I got second place in the downbeat critics poll!

can you do this for the grammys?

The fun thing is, when you are in a deep housing hole, incremental steps like this not magically solving the crisis means everyone crows that they were right to be nimbys and these should never have been built at all. That‘s never gonna end.

Trump can’t defeat Iran but he can go after Pete Seeger’s boat.

Monday at Close Up I’m presenting new music for this group of legends. Music inspired by Sonny Rollins, Leon Parker, and Phillip Glass. Jacob Garchik – trombone, Adam O’Farrill – trumpet, Hannah Marks – bass, Tomas Fujiwara – drums 154 Orchard St.

Alternate earth: Giuliani accompanies Times Square cleanup with state lifting residential FAR cap & massive manhattan rezoning. Midtown to Wall St has thousands of 60 story Singapore style apartment buildings that are 30%vacant. The skyline has no dip in the middle. brooklyn is a sleepy suburb.

haven’t seen it yet but “the invite” is about a married couple & Seth Rogen plays a middle aged Bay Area music conservatory professor with a chic SF apartment. This person does not exist. This conservatory with full time jobs does not exist. This apartment that the person can afford does not exist.

After writing eulogies for so many S.F. icons — from Cliff House to Claude the alligator — how do I feel about @sfchronicle.com leaving 901 Mission St.? Surprisingly OK. My tribute to our century-old "news factory," and how to move on in a changing city. 🗞️ ❤️ www.sfchronicle.com/totalsf/arti...

What’s remarkable about all this stuff is the stolen valor. You didn’t build shit, you won a birth lottery. You are a podcaster not Emperor Vespasian. bsky.app/profile/just...

What's all this about a celebrity wedding at Madison Square Garden?

This is wrong. williams‘s theme does not represent the shark itself, but rather the fear of the shark.

This project on Linden and Nostrand has been underway since 2014, and sort of crept along until 2018, then abandoned, resold a year ago, now is finally finished. Not surprisingly, it looks terrible. Tiny windows, PTACs, panels instead of bricks. hey, beats rats and squirrels.

@dieworkwear.bsky.social can you write about Clyde Frazier?

Saw "Disclosure Day". spoiler alert. It was a hoot. It's not hard sci fi and it's not gonna blow your mind like it's Kubrick. Speilberg didn't really ever present grand sci fi ideas. But great entertainment. Why are his aliens always naked?

Compare the violin-in-the-eye pose to these period illustrations from the Bach Museum that show off male calves—a huge sex symbol of the day—in a gloriously gratuitous way that still makes sense.

Statue of Liberty, Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi & Gustave Eiffel, dedicated 1886, 📸’s by @natlyphoto, PannaPhoto

I knew that band looked familiar

Four architect licenses, four territories: 1. Nikolai Katz 2. Ambrose Aliaga-Kelly 3. Shmuel Wieder 4. John Cetra Link for summary: citytracker.ai/applicants

Living small is the nytimes's "biweekly column exploring what it takes to lead a simpler, more sustainable or more compact life", this week about a swanky reno on a $1m pied a terre for a 17 old featuring a $6000 coffee table. www.nytimes.com/2026/06/09/r...

Hmmm they removed a citibike dock at 7th Ave and 10th st in park slope and it’s bit of a bike share desert right there. Maybe deblasio wanted the parking back.

NYC cyclists, if you are on a two way street, stopped at a red, and you need to make a left turn, and there's lots of waiting, oncoming traffic, but no cross traffic, would you salmon the last half of the block to make the left easier? and is there a name for this maneuver?

Why didn't they just ask, like, 4th chair 1st violin or something. www.nytimes.com/2026/06/02/w...

Me trying to sell my old bass trombone

Many thanks to Ethan Iverson for hosting my expanded reflections on Sonny Rollins, including a Desert Island list of recordings. substack.com/@iverson/not...

Here's an area south of Prospect Park that Mamdani can rezone.

