Ok, well. Here you are. The seventy-second issue of Media Roundup.

Enjoy it, too much if possible!

1/ “Estúdio Campana creates ‘woven jewellery box’ for Tiffany & Co in São Paulo”

(Written by Dan Howarth for Dezeen, published in late August. Pictured is the “woven wicker skin” at the store’s entrance.)

Stopping by a Tiffany’s in a Brazilian mall seems like a dreamy outing to me. This recently redone T&C storefront in São Paulo makes it hard to resist buying a plane ticket.

Wicker seems to be staging a comeback.

2/ Joan Didion’s 1975 UC Riverside commencement address: "Planting a Tree is Not a Way of Life.”

(link is to UCR article from early 2022 that includes the entire speech and a brief intro. Photo is one I recently came across by Mary Lloyd Estrin, made in 1977.)

Didion--patron saint of this newsletter, obviously--wrote at least two excellent pieces explicitly pertaining to higher education. The first is “On being unchosen by the college of one's choice” from 1968. This is the second.

Dry humor is on full display. As she says, “You may think I’m making rather a large lunch out of something that happened to me in eighth grade.” Also showcased is Saint Joan’s unrivaled ability to build out from a long-ago-California-born-anecdote, expanding vividly to not only the present but also bridging relevancy far into the future. Amen.

3/ Stella-esque San Francisco sidewalks

(Below, left is the intersection of Duncan Street and Amber Drive. Below, right is Frank Stella’s Ophir from 1960-1961.)

Frank Stella’s paintings of parallel lines are beloved to many and to me. The Marriage of Reason and Squalor, II is the most well-known, but there are even better ones, such as those which were included in Frank Stella: A Retrospective. This show was organized by the Whitney and the Modern Art Museum of Forth Worth, and ran first at the Whitney, then in Fort Worth, and then at the de Young (where I encountered it) from 2015-2017.

Meanwhile, sidewalk textures remain on my mind. We lack good ones in Portland. This feels particularly ignorant due to the notorious rain!

When I was walking near my family’s house in SF I realized this long-simmering resemblance. I then revisited my copy of the Stella catalog. Below are two superb two-page spreads, and in this folder are my other favorites from the show that illustrate the Stella Sidewalk Similarity.

4/ Kitchen tools I’ve been enjoying

From top left, ish:

Juicer - $35, Sur La Table: Stainless Steel Citrus Juicer, 13 oz.

It’s remarkable how much citrus can add (this week’s discovery was sour cream + lime). It’s nice to have a reservoir of lime--or whatever--juice to deploy with more control than when you just squeeze the poor thing.

Green mini spatula - $0.49, IKEA: SJÖRUDA

Great for batters, gentle scraping, and applying spreads to large surfaces (such as icing a cake). It’s also cute.

Big spoon - ~$14, Chef Kunz Spoon (widely available, such as from JB Prince)

Turns out it’s nice to have spoons of all sizes. This helps me when I want to scoop but not with an actual scoop. It also has a cult following. See “The Gray Kunz Spoon Legacy” and “It’s Not Just a Spoon. It’s a Kunz Spoon.” for sentences like “To truly understand the significance of the Gray Kunz Spoon, we must delve into its fascinating backstory.”

Fish spatula - $31, Victorinox: BBQ Accessories Slotted Fish Turner Wood

This is my favorite flipper. It’s quite light and is great at getting under things in pans...an important role for a flipper. They’re widely out of stock, but this one is available on eBay for under retail--all the way from Finksburg, Maryland!

Cherry pitter - $18, OXO: Good Grips Cherry & Olive Pitter - Beet

Eyes may be rolled at the thought of using a tool to pit cherries (let alone olives). But...then you might have to pit a bunch of cherries and this thing makes it so much easier and SO satisfying. Currently $5 off from The Container Store.

Mini spoons - $1.90, Muji: Stainless Steel Straight Handle Spoon - Small

These get used constantly in my kitchen. They’re just right for feeling a bit more precise when shoveling yogurt or ice cream into your mouth. They also work well in hosting situations, for instance serving chili crisp out of the jar at ramen night. One of the two reviews on Muji’s website says “Really well made just a bit small”.

You can bet that made me lol.

Butter dish - $8, Gemco: Multi Function Glass Butter Dish

It’s just great to have room temperature buttah. This is its little castle.

Nesting utensil set - $19, Black + Blum: Cutlery Set

The best of its kind. Warning: The stupidest fucking people alive who staff TSA stop to inspect the little “knife” about 1/3 of the time. This made me miss a flight today and let me tell you...we almost found out how lethal this set can be.

See ya!

Dolly grew up in rural Sevier County, Tennessee without many things, electricity among them.

Her uncle Billy took Dolly to record her first single “Puppy Love” at the age of thirteen. It was a thirty hour bus ride to Goldband Records in not-nearby Lake Charles, Louisiana.

Five years later, Dolly told her high school classmates that, after graduating, she was heading to Nashville to be a star. They met her with laughter.

The next day she got on a greyhound bus with everything she owned in “a set of matching luggage--three paper bags from the same grocery store.”

It’s hard to think she wasted a moment from that bus ride until today, when she acquiesced to letting the rest of us 8.3 billion “peaches” solve the problems she didn’t end up getting to.

The following are a few pieces of Dolly media that will always be loved.

1/ “Bury Me Under the Weeping Willow” with Emmylou (Harris) and Linda (Ronstadt)

2/ “Just because you’ve lost your fuzz…”

3/ “Good Golly, Miss Dolly!”

(full article)

4/ “Just Someone I Used to Know” with Porter Wagoner

(Spotify link)

5/ singing backup on “Timberline”

6/ Drunk History: “The Story Behind Dolly Parton’s ‘I Will Always Love You’”

7/ “Islands in the Stream” with Kenny Rogers

8/ She Come By It Natural: Dolly Parton and the Women Who Lived Her Songs

9/ “To Know Him Is to Love Him” on the Tonight Show, with Emmylou and Linda

10/ The Grass is Blue

11/ Hannah Montana ft. Dolly

Season 1, Episode 16: Good Golly, Miss Dolly (HM Wiki, Apple TV)

Season 2, Episode 20: I Will Always Loathe You (HM Wiki, Apple TV)

Hannah Montana Forever, Episode 11: Kiss It All Goodbye

(HM Wiki, Apple TV)

Hannah Montana 20th Anniversary Special (HM Wiki, Disney+)

12/ “After the Gold Rush” on The Late Show, with Emmylou and Linda

(1999)

13/ “The Sweetest Gift” with Emmylou and Linda

14/ “Sunday, Cruddy Sunday”

(1999. Simpsons Wiki , Apple TV)

Rest easy, Dolly Parton. We’ll be looking up to you.

In this issue there is metalwork. There is also metallic footwear.

Huh? What’s that?? Did you expect LESS of a dynamic combination?

Buckle up!

1/ photographs from Cult of the Machine

(the exhibition, full title Cult of the Machine: Precisionism and American Art was on view at the De Young museum in San Francisco from March to August of 2018. Photographs were scanned from the show’s catalog. Immediately below is Anton Bruehl’s photograph, Untitled (Rear Axle Housing and Differential Carrier from 1929 Cadillac V-16 engine) from 1929).

Machines play a significant role in the working, building, never stopping, never sleeping project that is my aesthetic sense. This is partially due to my aerospace engineer father, and my time spent working in wood shops and metal shops. But it’s also indisputably due to how I spent my summer as a sixteen year-old: sitting in an office up in the tower of the De Young, assisting with researching objects for this then-forthcoming show.

Cult of the Machine was excellent, and photography was just one of several media represented therein. In addition to two-dimensional works there was also everything from a coil of stainless steel to cocktail shakers to a full-size car. But...ya know, hard to put a car in a newsletter, so here we sit, in awe of these photographs.

If you’re feeling the Cult FOMO, Google Arts and Culture houses an extensive page on the show, and here is a podcast interview with Curator of American Art Emma Acker. It was the ever-gracious, ever-articulate duo of Acker and fellow Curator of American Art Lauren Palmor who warmly welcomed me into their marvelous research 10 years ago. I’m so glad they did. Precisionism has left my mind for hardly a moment since.

2/ “Matty’s Hands Oven Mitts”

($55 for the pair. They go in and out of stock pretty frequently.)

Mister Matthew Matheson is quite possibly my favorite fella on the interweb. His “cooking” videos are bar none. They make me feel relaxed, happy, excited to cook, and inclined to yell (joyously!). These mitts were a stroke of genius from MM’s team. Shoutout Alex Brother for getting me a pair for my last birthday (February 18— write it down), proving that they make for an excellent gift.

3/ Gerard Huerta’s hand lettering

(Huerta has been grinding out logos we see every day for 40+ years. Here’s his website. Here’s his Wikipedia.)

Huerta’s IG account is a treasure chest jam-packed with hand-drawn BOOTY. Whether you realize it or not, you already know his work--mastheads for some small enterprises such as, oh I don’t know, Architectural Digest, People mag, TIME, Adweek, to name just a few. Not to mention the ACDC and HBO logos(!).

Scrolling through Huerta’s hand-drawn lettering is the best kind of mind-melting. After your brow furrows at the sheer skill demonstrated across each composition, you snap out of it, ready to see all the text around you with a fresher, keener set of eyes.

4/ Under Armour Harper 11 Pro Mid All Star Game Cleats

(retailing for about $140 from DSG and others)

The swag of Bryce Harper--my favorite baseball player--has yet to slow down, even now in his 14th season in the bigs. These spikes Under Armour released for his home turf All Star Game selection are a good example (That being said he provides lots of good examples).

According to UA, the cleats draw inspiration from what they call “futuristic protection”, which apparently refers to “Harper's experience as a catcher, catcher's gear and motorcycle protective equipment”. Not to mention the eye-catching color scheme, which

celebrates Philadelphia and the many paths players, fans and visitors take to reach the city. Inspired by SEPTA's rail system and the metallic appearance of Philadelphia's train cars, the design incorporates transit line-inspired pops of color throughout the cleat, with distinct route colors across the left and right shoes representing different Philadelphia train lines. The inclusion of SEPTA graphics on the sockliner and Philadelphia's iconic 215 area code on the Pull Tab further reinforces the connection to the city.

The long and short of it is...they’re sick. I’m struggling to resist buying a pair to play sloooooooowpitch adult softball in.

I’ll leave you longing for technicolor dreamcleats. Later!

If you’re here in Portland this fine Friday night, come by Nil wine bar (SE Belmont & 42nd) to see not only ME but also some ART OF MINE that’s on display there.

If not, the four following media texts will JUST HAVE TO BE ENOUGH.

1/ Kodak UltraMax 400

(currently $10.99 for a 36-exposure roll from B&H)

In a world where Portra 400 is rapidly approaching $20 per roll, I’ve been enjoying shooting with another stock in the Kodak family, UltraMax.

It has that classic Kodak Eastman “film look”,and shoots effortlessly. I’ve come to prefer it to Portra, especially in the sun (Portra has done a bit better for me when using a flash, though, FWIW). You can find it at Walgreens pretty often, too, which is super clutch for when you’re shooting (in the U.S. but) not in your locale. Below is a selfie I took on UltraMax. Deal with it.

2/ “What Scientists Learned by Eavesdropping on Thousands of People”

(NYer.com link, PDF link. Written by Shayla Love for the New Yorker, published on July 8. Illustration below is by Simon Bailly, from the article).

Ok buckle up. This is some good stuff.

So. In the early 2000s, some psychologists had a couple hundred college students passively record their lives (for specific intervals). They then analyzed the study and found that “On a typical day, both men and women spoke an estimated sixteen thousand words a day—roughly the word count of ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream.’”

One of those psychologists, Matthias Mehl from U of A, redid the study but BIGGER between 2005-2019.

strangely, when he and a co-author further analyzed the results, they found that participants had spoken an estimated twelve thousand seven hundred words a day—twenty per cent less than in the earlier study. ...Each year, he went on, the number of words spoken daily seemed to decline by about three hundred and thirty-eight. That translates into around a hundred and twenty thousand words a year—about the length of ‘Sense and Sensibility.’

So we’re talking significantly less. But these “electronically activated recorders”, EARs, have also led to other fascinating conclusions:

In 2016, a study that used the EAR found that children’s asthma symptoms, such as wheezing, increased when they fought with their family members—an association that wasn’t as noticeable when families filled out daily diaries. Another study found that romantic partners rarely discussed breast cancer after one of them was diagnosed, except to work through logistical considerations such as appointment times and doctors’ credentials. A third one found that when people with rheumatoid arthritis or cancer swore around others they received less emotional support from friends, and their depression symptoms tended to worsen.

!!! The piece’s author, Shayla Love, then starts using EARs herself, and writes about her realizations.

This article refocused my attention on the spoken word, the sidewalk run-in, the fleeting cashier interaction. Something to think about--newly, more, or maybe even less!

3/ “Chicken Milanese”

(recipe by Lex Weibel, senior staff editor and recipe developer at NYT Cooking, updated in 2023)

Matty Matheson cooked more-or-less this on my TV enough times for me to finally try it! This specific version, that of NYT Cooking, was pretty darn easy and delicious. Naturally I added some angel hair dressed with butter and the dressing from the recipe’s simple salad. Said simple salad is a shining star in and of itself. It has made appearances in several recent meals of mine, Milanese and beyond. Give it a try!

4/ some fun logos around Miami

(spotted when I was there last month)

Miami has a lot of really nicely-designed things. These logos, to name three! The center one is that of The Museum of Miami. Hopefully the other two are self-explanatory...

These three cool images have been posted to supercoolmobil, the sleeper instagram where I...post cool images. Like this incredible facade, belonging to a 24-hour Walgreens also in Miami:

I mean come on!

We’re signing off on June among the likes of Peter Gabriel and Robert Motherwell. Happy July!

1/ the music video for “Sledgehammer”

(song by Peter Gabriel, music video directed by Stephen R. Johnson, most notably the director of the first season of Pee-wee’s Playhouse)

Last night I walked thirty minutes to a one-hundred-year-old theater, paid a total of twenty-one dollars for my ticket (adult) + popcorn (medium) + beer(‘gansett), then sat down and watched two and a half hours of music videos from 1986.

This was the best one. Watch. It. RIGHT. NOW! And when you’re done, good luck resisting the urge to want to go make something.

2/ “What the ladies are wearing this spring”

(by Leon Hedgepeth for the weekly fashion newsletter Sprezza, published in April )

(Above, L to R: Dalila Radoncic, Susan Carroll Cooper, and Siôbhan Corbin.)

This was a pleasant cross-section of what spring/early-summer dressing can look like. It’s warmer now, but I think these women and their ‘fits still shed light on what people are into right now. From the piece, the following caught my eye as representative of what people are doing with their clothes more largely: mid-weight jackets, pops of color and accessorization, olive green and, last but not least, good ole navy.

3/ “Robert Motherwell / Artist Timeline: 1948 - 1957: The Elegies to the Spanish Republic and Variety of Imagery”

(photo is from the article: “Installation view of Robert Motherwell: Paintings, Drawings, and Collages at the Samuel M. Kootz Gallery, New York, April 1952. From left to right: Castile (España), Decalogue, Jacob’s Ladder, and Burning Bush, Andújar (España), Wall Painting III, and La Danse.”)

Robert Motherwell (1915-1991)’s Elegies have always been fun to run into, and encounters certainly vary, as the series is massive. The 250+ paintings are spread across collections worldwide, both possessed by museums and privately owned (my “home Elegy” would be No. 57).

This is an excellent chapter of a more massive, overarching timeline. This bit runs from 1948, just before Motherwell drew No. 1 (to illustrate a Harry Rosenberg poem), to when he started seeing Helen Frankenthaler in 1957.

4/ Like a Weed: cool vintage t-shirt for (presumably at least somewhat) cool kids

(@likeaweed = “a small Austin-based shop curating vintage pieces for kids who like to be themselves” that seems to have established itself just this spring. Pictured below: Unemployed, TMNT, Sidewalk, Junior League Miss, Coaching Staff)

“Where the Sidewalk Ends”--against a background of red--in curly, funkily italicized, spindly white letters, stopped me in my scroll. I thought it was a semiviral grail I had first seen a photo of earlier this year. Alas, the shoppable Instagram ad I clicked on displayed a shirt that was 8 inches narrower and 12 inches shorter than the tee I was remembering (also absent are four block letters seated neatly above a swoosh). It was a beautiful and similar work, just child-sized.

So naturally I clicked around a bit and realized I had come across a phenomenal (and growing) trove of exceptional vintage tees, FOR KIDS. It’s a brilliant idea, and a seeming godsend to people who have to buy gifts for little ones. There are some knockout garments on Like A Weed’s site: smol t-shirts, lil outerwear, and even, perhaps the ones that make me saw “AWWW” the loudest, TEENY FOOTWEAR.

It’s the end of Issue O Six Eight. Are your shoes tied?

Hi hi hi!!

Get excited: We’re nearing the Media Roundup More Or Less Bicentennial!! Which is what I’m calling it when MR reaches 200 subscribers. There’s gonna be some special merch when we hit the big two-oh-oh.

So tell the cool people you know to get-a-reading this very substack. Or, maybe, tell the not cool people you know…maybe they could put it to better use…

Anywho! Waltz right into the trio of MRo67. Waltz RIGHT now!

1/ “Love Is a Stranger” by The Eurythmics

(released on October 8, 1982 the song peaked (weekly) at #6 on the UK Singles chart, and #23 on the (US) Billboard Hot 100. Pictured below is the UK 7”)

Note: Momentous occasion alert! This may very well be the narrowest window of time between me consuming a media text (this song!) for the first time + then it being in MR (right here!). Wow!

So, as of writing this, I heard this song for the first time last night and have been listening to it obsessively for much of the past 20 hours.

Since I was a wee rounder up of media I’ve been aware enough of Annie Lennox to know she was SUPERCOOL. In fact I remember the first time I heard “Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)”! But have never thought much about the Eurythmics...who they may be...which singles they released in the later months of 1982...then KAPOW!—this song is presented to me via a Spotify radio station the evening of the fourth and final Thursday of this very month. June.

The lyrical bastions that are verse 3 (starts at 1:45) and verse 4 (starts at 2:24) are leaving me wide-eyed and exhilarated, filled anew with awe at this Scotswoman!

On “love” (what else?) she sings lines like

It's savage and it's cruel and it shines like destruction
Comes in like the flood and it seems like religion

not to mention

It's guilt edged, glamorous and sleek by design
You know it's jealous by nature, false and unkind

And also Dave Stewart, the other Eurythmic--the more producer and musician Eurythmic, if you will. Second note: I’m seeing that Stewart co-wrote “Underneath It All” which is of course cool-person AND deal-seaker canon for “You’ve used up all your coupons / And all you’ve got left is me”, as per MR060).

Listen AS LOUD AS YOU CAN.

2/ Four Superb Summer Shoes

( we’ve got thee Nike Air Superfly LX Pony Hair Leather, the Melissa Possession Jelly Fisherman Sandal, the Village 1.30 PM , and the Vans Premium Authentic Ease Shoe )

With this quartet of footwear, I’m pretty much set for the season.

The Air Superflys are an underrated Nike retro re-release; they originally came out in 2001. Currently on Nike.com you can buy this primo version in 4 colorways, the base models in 16 colorways, and the sans-laces “moc” iteration in black and silver. In Superflys, I wear my normal Nike size (m10.5/w12/44.5).

A stranger on the sidewalk in front of an excellent breakfast diner LET ME TRY ON her jellies while she stood, foot hovering in the air above the sidewalk. They were this model from Melissa, and I needed to go up a half size from hers. They are incredibly comfortable, and they make me happy to look down at. Also good way to flex socks. Also Aaron Levine has them in brown.

Ok now the pair I call the “millennial man magnets”, my navy and white talons from the emerging French brand, Village. These torqued skate shoes took the menswear internet by storm. They are rather eye-catching, and extremely comfortable. The shoes come (in a box) wrapped in paper printed with something of a baroque(?) hunting motif, too, which is curious:

Last but not least, my Vans! Vans is poised for a massive 2026/2027. These are effortlessly wearable and look just different enough from the ultra-classic Authentics--recognizably Vans, but in a sleek new form. The checkerboard ones look sick, and it’s hard to argue with $56.

3/ Eve Babitz’s “Dodger Stadium”

(published in Slow Days, Fast Company, which came out in 1977)

The recent scholarship about St. Joan Didion and Eve Babitz has fascinated me. Which is to say I loved Lili Anolik’s (second) How Long Gone interview so much that I walked straight to Powell’s and bought her book, Didion & Babitz.

I’m planning to read D&B imminently, but figured I should lay some groundwork on the Babitz side of the aisle by reading some of her writings. And boy oh boy I am LOVING her essays! This is just one magnificent piece in Slow Days, Fast Company, but it’s a fun and approachable one.

Also, from my 5 minutes of research, it’s no wonder Babitz grew to dislike Didion. In the above NYT review of SD, FC from 1977, the critic says that Babitz’s collection is “desultory” compared to Play It As It Lays. YEEEEOUCH!

Lastly. Here’s a picture of me from the other day, pre-sunrise solstice swim. Because if this substack isn’t about wearing vintage Armani with y2k Oakleys at 6:06 am in South Beach, then I’m not sure what any of us are doing here.

And that’s all the media you get!

Some great stuff lies ahead of you right here in this very issue: photos of me holding a dog whilst wearing my current favorite midlayer, a handwritten set list that starts with the under-remembered bop “Down on Me”, and containers that require ice!

Enjoy.

1/ Old-school soccer/football warm-ups

(the Umbro Drill Top may or may not be the original…Umbro was established in 1924. Pictured below are this gray Umbro pullover, this Navy nike one, and this blue Como one)

The revived appreciation for y2k looks has brought...a lot of things back into the discourse both good and certainly bad. An enhanced appreciation for these warm-up overshirts is my favorite thing to return thus far.

The options from Umbro--the DOUBLE DIAMOND--are my favorite. Here are a bunch, more or less from top right: navy and yellow mesh, white England warm-up, gray and red Man U, purple, sky blue Aston Villa, Throwing Fits collab, Euro ‘96 red.

There are excellent options from the Swoosh, both new and old.

This above pictured “Retro Collection” from the Italian club Como 1907 is quite nice as well. Notably, Rhuigi stepped in as Como’s Chief Brand Officer at the end of 2024. The retro warmups are a sizable hit for a team that just got promoted to Series A.

I’ll leave you with me, looking like the third Gallagher, modeling my Umbro Drill Top, which I adore, with a little help from Ajax.

2/ “Inside this Author’s Upstate New York Escape Built for Cooking, Hosting and Living Well”

(uploaded 4 months ago to Huckberry’s YouTube channel)

Like watching people talk about their aesthetically pleasing houses? Well get comfortable for 14 minutes and enjoy listening to multi-hyphenate Matt Hranek show off his upstate retreat. My favorite part is when he describes a floor-covering as “basically a felt ravioli.”

3/ Music Icons auction

(a two-day live (but also online) auction that took place at the Hard Rock Cafe Times Square this past Friday and Saturday)

“Of course you love Elvis” someone said to me recently. Well...YEAH DUH.

Which is to say: woe is me because I just missed out on the chance to bid on one of the King’s luscious locks, which sold for $2,240 as Lot 51 of Julien’s “Music Icons” Auction. The bidding closed Saturday; it’s still ultra-fun to scroll through the 604 lots.

Here are five included objects and their sold prices: Prince 1984 “The Purple Dynasty Party” Ticket / $192(!), Sex Pistols Paul Cook 1977 Stage-Worn “Anarchy In The U.K.” T-Shirt with Original Unpublished Photos and Negatives / $12,800, Joni Mitchell 1999 Signed Painter Palette / $11,520, The Smiths Morrissey Signed Birthday card / $640, Janis Joplin Handwritten 1968 Set List / $3,840.

4/ Target coolers

(The 14 Cans/10qt Hard Sided Cooler is $10 and comes in blue, green, and pink. The 4 Cans/3.1qt Soft Sided Personal Cooler is $5 and is pictured in pink stripey, green, blue stripey, and white. )

These FIVE and TEN DOLLAR coolers became summer essentials for me last year. They keep things pretty chill with the help of a few ice packs, and I’m never worried about if I leave them somewhere. So if you can resist YETI fever, consider these as we move into the warmer, partier months.

Stay cool out there!

Make it work!

1/ A Field Measure Survey of American Architecture

(by Jeffrey Ladd, published by Mack Books in late 2021)

Vince Aletti, photography critic for the NYer, wrote of AFMSAA that “some of the photographs look as if they were taken as crime-scene or insurance-claim evidence, and the blunt, just-the-facts approach tends to reduce the camera to a recording device.”

It’s hard to know where to begin my dissent with Aletti’s dismissal!

We’ll start with the fact that “the camera” isn’t “a recording device”. In fact it is the recording device most decisively shaping the modern world. IN FACT it might wholly transcend that category and be just the singular thing most responsible for globalization, the massive term referring to what defines our present reality.

Ok. Now we’re all on the same page about cameras. NOW we can address how the splendor of this book is not at all due to it being the most beautiful photographs you’ve ever seen. No! The thing to marvel at is how Jeffrey Ladd sifted through “more than half a million documents collected since 1933” and narrowed the whole of the Historic American Buildings Survey down to 224 photographs.

To quote Téju Cole, per one of the sacred post-it's above my desk, “Authorship, after all, is not only what is created but also what is selected.”

Ladd has transfigured the government’s documentary survey into an art object--this book. If you don’t see how that’s punk rock...you might be in the wrong place.

2/ Italian Peanuts

(from 1971, there are about 201 on Fanatics Collect under Buy It Now and some under Auction too. Also a bunch on eBay.)

These are some Italian Snoopy baseball cards that I found whilst poking around Fanatics Collect. They’re pretty funny; in this one Lucy is saying “Here—give me your hand, or your paw, or whatever else you call it...” Classic! Below, Snoopy laments the horrors of war (naturally): “I suffer for those poor, lousy wretches who are forced to live in these trenches...” and snaps a pic! See above re: cameras.

3/ Joni Mitchell’s Ladies of the Canyon

(released by Reprise in April of 1970, YouTube link)

Turns out it’s always been hard to know exactly how to put the magic of JM’s records into words, as seen above in an excerpt from the April 5, 1970 New York Times.

I’ll take this opportunity to remind you to revisit Joni’s Ladies. It remains rich in its worldbuilding, its thematic references, and of course Joni’s standalone, crystalline voice.

Two underrated favorites of mine are “Willy” for lyrics like “He says our love cannot be real / He cannot hear the chapel's pealing silver bells” and “Rainy Night House” for lines such as “I am from the Sunday school/ I sing soprano in the upstairs choir / You are a holy man / On the F.M. radio.”

No catalog like hers!

4/ Night People

(by Mark Ronson, released late last year)

This is heavyweight music producer Mark Ronson’s new memoir about coming up as a DJ. It’s a spellbinding scene report of nineties night life.

The craft-specific paragraphs about unpacking turntables (“Staples flew as I tore through the thick cardboard and protective sheets to reveal two gleaming, silver turntables nestled in Styrofoam thrones. Each was a plinth of steel and silver painted plastic, heavy as a small TV”) are as engaging as the impossible-to-avoid clout dropping (“Though born in the Bronx, she was as downtown as it got: a muse to Robert Mapplethorpe, a best friend to Keith Haring”).

See ya!

Did being an MR subscriber feel extra-special-cool this week?

Maybe it’s something in the West Texas wind. Or MAYBE it’s because this very newsletter was mentioned in a Vogue piece:

Big thank you to Jalil Johnson for interviewing me for the piece, “‘It’s Not All Behind a Screen’—Why Some Gen Z-ers Are Shopping Made-to-Measure” (that’s right my quote made the title).

Okay. Now off we go, back to rounding up media!

1/ Kengo Kuma’s addition to Angers Cathedral

(Kengo Kuma and Associates (KKAA) submitted the design around 2021, and the concrete entrance opened this month. The Romanesque cathedral in Northwest France was “constructed between the 12th and 13th centuries”)

Japanese architect Kengo Kuma’s diverse body of work never fails to amaze, particularly in its breadth. My favorite buildings by him and his firm include the V&A Dundee museum on the coast of Scotland (2018), the LVMH building in Osaka (2003), and the Asakusa Culture Tourist Information Center in Tokyo (2012). I would say he’s the most outstanding architect to have not won a Pritzker thus far.

This “porch” has sparked some debate. As Kuma said, “Our challenge was to create a harmonious dialogue between a contemporary creation whilst preserving Middle Age architectural heritage.” While this enhanced entrance may have “divided” France,I hereby certified it MR-APPROVED.

2/ In Vogue: The 1990s

(released in November of 2022, each episode is just about a half hour long)

• Episode 1: “The Rise of the Supermodel”

• Episode 2: “Grunge Strikes Back”

• Episode 3: “Brand Americana”

• Episode 4: “Karl Lagerfeld and The Role of Creative Director”

• Episode 5: “Prada — A Revolution From Within”

• Episode 6: “Tom Ford’s Gucci”

• Episode 7: “Queering Culture”

• Episode 8: “London Libertines: Galliano, McQueen, Chalayan and McCartney”

• Episode 9: “NYC — The Rise of Downtown”

Back to the fashion paper of record: here lies a highly-listenable, A-list audio series about high fashion in the 90s. The nine episodes are hosted by Hamish Bowles, who, in addition to being Global Editor at Large for Vogue, has a great high-fashion voice. Episodes 2 and 6 are the ones I’ve been thinking about most. The former features discussion with Marc Jacobs, Kim Gordon, and Grace Coddington. The latter is largely TF himself talking. He is beyond MR-APPROVED (see: this sacred text).

KL and episode 4 inspired this (Vogue/30 Rock crossover) meme:

3/ Cole Wilson’s photography of Buzzballz for the NYT

(published in “The High-Alcohol Drink Taking Over Gen Z” on April 10)

This article alleges that, to Gen Z in particular, Buzzballz are to drinking what Juul is/was to smoking. But it’s a bit of a PsyOp because...few drinks have ever looked to this Gen Z-er more delicious, not to mention more refreshing, than these boozy spheres. So I guess go get one ASAP? And check out photographer Cole Wilson’s other scrumptious images of Food while you’re at it.

4/ Busy Beaver Button Museum’s online archive

(The museum was founded in August 2010 as “the world’s only pin-back button museum” by Christen and Joel Carter, the “(brother/sister button making/collecting duo)”. Pictured below are buttons for the Lake Placid Olympics, Space the Final Frontier, Children’s Day, Patti Smith Group, a particularly gay cable car, not New Jersey’s Trenton, DeLorean owners for Bush, the Fanatic, the Goldwater-Miller ticket, the Detroit Institute of Arts, MJ, and a cold hard button-oriented fact)

You know as an MR reader how divine open access archives can be. The Busy Beaver Button Museum’s is an outstanding example, absolute primetime. Turns out pin-back buttons have been, oh I don’t know, a salient MEDIUM for any and just about all MESSAGEs. I can’t recommend clicking through a few decades or categories more highly. Narrowing the above image down to a dozen was close to impossible. So here comes one more. And be sure to visit next time you’re in Chicago!

5/ The Man from Waco

(released in 2022, Spotify link, YouTube link)

With Ella Langley topping charts left and right--pause here to appreciate ”He always loved ‘Amarillo by Morning’ / I should have taken that as a warning”--it’s a good time to reconsider the few contemporary voices making historically-informed, high-quality country music.

Charley Crockett kicks his boots and grins as he sits atop that list (his is half of the Tiny Desks I swear by). The Man from Waco is the sweepingly haunting, violent, and hilarious premier outlaw country album from the current decade AT LEAST. Written by Crockett with just a little help from a fella named BOB DYLAN, it is phenomenal, and just reeks of that specific Texan type of tragedy (‘twas recorded at The Bunker Studio in Lockhart). Here are the songs + lines I most often revisit.

• “I’m Just a Clown” + “take a look at me / I'm so lonesome / I should charge a fee”

• “Black Sedan” + “Across the plains, I swear I heard her call /
  And it took me to the end of Wichita”

• “The Man from Waco” + “He pushed through the door, hypnotized by a sound / Just then tears overcame him and his heart began to drown”

• “Odessa” + “Ain't no way to walk no line with Odessa on my mind”

• “All the Way from Atlanta” + “I saw Shreveport through a window / Against a curtain made of pines”

Too impressive not to mention is the fact that Crockett has released ELEVEN studio albums since 2020. And now you know his best work.

You see THAT is called The Media Roundup Effect.

So Long, Farewell!

I’ve skied on fewer than 10 occasions, but have more or less enjoyed it immensely each time.

Skiing is, after all, the intersection of two of my most intense childhood interests—statement Oakleys and The Empire Strikes Back. I loved to get dressed to ski, to go on my own little gear-clad expeditions up and down the lifts and runs. Lunchtime poll: Do you think Hoth is mountainous enough to ski?

As present in my memory as the forsaken maps is the very elaborate mountain-wide Kalman walkie-talkie system (and lots of yelling when 4-5/6 of us would habitually forget to declare “OVER”).

Also an enamel pin my mother got at the lodge store that said NO WHINING over two crossed skis…That pin was seldom not being pointed to in the 1997-2015 years.

Anywho! Fast forward to the other day when I found NOT a ski map in the pocket of my heavy duty North Face.

Realizing how disappointed I was after a vivid moment of nostalgic hope, I knew I needed to look at some ski maps.

To skimap.org I went!

And this, this archive of almost 30,000 maps stretching back almost a century, is where I stayed over many hours, across many clicks, much scrolling...

‘Twas there that I realized I needed to do a whole MR for these stunning maps.

1 and Only/ Ski maps

The thing that gets me most is the BLUE of it all (now for a 36 minute intermission). The color blue turns out to be the quintessence of ski maps.

Many maps have this blue overtone:

Some other maps have something eerie in their blue:

The result of a surprising editorial decision is that it looks to me like a storm is brewing over Londonderry! You know, the place you think of as similar to Switzerland.

Regardless, that bright red “Magic Mountain” leads us nicely into taking note of some excellent typographical decisions.

That’d be a detail of a 2008 map from Dachstein West outside Salzburg, Austria on the left and the upper left corner of a 2026 map from Kosovo on the right.

And then there’s this intimidating, looming, angled “RIGI” behind the peak in the upper right of this 1988/89 map of Rigi in Switzerland.

The above 1971 map of Snowbird Ski and Summer Resort in Utah is just unfair it’s so good, by graphic designer Ted Negata. More looming letters!

Variables of vertical/horizontal orientation, angle, color code, and beyond make most of these maps just different/similar enough. Again, the vastness of the BLUE!

Ski runs have great names--yet another tier to the pleasantries of these maps. I’m talkin Dipsy Doodle. I’m talkin Foolish Pleasure. I’m speakin Swiss nonsense such as Wissiflue and/or Schwändi.

After that absolute unit of a topographical resource, I shall leave you with the 2008 map of Diamond Peak (my stomping grounds)...some piece of paper I aspire to find in some pocket, someday.

Happy trails!

Today’s issue covers grossly underrated graphic design to an unforgotten American author. To some French ping-pong tables.

Run along!

1/ Rolf Harder’s graphic design work

(Harder was Canadian but born in Hamburg, Germany in 1929. He died in Montreal in 2013. Pictured below, clockwise from top left: Angel from 1978, Redoxon-B effervescent from ~1969, the fall 1995 cover of Esprit, Alcan Aluminum for Buildings from 1965, Banque Royale from 1966, moved from 1962, and Rehabilitation Stamp from 1977. The portrait is from Principal’s website.)

I was recently looking through MOMA’s online collection archive for spring-inspired art in preparation for upcoming festivities. “Spring” was a largely barren search query. But I did come across this 1995 cover of the SPRING issue of “The magazine for employees of the Canadian Hoechst and Celanese organization”:

I mean! It’s so good. The arrows in the sky allude just enough to the topic of the issue (ever-exciting exports). It’s light, gentle, set in the sky. But it gets the job done so beautifully.

MOMA has fifty-eight(!) of Harder’s pieces. They’re...kind of all hits. The breadth of subject matter that Harder was able to deftly distill into visuals is something to marvel at. This 1963 ad against alcoholism/for Librium is one of the best I’ve ever seen(!):

Harder’s work stands as one of the most colossally under appreciated things I’ve come across working on MR. I had never heard his name before. From what I’m able to discern, that seems to be reflective of wider obscurity. Now you know! Tell the world!

2/ Extended Exchange

(“A CONVERSATION…ON THE DETAILS, PHILOSOPHY, PROCESS, AND MORE THAT ARE THE SPIRIT OF BENJAMIN EDGAR, AN OBJECT COMPANY.” The first Exchange was published in September of 2024. Pictured is the Switzerland Chicago Souvenir Keychain. )

Extended Exchange stands among the best of the things that regularly appear in my inbox. In these installments/interviews/discussions/blog posts, the Windy City’s own Benjamin Gott opens his rolodex and yields exquisite, focused conversation with his friends, colleagues, and collaborators. I’ll give you three guesses as to what happened in the most recent installment, titled “30 FRIENDS, 30 THOUGHTS ON WRITER’S BLOCK.” Minds from How Long Gone’s Jason Stewart to Nike’s Joe Holder share their tried and true methods for getting those damn words onto the damn page.

Every Exchange is a trove rich with practical knowledge that will enhance anyone’s creative process.

3/ “Bernice Bobs Her Hair”

(by F. Scott Fitzgerald. First appearing in the May 1, 1920 issue of the Saturday Evening Post. Here’s the story’s Wikipedia page, which is worth checking out.)

The Pat Hobby Stories is the collection of Fitzgerald’s stories that I’m currently reading. In the text’s introduction (written by Arnold Gingrich, longtime editor and co-founder of Esquire) it is explained that when Fitzgerald died, obituaries “gave no hint that this ‘forgotten’ author of the Twenties might ever be read again.”

Imagine my surprise, given how large not only Gatsby but also Zelda and Benjamin Button presently loom in American culture.

Gingrich quotes what the Chicago Daily News said when Fitzgerald died in 1940, and deems the excerpt “typical of the appraisals at the moment of his passing, and by no means the least kind”:

When he died at 44, F. Scott Fitzgerald, hailed in 1922 as the protagonist and exponent of the Flapper Age, was almost as remote from contemporary interest as the authors of the blue-chip stock certificates of 1929. He was still writing good copy, but no one was mistaking a story writer for the Herald of an Era."

Brutal!

Point being I am newly intrigued by Fitzgerald’s work and legacy (what changed since these obits?). I first read “Bernice Bobs Her Hair” about ten years ago and it remains among my favorites (as I’m sure you remember me saying in MRo44).

4/ “Quirky” tables for quirky table tennis

(The four tables were created by the Paris-based architecture and design firm Exercice.)

When the world learned, and then largely didn’t care, that the President of France is married to his former teacher 24 years his senior, it became evident that the culture of the French education system is darn different from ours here in America.

These ping-pong tables also illustrate this vast divide.

Per Dezeen, the works “encourage children to make up their own rules and strategies.” The designers also describe working towards a “less competitive, more collaborative approach to sport.” (quoted in the Dezeen piece).

Stateside, when I was in fourth grade, a kid in my class was benched for arguing the rules of knockout...I digress.

That’s all for everyone!

In the thick of it all, Media Roundup persists.

There’s a nice little four-piece awaiting you today. Enjoy!

1/ Football

(a 304-page book by Chuck Klosterman that came out this past January, also available as an audiobook included with Spotify Premium)

The inherent violence of football brings me a deep sense of calm. Some of the most content moments of my year come while I’m sitting in front of a television on an autumn Saturday, happy as a damn clam, watching college football from dawn til dusk.

I was elated when I learned that (fellow Portlander) Chuck Klosterman, quite possibly my favorite living author, wrote a book on football. He called it Football (already hilarious)!

It is...SO smart. To illustrate how wide an array of subjects Klosterman keenly analyzes through the prism of football, I shall present you with a two-page spread from the index:

What other text has Taylor Swift, Billy Bob Thornton, and Ulysses? Even if we just look at the V section, who among us would remain uninterested?

Klosterman also explains how Tim Walz functioned as “a reverse Margaret Thatcher.”

Run don’t walk.

2/ The Veronicas’ “12 to 12”

(released on March 6 on the triple j YouTube channel)

Miley Cyrus’ Plastic Hearts was a paradigm shift, and one that is becoming increasingly clear almost daily. The ever-insightful Lindsay Zoladz detailed this in her review, which concluded with “rock music has found its most earnest and high-profile millennial ambassador. Maybe rock’s not dead — it’s just in the capable hands of Miley Cyrus.”

So these Australian identical twins took a tepid song from a tepid male pop-star and made it absolutely jumpin’. Game set match.

(Also, good moment from How Long Gone the other day ( “907. - Audrey Hobert”) when Chris Black said, about a cover of Olivia Dean’s “Man I Need”, “I don’t need to have sombr butcher it with his lil hips.”)

3/ “That Red Roof! Those Tiffany Lamps! It’s a Pizza Hut From the Past.”

(written by Steven Kurutz, photographs by Noah Kalina, published in the NYT earlier this month)

Here lies a well-photographed piece about something interesting going on at The Hut.

this restaurant in Tunkhannock, Pa., was a Pizza Hut Classic. The interior design and menu had been painstakingly engineered to replicate the Pizza Huts of the 1980s and ’90s, when families and friends settled into red-vinyl booths on a Friday night to eat deep-dish pan pizza and drink Pepsi from red plastic cups.

It’s a good read. Don’t scroll past Kalina’s photos, which vividly illustrate a place where one can “maybe have a Proustian experience with a Parmesan-dusted breadstick”.

4/ Chuck Taylor 1970s

(pictured below some Naked and Famous Wax Coated Black Stretch Strong Guy jeans)

Converse are excellent; Chuck 70s are the best Converse.* They’re splendid and classic in run-of-the-mill colors, but they’re also superb when deployed as collaborations. Off dome, you’ve got collabs with CDG Play, Braindead, several styles with J.W. Anderson, Kim Jones, Our Legacy, Fear of God, Feng Chen Wang, Isabel Marant, Chinatown Market, Dr. Woo, Kith, David Shrigley, Madhappy, and Hello Kitty. So yeah, rock ‘em.

*The official MR-verdict is still officially out on the new First Strings.

So long, Farewell!

Here are four rabbit holes I went down recently. Take a look—heck—take several.

While we’re here, happy 60th Birthday to Media Roundup (“happy to be on the team” responded MRo60)…

The archive is genuinely….so rich. Don’t hesitate to check out, say, ISSUE O ONE THREE, which ranges from Alexander Calder to Confoederatio Helvetica. Just sayin.

Ok, move along now!

1/ No Doubt’s Rock Steady

(Released by Interscope on December 11, 2001. Image is a scan of my CD)

Bet you didn’t know Prince co-wrote a song with Gwen Stefani. Bet you didn’t know a line in that song is “It’s icky, It’s sticky, ooo.” That, folks, is why Media Roundup is here, to make sure you know that the aforequoted “Waiting Room” is but one noteworthy track on an excellent album from the Anaheim-born band.

Here are the standout lyrics from the masterpiece (à la MRo55).

2/ Selected Southern license plates

(here are some Turkey-oriented Southern plates just to get you in the mood for license plate illustrations)

The past nine days of my life were spent driving twenty-three-hundred-plus miles around states that seceded.* I saw many things! While driving, I developed a fondness for certain license plates native to those Southern states. They almost made me smile when I’d see certain ones as I drove hour after hour... “well hello there Disabled Veteran from Florida!”--one of my favorite designs, simple but effective.

Let’s hone in on the Mississippi Department of Motor Vehicles to acquire some context and scale.

There are no fewer than 321 different license plate designs currently available in Mississippi (counting specialty and NASCAR). Plate options in the Magnolia State range from that of the Sunflower County Ministerial Alliance Counseling Services to the Tupelo Elvis Presley Fan Club to Pearl Harbor Survivors on motorcycles.

I’ve narrowed my All-Stars South team down to 20 plates, and that was not easy. Enjoy:

*The driving route was: New Orleans, Louisiana → Jackson, Mississippi → Helena-West Helena, Arkansas → Memphis, Tennessee → Nashville, Tennessee → Asheville, North Carolina → Columbia, South Carolina → Charleston, South Carolina → Savannah, Georgia → Gainesville, Florida → Atlanta, Georgia.

3/ Great advice from great image-makers

(published on the Louisiana Channel’s YouTube. The LC “is a non-profit media based at the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art in Humlebæk, Denmark” and the YouTube channel is GEM-RIDDEN)

Louisiana Channel is the best place known-to-MR to find artistic inspiration in the form of videos (tbt to Ben Lerner’s advice in MRo11). Nan Goldin saying “Don’t think that it’s okay to live in your phone. You have a lot more to say than Instagram.” keeps rattling around in my head.

In addition to Goldin, the interviewees are Paul Graham, Martin Parr, Ishiuchi Miyako, Elina Brotherus, Stephen Shore, Barbara Kasten, Anton Corbijn, Collier Schorr, and Ulay.

4/ “Gabriela Hearst Wants You To Buy Fewer Items of Clothing”

(a 33-minuted episode of The Run-Through with Vogue which aired on February 19, 2024)

I’ll leave you with this here Gabriela Hearst interview, conducted by Nicole Phelps (Global Director of Vogue Runway and Vogue Business).

At one point Hearst talks about how in-sync the creative team at Chloe was by saying “I move an eyebrow and everybody knows exactly what I mean.” Try and get cooler (not to mention more efficient) than that!

Ok. Goodbye dear readers. HELLO MONTH OF MARCH!

Hopefully you, dear reader, know what’s going on. If not, turn back to the first episode.

The eleventh of the forty-three installments of Points West was published in the 21 October, 1967 issue of the Saturday Evening Post. Below is the cover, followed by the piece, “California dreaming”, by Joan Didion.

“California dreaming”

Every weekday morning at 11 o’clock, just about the time the sun burns the last haze off the Santa Barbara hills, 15 or 30 men gather in what was once the dining room of a shirt manufacturer’s mansion overlooking the Pacific Ocean and begin another session of what they like to call “clarifying the basic issues.” The place is the Center for the Study of Democratic Institutions, the current mutation of the Fund for the Republic. Since 1959. when the Fund paid $250,000 for the marble villa and 41 acres of eucalyptus. it has been a favored retreat for people whom the Center’s president. Robert M. Hutchins, deems controversial, stimulating and. perhaps above ail, cooperative, of our kind. “If they just. want to work on their own stuff,” Hutchins has said. “then they ought not to come here. Unless they’re willing to come in and work with the group as a group. then this place is not for them.”

Those invited to spend time at the Center get an office (there are no living quarters at the Center) and a salary. the size of which is reportedly based on the University of California pay scale.

The selection process is usually described as “mysterious.” but it always involves “people we know.” Paul Hoffman, who was at one time president of the Ford Foundation and then director of the Fund for the Republic is now the Center’s honorary chairman, and his son is there quite a bit, and Robert Hutchins’s son-in-law, Rexford Tugwell, one of the New Deal “brain trust,” is there (”Why not?” he asked me. “If I weren’t here I’d be in a rest home”), and Harvey Wheeler, the co-author of Fail-Safe. Occasionally someone might be asked to the Center because he has a built-in celebrity value e.g., Bishop James Pike. “What we are is a group of highly skilled public-relations experts” Harry Ashmore says.

Harry Ashmore is a fixture at the Center, and he regards Hutchins--or. as the president of the Center is inflexibly referred to in the presence of outsiders, Dr. Hutchins--as “a natural intellectual resource.”

What these highly skilled public-relations experts do, besides clarifying the basic issues and giving a lift to Bennett Cerf (”My talk with Paul Hoffman on the Coast gave me a lift I won’t forget.” Bennett Cerf observed some time ago), is to gather every weekday for a few hours of discussion, usually about one of several broad areas that the Center at any given time is concentrating upon--The City, say, or The Emerging Constitution. Papers are prepared, read, revised, reread, and sometimes finally published. This process is variously described around the Center as “pointing the direction for all of us toward a greater understanding” and “applying human reason to the complex problems of our brand-new world.”

I have long been interested in the Center’s rhetoric, which has about it the kind of ectoplasmic generality that always makes me sense that I am on the track of the real soufflé, the genuine American kitsch, and so not long ago l arranged to attend a few sessions at the Center. It was in no sense time wasted. The Center is the most perfectly indigenous cultural phenomenon since the Encyclopaedia Britannica’s Syntopicon, which sets forth “The 102 Great Ideas of Western Man” and which we also owe to Robert, or Dr. Hutchins. “Don’t make the mistake of taking a chair at the big table.” I was warned sotto voce on my first visit to the Center. “The talk there is pretty high-powered.”

“Is there any evidence that living in a violent age encourages violence?” someone was asking at the big table.

“That’s hard to measure.”

“I think it’s the Westerns on television.”

“I tend (pause) to agree.”

Every word uttered at the Center is preserved on tape, and not only colleges and libraries but thousands of individuals receive Center tapes and pamphlets. Among the best-selling Center pamphlets have been A. A. Berle Jr.’s Economic Power and the Free Society, Clark Kerr’s Unions and Union Leaders of Their Own Choosing, Donald Michael’s Cybernation: The Silent Conquest, and Harrison Brown’s Community of Fear. Seventy-five thousand people a year then write fan letters to the Center, confirming the staff in its conviction that everything said around the place mystically improves the national, and in fact the international, weal. From a Colorado country-day. school teacher: “I use the Center’s various papers in my U.S. history-current events course. It seems to me that there is no institution in the U,S, today engaged in more valuable and first-rate work than the Center.” From a California mother: “Now my 15-year-old daughter has discovered your publications. This delights me as she is one of those regular teenagers. But when she curls up to read, it is with your booklets.”

The notion that providing useful papers for eighth-grade current events classes and reading for regular teenagers might not be at all times compatible with establishing “a true intellectual community” (another Center aim) would be considered, at the Center, a downbeat and undemocratic cavil. “People are entitled to learn what we’re thinking,” someone there told me. The place is in fact avidly anti-intellectual, the deprecatory use of words like “egghead” and “ivory tower” reaching heights matched only in a country-club locker room. Hutchins takes pains to explain that by an intellectual community” he does not mean a community “whose members regard themselves as ‘intellectuals.’” Harry Ashmore frets particularly that “men of affairs” may fail to perceive the Center’s “practical utility.” Hutchins likes to quote the late Adlai Stevenson on this point: “The Center can be thought of as a kind of national insurance plan, a way of making certain that we will deserve better and better.”

Although one suspects that this pragmatic Couéism as a mode of thought comes pretty naturally to most of the staff at the Center, it is also vital to the Center’s survival. In 1959 the Fund for the Republic bequeathed to the Center the $4 million left of its $15 million Ford Foundation grant, but that is long gone, and because there was never any question of more Ford money, the Center must pay its own way, and its own way costs about a million dollars a year. Some 12,000 contributors provide the million a year, and it helps if they can think of a gift to the Center not as a gift to support some visionaries who never met a payroll but “as an investment [tax-exempt] in the preservation of our free way of life.” It helps too, to present the donor with a fairly broad-stroke picture of how the Center is besieged by the forces of darkness, and in this effort the Center has had an invaluable, if unintentional, ally in the Santa Barbara John Birch Society. “You can’t let the Fascists drive them out of town.” I was advised by an admirer of the Center.

Actually, even without the Birch Society as a foil, Hutchins has evolved the E=mc^2 of all fund-raising formulae. The Center is supported on the same principle as a vanity press. People who are in a position to contribute large sums of money are encouraged to participate in clarifying the basic issues. Dinah Shore, a founding member, is invited up to discuss civil rights with Bayard Rustin. Steve Allen talks over “Ideology and Intervention” with Senator Fulbright and Arnold Toynbee, and Kirk Douglas, a founding member, speaks his piece on “The Arts in a Democratic Society.” Paul Newman, in the role of “concerned citizen,” is on hand to discuss “The University in America” with Dr. Hutchins. Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas, Arnold Grant, Rosemary Park, and another concerned citizen, Jack Lemmon. “ Apropos of absolutely nothing,” Mr. Lemmon says, pulling on a pipe, “just for my own amazement— I don’t know, but I want to know —” At this juncture he wants to know about student unrest, and, at another, he worries that government contracts will corrupt “ pure research.”

“You mean maybe they get a grant to develop some new kind of plastic.” Mr. Newman muses, and Mr. Lemmon picks up the cue: “What happens then to the humanities?”

Everyone goes home flattered, and the Center prevails. Well, why not?

One morning I was talking with the wife of a big contributor as we waited on the terrace for one of the Center’s ready-mixed Martinis and a few moments’ chat with Dr. Hutchins. “These sessions are way over my head,” she confided. “but I go out floating on air.”

Joan Didion

1/ Joan Baez’s Diamonds and Rust

(YouTube link; Spotify link)

You are in for a treat when you read on the back of a 12” sleeve that Joni Mitchell is the album-in-your-hand’s sole guest vocalist:

So. This is the album thee Joan Baez wrote largely about her relationship and breakup with thee Bob Dylan. Released in 1975, it is somehow seldom remembered/listed (obviously the 1970s were rife with pantheonic albums, but still).

You should be sitting down for Baez’s voice as she opens the album with the titular track. Crystal clear and sinewy, “Well I’ll be damned / Here comes your ghost again.” And we’re off (Notably, the following lyrics uphold that vivid, high bar: “But that’s not unusual / It’s just that the moon is full / And you happened to call”).

“Jesse” (written by Janis Ian) and “Winds of the Old Days” are two go-to bittersweet-if-not-crushingly-sad bops in my book. The opening line of the former: “Jesse, come home, there's a hole in the bed / Where we slept” makes me think of course of Joni Mitchell’s ever-iconic, ever-relevant lines: “The bed's too big / The frying pan's too wide” from “My Old Man” (off Blue, but you should know that). I consider “Jesse” to be a bit of foreshadowing before Mitchell appears on Diamonds and Rust. How could I not!

I’ll leave you with the following descriptions of each track on the album (also from the back of the LP sleeve):

2/ Heath Bars

(“HEATH Toffee Bars were invented in 1928 by Bayard and Everett Heath.”)

ENROBED. A Heath Bar is “English Toffee ENROBED in rich chocolatey coating.” From that word on the wrapper my obsession was born. It’s nothing short of insane copywriting. ENROBED? ENROBED!

A tier beneath my fixation on ENROBED is my belief that toffee is about to have a huge year (jury is still out on praline, FWIW). I suggest you chomp down on a Heath Bar ASAP. Trust me!

...ENROBED?!

3/ Despise Gossip’s “Submarine Tee”

(Available from Despise Gossip for $65. Mine took about 5 months, FYI!)

Despise Gossip is a very much on-the-rise small operation based in North Carolina, USA, run by a young guy named Jackson Underwood. Here’s DG’s Patreon and Instagram.

This t-shirt of theirs is superb. I feel confident calling it the best white t-shirt I’ve worn. It’s made of linen and just transparent enough. Here are some on-body fit pics I greatly enjoyed modeling:

I’ve been doing this move where I wear a semi-transparent shirt (mainly one of my Gnuhr shag t’s) over a vintage graphic t. It’s a lot of fun and creates dare I say a neat effect, as pictured above.

With this white t, you can customize the torso length and sleeve length which are very nice options to have. Here’s a photo that illustrated the level of sheerness:

4/ “rigatoni, silky green sauce, anchovy crumbs”

(by the Amsterdam-based Gabriel Poltorak as a post of his Substack, The Heat )

The food side of Substack is delicious and enticing. This is a recipe for a quick, blended kale pasta sauce whose flavor benefits a ton from the addition of some anchovy. The sauce was a touch thin for my liking, but my dinner guests disagreed (shoutout R and S, my DAWGS).

Bye for now!

Happy New YeaRoundup! Your 2o26 just improved by four things.

1/ Suzanne Jackson: What Is Love

(on view at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art until March 1, 2026; following photos by moi)

SFMOMA’s seventh floor is back in action with this exhibition of the work of Suzanne Jackson (1944 - ). When I walked into the museum--one of my favorite places--earlier this month, I had no idea who Jackson was. This is “the first retrospective devoted to the full breadth of her career.”

That being said/admitted, I really enjoyed the show. The hanging “early ethereal compositions on canvas that layer luminous washes of pigment and imagery from her dreams” stuck with me most (see above right and details below). There was a wall in one gallery with small scraps of Jackson’s canvas art that you could touch, which was a nifty curatorial decision, and one that furthered my understanding of the art!

Check out the show if you’re in San Francisco before March. And here is some further reading, an interview with the artist.

2/ BAND-AID® TOUGH STRIPS® Adhesive Bandages

(BAND-AID® bandages were first brought to marker around 1920. Yes, I am bummed to have been ignorant of the centennial!)

These things keep me afloat. I keep some in my wallet, some in my car, some in every bag. I think of them as a staple, like my iPhone or my baby sunscreen--less so elements of the consumer landscape and more so the water I’m perpetually swimming in.

So it threw me when my dear grandmother said “BAND-AIDs are a great product, I must say!” Yeah, I thought, dumbfounded. They really are a great product. So I’m taking this opportunity to appreciate them as such! These specifically are the best bandages. Trust me on this; I was something of a legend in my K-8 school’s who-needed-first-aid log.

3/ “College football bowls 2025: Storylines to watch for every game”

(article is by ESPN’s Bill Connelly; photo is by James Gilbert, and is of Oregon Duck true freshman cornerback Brandon Finney Jr., who had 3 takeaways in Oregon’s 23-0 victory over Texas Tech in the Capital One Orange Bowl on New Year’s Day)

College football headlines ranges from grotesque to poetic every week. This time of year the season is coming to a close, and chaos abounds.

There’s a flurry of three-dozen Bowl Games and then of course there’s the crash landing of the eleven-game College Football Playoff (still praying for a rename--it’s the championship bracket). (here’s a PDF with the full schedule). This is all complicated by the transfer portal, the NFL draft, and the endless shuffle of coaches.

So this article previewed every bowl game. The coverage is largely obsolete because only the Vrbo Fiesta Bowl and the Chick-fil-A Peach Bowl remain (and those are technically CFP games and so only kind of bowl games). Nevertheless, it’s stands as an entertaining piece of sports writing.

For instance, I had no idea about the “underrated bitterness” that was showcased in the IS4S Salute to Veterans Bowl (December 16) and the JLAB Birmingham Bowl (December 29). Regarding the former, “Jacksonville State and Troy are in-state rivals who will be playing each other in Mobile, Alabama, right in between the two schools.” Jacksonville State won 17 - 13. Regarding the latter: “App State and Georgia Southern are former FCS powers that don't like each other much either, and their first game this season, a 25-23 Eagles win, was great.” Georgia Southern won 29 - 10.

So if you’re profoundly stressed about how the Ducks will deal with the Indiana Hoosiers next Friday, revisit this article and crack a smile.

4/ the Kodak Charmera

(available from B&H for $45)

This little fella might just save Kodak. It’s been a big hit, flying off shelves--something of a rare occurrence for camera stores. My sister was (uncharacteristically) kind enough to mosey on down to Central Camera in her local Chicago and buy me one for Christmas (she then complained about this arduous task to me on FaceTime for a good half hour...still!).

And I love it! It’s so fun! I’m seriously considering rearranging my whole key ring situation (a big deal for me!) in order to fit Mr. Charmera on there.

Here are a few example photos I took on NYE of my friends in my kitchen. The pics are obviously limited in resolution (123 KB on average!). Still, I’d take these over iPhone photos any day of the week and so should you!

Later gator!

Hope you’re warm, dry, and doing alright.

Just as a note, the Gift Guide I made last year just passed 2,000 views, which is neat since it was originally sent to 46 people. So take a look at that. And this year’s. And the following!

1/ Photographs of a UPS finale

(taken by Natalie Carrasco, of her father on his “One final ride with UPS after 38 years on the road”)

These photographs graced my feed in early October, and they’ve given me a new aesthetic appreciation for UPS brown. The act of photographing a delivery driver gently nudges you into the idea of appreciating routine. So that’s groovy!

2/ Tom Brady's big fit on Big Noon Kickoff

(image is a screenshot from rivalry weekend coverage on November 29)

Do not try to adjust your picture! That IS Tom Brady flanked by not only Rob Gronkowski but also Derek Jeter. This was pregame coverage before the University of Michigan took on Ohio State in Ann Arbor.

Outfits from the bozo tight end and the Captain show what most male commentators sport late in the college football season: some kind of weatherized athleisure--boring! Mr. Brady on the other hand, looked great and also cool (and also warm). His eyewear choice dovetails with my theory that lightly tinted sunglasses are due to be huge; TB and I are on the same page as usual.

I recently scrolled through this article of photographs from Brady’s time at Michigan in the late ‘90s. The images are wildly striking in that they look much older than 30 years. The look and feel of college football has changed so much!

3/ Miley’s “Wish You Were Here”

(originally broadcasted on Saturday Night Live’s “At Home” edition on April 25, 2020)

To me, the words “Miley Cyrus” carry a whole lot more cultural oomph than the words “Pink Floyd”...(I was born in 2000! All I can be is myself!) This is one of Miley’s best covers, and that’s a medium in which she shines. It’s one of the best cultural products from Spring 2020.

4/ Long-sleeve t-shirts

(background is BAGGU)

Layers are the name of the game this time of year, and I’ve been getting quite a kick from incorporating long-sleeved ones. Here’s a list of some of my favorites, loosely from above, left to right:

• Uniformal Garments Raglan Waffle Knit Thermal: I’ve been wearing the ivory one almost daily, while eyeing the pink on their website (I had the raw hem cleaned up, FWIW).

• Nike Tech Men’s Base Layer Long Sleeve Top: This is a mock-neck reminiscent of the Nike Pro Combat era. It’s super duper warm with Nike’s Therma-Fit technology you may or may not, but should, know (and love).

• Nike ACG “Delta River” Dri-FIT ADV Long-Sleeve Base Layer: A soft, heavier base. Only the black is available from Nike right now, but you can find the maroon (and a nice green) if you try.

• MASH SF L/S Jerseys: The San Francisco bike store makes these long-sleeve jerseys and they are divinely versatile. The nifty print one is a collaboration from back in 2021 with the artist Laura Rokas. But they have a new collaboration one available now, with a pattern of artist Michelle Martin’s cyanotype weavings (and other patterns, as well).

• Tracksmith Brighton Base Layer: One of my most-worn garments this year as it looks good under anything. Merino working at its finest. Available in women’s and men’s.

Til next time!

Media Roundup’s fourth annual gift guide is more of a reflection than a list…I thought about the best (duplicatable) gifts I’ve received, and went from there.

But before those musings, I’ll list some of my favorite small businesses to buy people gifts from year round (so still some listing happening, don’t you worry).

Excellent places to find gifts:

Benjamin Edgar - A bit fancy, a barrage of cool.

Blue Lug - One of the world’s finest bike stores with a few locations in Japan and worldwide shipping. Their in-house backpacks, selection of reflectors, and compact wire locks are standout gifts. And the bike stuff too.

Draplin Design Co. - Supplier of some of my absolute favorite small things, such as this Tooth Saver!

DSPTCH - Truly the best, most durable bags money can buy. Not cheap, but will last forever. My Pencil Pouch has been with me almost daily for 11 years and is still perfect. I emailed them when a piece of hardware on my Fidlock Pouch broke; they provided me with a complimentary replacement--and an extra, just in case--within a week. An elite, if-you-know-you-know San Francisco company.

Girls Garage - My favorite nonprofit: “a design and construction school for girls and gender-expansive youth ages 9-18,” based in Berkeley. Support them through their great merch and beyond! GG is also having a holiday auction right now with marvelous and unique gifts. Be sure to check that out.

Japan Rock Archive - A dreamy repository. Give someone an original ad from the respective releases of Goats Head Soup, London Calling, Born in the USA and beyond. This Patti Smith Wave one is divine. You won’t regret poking around on there.

Krink - Puts the permanent in permanent marker. A K-60 Paint Marker is a household necessity (invaluable for poster making, among other tasks). Their packs of Super Permanent Stickers are also clutch.

Lichen - Stop what you’re doing and look at this egg holder (Instagram has better photos of it). Words seldom do justice to objects as stunning as Lichen’s in-house designs (and I’m tired). It’s insane they’re not charging 10x as much.

Minor History - Minimally branded, classic-looking leather goods. Good under $50 section.

Mooji Mooji - The best sweatshirts (see Issue 047).

Petrified Good - Clever upcycling and a good vintage selection. Some B-A-N-A-N-A-S prices on vintage Patagonia: thee 1989 Deep Pile for $180, Capilene base layer for $15, Synchilla for $15, red deep pile jacket for $35, tons of great baggies like these floral ones, et cetera et cetera. Ya snooze ya lose.

Pigeon Toe Ceramics - Unique forms from a lovely small team here in Portland (see Issue 045).

St. Louis Art Supply - Midwest stockist of many hard-to-find brands, such as Midori and Traveler’s Company. A necessary stop when you’re in STL.

WeBleedGreenAndYellow (on eBay) - A biased inclusion here. This is the best place to buy Oregon Ducks stuff. Any sports fan will get a kick out of their impressive inventory (I don’t know the situation exactly, but they’re associated with the UO athletic department).

Windthrow - Shoutout Will for cluing me in to this incredibly alluring Seattle outdoor store. I’ve yet to go IRL, but their website alone is a hoot and a half.

These were listed last year, but here they are again:

• Actual Source Books

• The Aesthetic Union

• Alaska Salt Co.

• Baltimore Photo Space

• Case for Making

• The Loop Running Supply Co

• MACHUS

• MASH SF

• Matador Equipment

• Rincon Tropics

• Turntable Lab

• The Weaving Mill

Ok, 2o25’s gift guide/gifting guide! Here we go!

1/ Memory Makers

A Nerf football is like a portable golf course (less eye-roll-inducing, too). Get someone to throw this neon football with you and you will get to know them in no time. You’ll close the deal! You’ll get the inside scoop! Whatever it may be!

That’s the M.O. behind this category: gift these things if you want to bond with the giftee. Or to encourage them to bond with others. Connection, people! It’s what will save us!

• Disposable film cameras: The Kodak FunSaver is the classic option in color, Ilford HP5 is my favorite option in black and white (most places that develop film will recycle the plastic shells for you, too).

• Nerf footballs: Vortex Rocket , Vortex Aero Howler. They’re just so great. Buy one for everyone you know who can or can’t throw.

• UNO Card Game - Retro Edition: You don’t know me until we’ve played UNO (with the retro deck, specifically).

• Chess on the go: 7” Folding Magnetic Travel Chess Set from The House of Staunton. I was given one of these when I was maybe 9 and I re-found it last year. Boy, have I been carrying it around! Sidenote: chess is about to be cool (again?).

• A good, durable, waterproof(!) speaker: UE Wonderboom. This dense little thing becomes hard to live without. It’s no hi-fi setup but it’s more than good enough for soundtracking fun with your dawgs.

2/ Functional Heirlooms

My dear grandmother Dina gave me the below plum-adorned Finnish jar a few years ago when I was at her house in Gainesville. She used it in her kitchen, but, upon my complimenting it, washed it and gave it to me before my visit’s end. This is a specific kind of gifting I aspire to--the functionality! The brevity! The worldliness!

My advice here is bifold: gift loved ones things that you are no longer using or appreciating to their full potential, and/or gift products that can eventually be passed on. Either endow something with the title heirloom, or make an informed purchase of an heirloom-to-be.

• Wool blanket: A family friend gave my brother a wool blankie he had for decades prior and boy was/am I jealous. Pendletons are hard to beat.

• Good duffel bag: I live and die by The North Face’s Base Camp Duffel (the Small is the most versatile size). I’d argue that it’s TNF’s best product, come to think of it...You can find rare patterns and collab editions if you so desire.

• Cookbooks / recipes: I’m a fan of Matty Matheson’s recent Soups, Salads, Sandwiches. But Joy of Cooking is a superb way to enlighten a kitchen-interested Gen Z-er.

• Multi-tools: the Leatherman Wave Plus should be everything you’ll need, but I am hearing excellent things about the new, primo Leatherman Glider. If you want to go neon and/or Swiss, get the Victorinox Rescue Tool MW.

• Braun watches: I go between the smaller BN0031WHSLMHL (above, left) and the larger BN0032WHSLMHG (above, right, with date). Can’t leave the house without one on my wrist.

3/ Bespoke Talismans

Wearing my late grandfather’s gold signet ring around the town was heartbreakingly stressful (also forbidden). My mom gave me my own, as-similar-as-she-could-find, silver signet ring when I graduated high school. Often in my field of vision, the engraved “AK” helps me remember who I am.

This category is of, small one-of-one (or at least one-of-few) keepsakes. They are heartfelt in their customization, but they can also be generic in a good, on-trend way.

• Signet rings: They’re timelessly enchanting. I would suggest buying a blank vintage one, then bringing it to a local place to be engraved. The older you can find, the better.

• Engraved YETIs: I’m all in on these silver bullet flasks. You can get them engraved through YETI or through other places.

• Custom pennants: I reached out to Rita, who owns Uptown Heritage, last fall when I wanted to make custom pennants for my dearest friends, whom I had known for 10 years. Rita was a joy to work with. The pennants came out perfectly and were a great price. I can’t recommend this enough!

  

• Traveler’s Notebooks: These fillable leather folders have a robust cult-following. You buy the leather shell and then you buy the inserts. They’re often sold out on the company’s website (as they are now). But you can find the original ones from stockists such as House Resort Stationery in Atlanta. And/or there are tons of options for handmade ones, often personalizable, on Etsy (and elsewhere). I put lots of random pieces of paper in mine, housed in the Zipper Case and the Large Card File Inserts:

  

• Lil metal tags: Tooting my own horn here. I fabricate these little tags in batches whenever I can and give them to people I treasure, to be treasured henceforth. They’ve been big hits. If you want one/some let me know and we’ll make it happen.

4/ Art, Broadly Defined

On my wall, above my desk, matted and framed, is the lineup card from the 12u baseball team I coach’s most memorable game last summer. I stare at it and smile all the time; those 8 innings will forever be legendary.

Most pieces of paper look quite good when matted and framed. Think outside the box! Odds are you’ll come up with a soon-to-be-beloved gift that commemorates a fond memory, a nostalgic ad campaign, an inside joke, a superlative meal.

I’ve purchased a few custom mats from this Etsy seller and they’ve worked well. ArtToFrames is my go to for, well, frames.

• Tickets: Mayhaps from a sporting event of an alma mater. Or literally any event. Pictured above are old football tickets I’ve collected of MY University of Oregon playing the respective universities of my siblings.

• Posters: Gagosian has an incredible inventory of well-priced, high-quality posters. Here’s a nifty, pretty big (28” x 38”) Ed Ruscha one for $20 (I think Ed is soon to be a household name but that’s a story for another time).

• Maps, folded or flat: The best parcel of mail I received this year (Shoutout Gabe) included this beautiful Texaco map--what a text! Get someone a road map, or a regular flat map of a specific place, meaningful or random. They all work.

  

• Guitar picks: A MR issue on (my obsession with) ephemera from the (Dixie) Chicks’ 2000 Fly tour is LONG overdue. Point is, find someone a guitar pick from the tour of an album/artist they adore. eBay has tons.

  

• Backstage passes: Ditto for backstage passes. THERE ARE SO MANY FROM FLY (as I said, LONG overdue...).

Happy gifting. I believe in you. Go team!

I’ve been doing lots of random things in the month+ since ISSUE 054. I was even on KQED, SF’s NPR, talking about jeans!

I’m scheming up some kind of gift issue for the near future…until then, be sure to revisit last year’s gift guide. All the links should be working…Run along now!

1/ 35mm photography on view at the newly-reopened Portland Art Museum!

(Julia Dolan, Ph.D., is The Minor White Senior Curator of Photography at the Portland Art Museum)

‘Twas a big day for me last Wednesday when I pranced into the member opening of the new and improved Portland Art Museum. There’s a lot to be said about the remodel. But the photography curation takes the cake by far. I am BLOWN AWAY! The curator(s) put on a damn CLINIC. Their selections were jaw-dropping, brilliant! I was literally standing there with my mouth open. Some made me laugh out loud...I was embarrassed to have only two cameras with me.

Here are some of my favorites. Definitely try to go yourself if/when you’re in Portland. I’ll be going AMAP. Come with me!

2/ Uniqlo stores right now

(Pictured is the Souffle Yarn Gradient Sweater in Light Blue. I wear a Medium.)

The void where a Uniqlo should be is Oregon’s greatest fault.

When I was in San Francisco earlier this month, the hour and a half I spent in the Serramonte Uniqlo re-retail-enchanted me. They have so much good stuff! Including but not limited to the J.W. Anderson collab pieces. I bought one of the above gradient sweaters and two of the below boxy oxfords (“boxy oxys”, if you will).

Furthermore, as illustrated in the above photo, the Oxford Boxy Cropped Shirt is the perfect length for me. Beside it is my Levi’s Western Shirt WHICH HAS BEEN ENGINEERED/TAILORED TO THE EXACT SPECIFICATIONS OF CHAMPIONSHIP ME. So it’s a time and money saving victory for me to be able to buy a pre-tailored shirt.

3/ the way Carlie Irsay-Gordon is running the Indianapolis Colts

(Irsay-Gordon took over the football team earlier this year)

Football is often on my TV, and when football is on the tube, women rarely are. Which is why I had to rewind the picture (that’s right, I still have cable) when I first saw Carlie Irsay-Gordon on the Colts’ sideline, taking notes and in a headset. I couldn’t Google fast enough!

This piece from Talk Sport clued me in. The Colts (who are currently 8-3 atop the AFC South) “have been in the Irsay family for 53 years”. Carlie is the eldest of Jim Irsay’s three daughters, and “had long been seen as the most involved in team operations” (quoting the Talk Sports piece). When Jim died earlier this year, Carlie took over, becoming the Colts’ owner and CEO (sidenote: The (32 team) NFL has more women owners than I would have guessed! This is from last year but lists 10).

Here’s a great clip from a press conference last month in which Irsay-Gordon talks about why she’s planted herself where she has. She says, “I need to learn more about this...I need to be able to say ‘is this person full of BS?’” She also says “It’s such a complex organism of football team"“ which I love. So anyway, keep your eyes peeled for C.I-G.!

4/ my Paul Smith jacket

(Sherpa lined, nylon exterior. More or less a remixed N1 deck jacket (see: this season of Articles of Interest). Mayhaps from the early 2000s.)

Barbour jackets were tempting me--a rare gap in my jacket armada! But then I heard Sir Paul Smith kick off this four-hour episode of Throwing Fits, was charmed, headed to the webernet, bought this jacket, and have been enjoying sporting it this rainy season.

Here it is on me, right here (Portland) right now (Tuesday)!

5/ Gaga’s b-sides from The Fame and The Fame Monster

(The Fame came out on August 19, 2008 and The Fame Monster came out on November 17, 2009. Pictured below is the The Fame Monster Picture Disc LP because it’s sick)

Somehow there are STILL several grossly underrated Lady Gaga songs. Many of them came early, appearing as what I’m calling “b-sides”--meaning they weren’t released as singles--on her debut album The Fame and The Fame Monster (the latter is kind of a reissue, kind of a standalone EP). I’ve compiled these tracks for you here.*

Here, too, is a table of each included song and the best line from each:

* I somehow hadn’t heard “Monster” before this morning so I don’t feel I can include it.

Can’t think of anything better to leave you with than that table! Talk soon!

Here are 5 nifty things to slingshot you right into the middle of the week.

1/ The Chicks’ version of “Stand By Your Man”

(released first in 1998 on the compilation album Tribute to Tradition and then in 2000 by the Chicks)

The (then Dixie) Chicks’ version of Tammy Wynette’s 1968 classic was released at arguably the height of the band’s fame. It was the b-side of the “Goodbye Earl” single (CD case pictured). Yet, this version by Natalie, Emily, and Martie has been widely forgotten. No longer!

Give it a listen. Maines’ breath-y singing makes it hard to look past the tumult of Wynette’s five marriages. I simultaneously recommend George & Tammy, the miniseries about Wynette and George Jones (country star and husband #3). I’m halfway through it--equally heartbroken and obsessed. Jessica Chastain and Michael Shannon star.

While we’re here I’ll remind you that Jane Krakowski (Jenna Maroney, more recently Mary Todd Lincoln) plays Wanda in the “Goodbye Earl” music video, which is indeed on my Mt. Rushmore of music videos.

2/ Flambeau Wild Bite Adventure Fishing Kit fish-shaped containers

( available in bass/green, trout/orange, and panfish/blue, each for about $15. Background is a version of Helen Frankenthaler’s Magnet.)

For no identifiable reason I strolled through the fishing section of Bi-Mart a few months ago. I on-the-spot bought one of these youth tackle boxes purely for the container. I went back the next week and bought one for my friend Quaye. She uses hers to store jewelry (it’s worth noting that Quaye can actually fish, unlike moi). I regret nothing!

3/ “We Are Alive”

(PDF link + NYer link; written by David Remnick, printed in the July 30, 2012 issue of the New Yorker. Photo is Mr. Springsteen playing a show at the LA Coliseum in September of 1985, per this article. )

If you’re wondering when (or, heaven forbid, “if”) you should see Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere, this profile should jolt you into action/toward the Fandango app (the film comes out this Friday).

I read this when I was first really getting into Bruce and it cemented him as someone worth listening to. It’s also one of my top two favorite Remnick profiles ever.

Here’s a good chunk:

Scialfa smiled at that. ‘When you are that serious and that creative, and non-trusting on an intimate level, and your art has given you so much, your ability to create something becomes your medicine,’ she said. ‘It’s the only thing that’s given you that stability, that joy, that self-esteem. And so you are, like, ‘This part of me no one is going to touch.’ When you’re young, that works, because it gets you from A to B. When you get older, when you are trying to have a family and children, it doesn’t work. I think that some artists can be prone to protecting the well that they fetched their inspiration from so well that they are actually protecting malignant parts of themselves, too. You begin to see that something is broken. It’s not just a matter of being the mythological lone wolf; something is broken. Bruce is very smart. He wanted a family, he wanted a relationship, and he worked really, really, really hard at it––as hard as he works at his music.’

4/ the MALMBÄCK display shelf

($16.99, available in the pictured/link gray and in white)

This is a great shelf. I used toggle bolts (a solution to many-a-problem) to install them on my apartment walls. The MALMBÄCK is great for holding lots of random things (shoutout Gabe for the Maggie Simpson doll!). It’s also great for holding framed artwork if you want to rotate your decor. Which you should.

P.S. -- The Ikea website is saying “Last chance to buy”. So I suppose Get It While You Can.

5/ excerpts from The Spectacle

(which arrived last month alongside my new Cubitts frames! Which I love!)

My favorite eyewear company, Cubitts, sends these little zines when you buy frames from them. It’s a nice touch to a notably good package-opening experience! This edition includes features on “Awkward Architecture”, collecting, and Don Judd! I bet if you went to one of their stores in the U.K. or New York they would give you a zine, too. Could be fun.

That’s all. See ya!