet’s first record, which I bought because I read Kim Gordon talking about it somewhere. The world of record selling is so bloated now that people are trying to sell it for $80-$200. I have no idea what I sold mine for, it was so long ago). Hospice is a very pretty record, albeit a little melodramatic in a way that can feel cringeworthy. I don’t have many memories tied to it and realized I don’t think I’ve ever talked about it to anyone. Based on the year it was released, I must have bought it in Albuquerque or San Francisco, where I moved around the time. Maybe it was purchased at Amoeba on Haight St. Seems like the type of record I’d buy there.

Stray thoughts...

• The art is terribly corny. I wonder if the band feels any kind of way about it now? Living with your cover art must be a pain point for many musicians and authors.

• A brief reddit search reveals that many find this record too sad to even listen to. Which makes me think people aren’t listening to enough sad music.

• If I don’t pick up the pace on these notes on records, I’m going to be at this for a long time.

Listen

I’m waiting for Les Blank to be “rediscovered”. A sort of ridiculous notion because he isn’t unknown, but feels under appreciated to me. More people need to see moments like this tablecloth scene.

The Tree of Life (rewatch)

I’ve been a proselytizer for this movie since seeing it in 2011. People love it or hate (or never get past the part with dinosaurs).

My Own Private Idaho

When I was a teenager, I think I claimed to have seen My Own Private Idaho and probably talked about how great River Phoenix was. Realizing part way through that the dialogue is Shakespearean makes this memory of a white lie even funnier to me now.

Videoheaven

A real “we get it” type of watch. I often think I could listen to Alex Ross Perry talk about movies for endless hours. Turns out this doesn’t apply to his 172 minute ode to the video store.

The Battle of Algiers

Interesting moment in time to see this, but that applies to many moments in time, and maybe that’s why this movie endures.

Five Directors on The Battle of Algiers

Five reputable people talking about a reputable movie and not saying much that’s revelatory, but it’s still enjoyable.

Happyend

I love a title that fits perfectly and reads like a typo.

Exploring ‘The Tree of Life’

Interviewing 10,000 students to cast the kids in The Tree of Life is incredible.

Sentimental Value

Chris Ware doing the art for the physical release of Sentimental Value is perfection.

Cleo from 5 to 7

Looming bad news does a number on you. We shouldn’t hold it against people so much.

Sicario (rewatch)

There’s a noticeable number of people that rewatched this last month and it’s hilarious to me that both a podcast can do that and that my own bubble is so small.

Sinners (rewatch)

People would benefit from listening to more of the blues and Irish folk.

Talking with Ozu

Stanley Kwan starting this doc with an anecdote about his relationship with his father really sets a tone that most of the others can’t live up to. They couldn’t have known, but I’d be slightly annoyed with myself finding out later.

On the Waterfront

A timely and endearing revelation finding out that Amy Madigan and Ed Harris did not clap during Elia Kazan’s honorary Oscar.

The Making of ‘Heat’

The title card graphics are one of the more “made for TV” visuals I’ve seen recently.

Daybreak Express

Those oranges and yellows.

Heat (rewatch)

It turns out, looking back at my rewatches, it’s around this time of year I watch Heat. I have no explanation for why.

Sátántangó

It’s 7.5 hours, yes. Being able to see this in a theater is one of the reasons to live in NYC, yes. This wind scene is fantastic, yes. Is there a good chance I will never watch this again? Yes.

Reprise

This might be an unpopular opinion, but I think I prefer this to Sentimental Value? The movie is cliche in so many ways but damn if those cliches aren’t resonate.

A Perfect Murder

“Gwyneth Paltrow is a good actor” - J after watching this.

Animal Collective, Feels

This was possibly the peak of a moment. A time when we all claimed to like Black Dice (which I do, but I think I sold all of those records…I’ll find out through this process) and a handful of other bands in a similar cohort. Not that Animal Collective’s Feels was the best output of that time, but the popularity of it felt like the culmination of something. A high point for types that spent too many years and too much time religiously reading Pitchfork.

A couple of years prior to Feels, I asked a friend how to befriend a record store employee we both knew. Technically, they (Andrew and Ryan) were friends and I was just a kid who hung around a lot at the shop. I have no idea how it came up, but the advice was, “just tell him (Ryan) you like Animal Collective”. It was one of those, half a joke and half a truth bits of advice. It wasn’t what would fully ingratiate me, but it was one way of getting my foot in the door on friendly, rather than dismissive, conversation. I forced myself to try and understand Here Comes The Indian (now Ark) and Sung Tongs, the records preceding Feels, as preparation for my future Animal Collective conversations, but there’s a reason neither are still in my collection and Feels is. In hindsight they aren’t especially challenging, but as much as you can be inclined to more experimental music, you also develop an ear for it.

Listen

Jurassic World Rebirth

After rushing out of a meeting and into a car that was immediately lodged in Super Bowl traffic, we inched along until the driver found an opportunity to wriggle out and drive heist style to the airport as quickly as possible. I ran up to a soon to close gate, boarded and tucked into my snug seat, and…opted to watched Jurassic World Rebirth. This genre of part serialized, part IP rehash, is my most common plane movie selection. Low stakes and sparking just enough curiosity to wonder how much I’ll enjoy something that I’ve likely heard derided. Results are predictably hit or miss. Many times unmemorable. Jurassic World Rebirth especially so.

My Back Pages

A sweet portrait of a collector contending with how their collection consumed and defined them, and the process of letting it go. I’m in the pocket for this type of storytelling. It’s both romantic and demented to collect this way. I’d easily watch another hour of Mitch Blank talking about how Bob Dylan changed his life.

Face/Off (rewatch)

John Woo brings out the best performances from these absolute psychos. Also, this is an aside, but John Woo’s Mission Impossible II is underrated.

Terminator 2: Judgment Day (rewatch)

It’s been a memorably cold winter in New York and it crossed my mind if I should trudge out to see this in theater or not, but my friend Ross and I persevered. How could we really miss a chance to see T2 on 35mm? Our cinephile bonafides might take an irreparable hit. I’d only ever seen this at home and probably most often on cable tv as a kid. Some things don’t work quite as well when you’re older (Bad to the Bone needle drops), others never lose their magic (single hand shotgun flip), and some feel more relevant than ever (Sarah Connor’s nuclear blast nightmare).

Locke

Tom Hardy sits in a car and has a lot of rough phone calls. Just another day at the office.

Zero Dark Thirty

Occasionally I watch a movie and am struck by the fandom for it. It’s not that Zero Dark Thirty is a bad watch or even a bad movie (setting aside the conversation around CIA sponcon, jingoism, whether or not this appropriately contends with what hath the United States wrought…) but I wonder how people can claim this as a movie they love to return to, when the torture scenes are (as they should be) extremely uncomfortable viewing. It’s important to be confronted by these realities, but what does it say when you are a “this movie fucking rocks” guy and the movie in question is Zero Dark Thirty?

Exiled

This is like when you are young and have a crew of friends you spend all your time with. Except now everyone is grown, has a gun, might shoot at you (but ultimately back you) and wears cool outfits. Love this pack of gun wielding gangsters trudging through barren land.

Green Snake

From the synopsis, “Two snake spirits become human and learn about love and suffering.” If that doesn’t make you want to watch this movie, I don’t know what to tell you.

The Hunted

The EDC community must love this movie. I’m sure there are multiple examples, but I can’t think of another movie with a montage of two guys just making their own small improvised knives.

The Godfather (rewatch)

We were supposed to see Comrades, Almost a Love Story at the theater but it was cancelled due to a blizzard. I have no idea why I decided the next best thing was to watch The Godfather at home. J had never seen it and weeks later, I still don’t know if she enjoyed it. A final verdict to come once she’s seen part two.

The Illegal Immigrant

Incredible scenes of a chinatown that has changed in so many ways and yet is so instantly identifiable. The film feels like a rough draft of Mabel Cheung’s second feature, An Autumn’s Tale, but made as a film school final project.

What Does That Nature Say to You

Without fail, someone walks out of every Hong Sang-soo movie I see in a theater. Sometimes you can tell it was someone who opted to see it with little to no knowledge of what it would be like, others seem to have an idea but find it doesn’t work for them. Some directors you are either in or out on. This is particularly applicable to those who have released thirty plus films, many of which focus on similar scenarios and utilize a familiar pacing. One lesson from Sang-soo’s latest that is never too early or late to learn; don’t get incredibly drunk the first time you meet your significant others parents. It rarely goes well.

Carlito’s Way

I’m sure this has been pitched, but I’d love to see Benny Blanco’s Way.

On an archival box kick lately, which is to say I’ve gone down a rabbit hole comparing reputable options (Hollinger, Gaylod, and Talas, all seem to be the ones). I consider buying these every so often but never get around to it. Maybe this will be the year I do. I like the idea of them more than the aesthetics. There’s always something just off, either the color or the corner reinforcements.

Thinking about storing things reminded me of How to Wrap Five Eggs and, because I recently watched it, a short documentary called My Back Pages about Mitch Blank’s collection of Bob Dylan memorabilia. Blank led me back to Harry Smith’s Paper Airplanes, which I revisit every couple of years. By chance but related in ways, I found out The Whole Earth Catalog is being reconsidered once again. Feels apt for the times. This new searchable archive is nice. The Whole Earth project inspired this Japanese publication Tools from circa 2011. This genre of publishing makes me wonder if and when we’ll have another ‘back-to-the-land’ movement. Now is a good time to revisit the Positions and Situations Project and the letters it documented.

Told a friend about regret I’ve felt recently for getting rid of collected things. Many examples over the years, but the first I thought of were handwritten receipts I saved and pasted into a scrapbook 20+ years ago. Nostalgic scraps and nothing more. They documented a period of purchases at a book and record shop called Mecca. I’d hang around there on weekends, talking to and learning from the notoriously grouchy owner. He was from LA and had moved to Albuquerque to study photography. I remember looking at a box of photos he had taken as a kid at punk shows (great images of The Misfits). I was young and naive of how artists could feel about their work and wanted him to turn these photos into a book. He was aghast. The last thing he wanted was to be known as someone who shot the punk scene. According to google the shop is closed. Something he threatened to do for years, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s still open occasionally. The type of place where on the right day, at the right time, someone will be there and the door will be unlocked.

And Also The Trees, s/t

The type of band your record store coworker or music obsessed friend would be aghast you don’t know about. They’d ridicule you lightly for the oversight, after mentioning every other UK post punk or goth rock band you are both familiar with. They’d gloss over that one reason you haven’t heard of said band is because the band is just okay.

This didn’t actually happen to me with And Also The Trees, but I can imagine it from past experience. Instead, this debut from 1984 sits in another common category. The type of record I vaguely recognize the cover of, and that is just enough familiarity for me to give it a quick play on the listening station. A couple minutes of a track or two reveals that this sounds like so many other bands. Similar enough to other bands’ records that you could argue (I could convince myself, frankly) you don’t need it, but also…maybe you do? These are the types of records you buy when you have nothing better to spend your money on and don’t want to leave a shop empty handed. Not a bad purchase, but also not a noteworthy one. Some part of me likes to hedge with records like these. Give it a few plays, file it away, thinking one day I might come back to it and hear it in a new way.

Unknown to me at the time, but this band has a great origin story. They sent their home demo tape to The Cure, which landed them opening gigs on one of their UK tours. The Cure’s Lol Tolhurst later produced some of their first singles and this album.

Listen

First up…

The Album Leaf, In a Safe Place

A real moment in time for morose but poppy electronic music. The Postal Service was inescapable circa 2004 and it only made sense that someone in their late teens with a penchant for emo would buy a record by The Album Leaf. The title alone makes me cringe in a way that I can’t quite put my finger on. Kind of fitting that it’s the first record on my shelf.

I bought this at a now defunct record store in Albuquerque called Damaged Goods. It was the hardcore shop and at the time, hardcore kids also liked weepy emo adjacent electronic post rock, or at least, were flirting with it. Hard to say if this record is actually good or just nostalgic. It rarely sees any playing time, to the point where I couldn’t tell you the last time I put it on.

Listen

As far as I can remember, my interest in photography began when I was in elementary school. A family friend of ours was a photographer and he visited us once in New Mexico. He entertained my curiosity, showing me how his 35mm camera worked and letting me fumble around with it. I got a point-and-shoot as a gift not long after and when I got older, like many, signed up for my high school photo class. I considered going to school for photography, even visiting a program in Chicago during my freshman year of college. I was entertaining the idea that I might transfer after having botched the college application process and landing myself with only one option, the local university (I didn’t do this). I kept taking photos through college and after. Then at some point, I just stopped.

These photos aren’t particularly good. They also aren’t particularly bad. The especially bad ones are relegated to folders and files. Maybe they will be more interesting as time passes.

Rachel Getting Married

Started off the new year with a movie that sits in a rare (for me) category. The type of film where I objectively see its merits and subjectively, find it intolerable. That it’s insufferable could be intentional, but for someone uncomfortable with these family dynamics and weddings in general, it makes for a challenging sit. Bristling against the way this family expresses emotion (i.e. too much) and the earnestness of weddings, is probably just one way my own family finds me frustrating.

The Phoenician Scheme

Hard to understand being so committed to a style that is becoming less interesting with each film and seemingly, less well executed. Anderson is verging on a caricature of himself. Which, sounds incredibly rude, but I can’t think of any other way to frame it.

Almost Famous (rewatch)

I never fully acknowledged just how bad Patrick Fugit is in this till now and wondered if it was the writing or the acting. Hard to argue it’s the former when everyone else (McDormand, Crudup, Hoffman, Hudson, even Lee, even Fallon etc.) don’t have similar issues. Still amazing to me this is semi autobiographical, but I am predisposed to find that charming, because I too am “uncool” as Hoffman’s Lester Bangs says. The companion piece I want to Almost Famous is two hours on Bangs and Ben Fong-Torres.

Jackie

Unintentional back to back Crudup. Within the first 10 minutes I realized I didn’t really know what Jackie Kennedy Onassis sounded like. So for all I know, Portman’s accent is spot on. In the family of films that are so watchable, but so thematically dark that you can’t help feeling a little bad about yourself.

Also, weird to think about being young and listening to The Misfits’ Bullet and not fully processing how demented that song is.

Ford v Ferrari (rewatch)

A lot of actors playing to type in this, in a good way. Damon, Bale, Bernthal, Letts.

Boogie Nights

Poor Dirk…so dumb

Possibly one of the top 5 “I’m surprised you haven’t seen that” movies for me. Never got around to it till now and unsurprisingly, it’s good. Magnolia still ranks higher for me though.

Caught Stealing

Barely an ounce of substance.

The Rip

Gratuitous shirtless Affleck (good for him) and a lot of recognizable names not doing much.

Malcolm X

In a similar camp as Boogie Nights in terms of ‘why didn’t I see this sooner’ and ‘what more can I really add’ commentary wise. No inclusion of Yuri Kochiyama in the moment we all know is coming is a weird oversight (or decision). Great costume direction.

Ace in the Hole

Criterion sent a friend of mine their 40th anniversary boxset. Unfortunately for them, he doesn’t like movies, but a nice outcome for me.

Incredible portrait of Albuquerque, granted not really filmed there, and accurately caustic take on how despicable so many of us are. I’m tempted to drive out to where they built the set for the cave and cliff dwelling next time I am in New Mexico. I wonder if anything is still there.

Barry Lyndon

One of the worst thoughts I had while watching this was about a social content trend using long reverse zooms and whether or not people making these were familiar with Barry Lyndon. A close second and not particularly insightful (or just kind of dumb) realization was that this could be described as “picaresque”, but what I really meant was “picturesque”.

Skyfall (rewatch)

When this came out in 2012, a rep for Barbour told me about the massive number of “Skyfall” or “Bond” jackets they anticipated selling. Some people really like this jacket.

The Sting

A great addition to the canon of movies that make you wonder how the rating system really works. Aside from the obvious fact that it evolves over time, it’s still very funny to know The Sting is rated PG and someone is literally shot in the head.

Some of us just want to hang with our friends and pull off a great con.

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Hong Sang-soo and life’s monotony that is a little punishing but comforting. Takashi Homma photographs of radiation tainted mushrooms. Easily overlooked protrusions. Godzilla as an allegory for nuclear power. Teruyoshi Nakano coordinated stunts. These movies were central to my childhood. Practical effects reminiscent of miniatures. Miniature on a grand scale. Synecdoche, New York is a city within a city. A frame within a frame. The work of Myoung Ho Lee captures trees like billboards. A miniature billboard by Gaël Odilon Paccard and one at scale by Geordie Wood. Billboards as giant canvases. Bless bedding creates a scene to sleep in. Keith Allyn Spencer covers cars. There are some obvious Baudrillard simulacra references to make here, that I’ll avoid for now.

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At some point I forgot how to read an incoming handshake. When I was young it was second nature. I knew what was expected of me. Now, I can’t count the number of times I have misread one and somewhere along the way a self consciousness took hold. Maybe it was one too many slip ups. The yips but for greetings.

Once you fumble a couple, it becomes lodged in your brain that it might happen again. The obvious solution is to lead with the most traditional option, which only occasionally catches a recipient off guard.

A moment of doubt is all it takes to flub an average handshake. A slightly more elaborate one can sometimes be fumbled through, but there are opportunities for error from beginning to end. There’s the opening, which if over calculated will start off poorly but if underestimated, has no chance to succeed. The middle is the easiest to clumsily navigate. If you didn’t mess up the intro, the middle might not give away that you’re uncertain of how to stick the landing. It’s the end where the opportunity for embarrassment lies. The release. The dismount. The completion. It’s when the hands extricate themselves that really defines success or failure.

Revisiting the work of Joe Deal and the New Topographics exhibition in 1975, led me to the more recent Los Angeles Standards book, and back to Bernd and Hilla Becher. The Becher typologies and their commitment to documentation, brought me to On Kawara’s I’m Still Alive, an affirmation (or confirmation?) through what feels like an echo, which reminded me of Kierkegaard’s work on Repetition.

“Repetition and recollection are the same movement, except in opposite directions, for what is recollected has been, is repeated backward, whereas genuine repetition is recollected forward. Repetition, therefore, if it is possible, makes a person happy, whereas recollection makes him unhappy”

Late last year I had a conversation with an artist who had gotten rid of a large amount of old work. This was years of work. The makings of an archive, if that’s what someone wanted to do. Their gallerist was surprised and I assume a little annoyed, but they felt great. Unburdened by the years of accumulation.

With that work went other collected items: ceramics, books, clothes, and more. We talked for a bit about collecting. From the perspective of the person creating something collected to the things we ourselves save. Small markers of moments in our lives, which were themselves markers for the person that made them.

When paring back a collection the possibility of regret always looms. Sometimes big regret, other times small and maybe most often, inconsequential. Things you felt ready to move on from can linger in your mind, becoming “wish I still had…wish I hadn’t…wonder if I can find it again”s. The artist doesn’t miss any of the work, but they do miss some of the books.

I’m in the process of culling some of my record collection. A routine that happens every few years and an accumulation that’s been ebbing and flowing since I was fifteen. Sometimes the paring back is because of a move, other times simply because it feels like the thing to do. The current “for sale” pile is about 100 records. Some rare, but most not particularly so. A few I can foresee wishing I held on to, but maybe they won’t really be missed at all.

The Cramps – Hot Club Philadelphia Nov. ‘77
A live bootleg bought circa 2011, despite the fact that I don’t really care about live recordings or bootlegs.

Ole Jensen And His Music – Chappell Recorded Music
Library records are a niche you think you want to get into, but find you like the idea of more than actually listening to.

Gabriel Bondage – Another Trip To Earth
Certain records you buy because you’ve seen them pop up multiple times on the barely trafficked forum you continued lurking for years. Waxidermy (RIP).

John Cage Assisted By David Tudor – Variations IV Volume II
Others I’ve kept for years purely because of who I bought them from. A special kind of sickness when you have that respect for another collector.

Morton Feldman – The Early Years
And some just remind you of purchasing other records, like the handful of original East Side Story soul compilations I found at Recycled Records (RIP) the same day.

I wouldn’t call it a year in review, as much as a short and random assortment of 2025 highlights.

Decisions

• Taking photos again - After a multiple year hiatus, it’s nice to just walk around for hours with a camera.

• Quitting - Leaving a corporate job to start something new.

Meals

• At a restaurant - Sunn’s - The tiny counter is cute and also makes me feel like I am in the way, but I want to go back and order everything.

• At home - Beans - Some know I waited a year to get into the Rancho Gordo bean club. It will be one of the last things I cancel if finances are running tight.

Records

• E2-E4, Manuel Göttsching - Walked out of the record store with a small stack, down the block, turned around, and came back to buy this one weekend in Beacon.

Walks

• Fulton to Central Park or East Broadway to Central Park - see Decisions.

Photo Books

• Easy Days, Sage Sohier - I’m late to this work and also had no idea Nazraeli Press makes olive oil now. Books and olive oil sounds like a nice life.

Movies

• In theater - Eureka - Dennis Lim introduced this saying he’d only seen it one time 25 years ago when it was released, but that he wanted to show something “durational”. Watched in a 1/4 full room at the Asia Society, followed by JG Melon.

• At home - Carol - The Saul Leiter homage might be near literal image recreations, but I’m okay with it.

Documentaries

• Garlic as Good as Ten Mothers, Les Blank - I don’t seek out vintage merch, but did a quick search for a Gilroy Garlic Festival hat or t-shirt.

Rides

• No 9W - Lazy this year about driving to new places to ride, but am happy any time I can avoid this boring stretch of road that NYC cyclists love to paceline.

Clothing

• Henry’s Ivory Rounded Jean - Maybe my favorite pair of pants. I’d wear them daily if they weren’t white.

Shows

• Ming Fay, Midnite Porridge - Giant fruits and vegetables.

Objects

• Spiral Holder - I got J one of these for the holidays and love looking at it. A nice way to hold pencils.

Impromptu Activities

• Blueberry Picking - Stopped at a farm in New Milford CT for produce and ended up filling a few pints.

• Morning Dogs to Movie - 10 am hot dogs followed by Shall We Dance at Film Forum.

Link Ups

• Mick - Sometimes your friend from when you were 16 shows up in your city and you just hang out on park bench for a few hours.

• Leo - A Berkeley Hills BBQ might have changed my 2026 trajectory.