Miles Davis was born 💯 years ago today. 🎺 To celebrate, his estate has partnered 🤝 with Dad Grass 🍃 for the first-ever official THC-infused ‘Bitches Brew’ Leisure Drink.🥤

It is with deep sorrow and profound love that we announce the passing of Sonny Rollins. The Saxophone Colossus died this afternoon at his home in Woodstock, NY at the age of 95. 1/2

New Yorkers, they get the job done.

Send your kid to the school closest to your house.

I managed to cram in a lot of ideas here, mostly about Miles Davis but also about Stravinsky, balkan music, flamenco, Chopin, Hendrix, the Beatles, Debussy...it all seems related. jacobgarchik.substack.com/p/major-over...

I have a lot of thoughts about this...#1 is, what took so long? Why didn't the world's most famous Albanian try this? or DeBlasio? afraid of offending the car wash industry? gothamist.com/news/mamdani...

Mamdani’s city planning chief announces the admin’s first neighborhood rezoning, of McDonald and Coney Island avenues in Brooklyn, which they call the “South of Prospect Park Plan” gothamist.com/news/mamdani...

Bizarre free bus between Domino park and prospect park. Is the developer paying for this? Do you have to watch ads on the bus or something? theordinarybus.com

Borough Park got the "replace your old double hung with energy efficient windows even if it doesn't look historic" memo.

Anybody see that Grimes McDonalds ad? sigh.

Finally an essay about Ditmas Park aka Victorian Flatbush that celebrates the strange beauty but also doesn't gloss over the xenophobic exclusivity. It's a neighborhood with one of the biggest imbalances between transit access and density. nyra.nyc/articles/dit...

Central Brooklyn businesses hope Mayor Mamdani will make it his business to extend Flatbush Avenue’s new bus lanes south of Prospect Park. nyc.streetsblog.org/2026/05/14/c...

Look, installing mini splits while preserving neighborhood character.

Someone graffiti-ed Prospect Park's Vale of Cashmere construction signs with "They Paved Paradise". Left-NIMBY but against renovating deteriorating parks?

One of the inspirations for this was Michael Lowenthal's recent essay about playing with Sun Ra at Dartmouth-another example of the presence of avant-garde music on elite university campuses. Lowenthal learned something different but it's another side of the story. lithub.com/what-playing...

I've written a long essay about education in the context of my reunion with my teacher Anthony Braxton. Given the many posts I see here about the fraught state of higher education, I don't know if this is one of them or a counterbalance- but it is my story. www.tedreichman.com/writing/tric...

Not only is the xmas special canon, the Donny and Marie Star Wars episode is canon.

This building at 17th and 6th Ave in Manhattan is making me think Flatbush new construction doesn’t look half bad.

one thing i am learning from being on youtube is that people are seemingly distracted by everything? i have been told that my hats are distracting, that my pauses are distracting, that open curtains are distracting, that closed curtains are distracting. an unconscious touch of the face? distracting.

If the nytimes ever does "30 1990s jazz records" or "5 minutes to make you love 90s jazz" we can all argue about what will be on there. This should be near the top. RIP Kiyoshi Kitagawa en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triology

Folks, the nytimes basically gave up on reviews of recordings and concerts a few years ago, in favor of "5 minutes" and "best of" lists that everyone would inevitably be mad about. It's designed to get you to interact. They're playing you.

BBC Radio 3 Night Tracks Now Playing Anthony Haskell, Jacob Garchik & Kronos Quartet God Shall Wipe All Tears Away

🇺🇦 #NowPlaying on BBC #Radio3's #NightTracks Anthony Haskell, Jacob Garchik & Kronos Quartet: 🎵 God Shall Wipe All Tears Away #BBCRadio3 #AnthonyHaskell #JacobGarchik #KronosQuartet ▶️ 🪄 Automagic 🔊 show 📻 playlist on Spotify#NowPlaying▶️ Track on #Spotify: