People are desperate to feel connected, to feel community and meaning. I can see that being manifest in many developments, some heartwarming, some forced, and some of everything.

A pet peeve is going to a museum in the dead of winter, a visit I had been anticipating highly, and then being unpleasantly warm/hot inside, sweating actually. Yesterday my base layer was wet with sweat. Not sure why many museums are so warm in the winter and cold in the summer.

Headed to Vancouver and then Sechelt, B.C. this week. Any and all suggestions are welcome and appreciated.

Anybody else feel like the New York Times cooking section daily recipes are often mediocre? So many of them look great, and then I try them, verbatim, and the results are pretty lame.

I own W. Eugene Smith’s custom made stainless steel darkroom sink, made circa 1957 for his loft at 6th Ave and 28th NYC

IT IS IN YOUR SELF-INTEREST TO FIND A WAY TO BE VERY TENDER

This is outstanding. www.youtube.com/watch?v=glHb...

What a great piece! This just gets better and better as you read. prospect.org/2025/12/11/s...

“We look forward to hosting (former Vice President Kamala Harris) at Thalia Mara Hall and sharing in the dialogue her visit will spark about the future of our democracy,” Jackson Mayor John Horhn said.

My latest interlibrary loan caper. Came from University of Houston music library, which my phone indicates is 101 miles from where I'm typing now. The public library branch here in downtown Bryan, TX is about a 200 yard walk, across railroad tracks. Interlibrary loan makes me feel alive.

wtf is a FIFA peace prize? that's like being an NFL laureate in physics

Earlier this year @texashighways.bsky.social published an essay I wrote about first three years living in Texas. Piece has some autobiography, plus a subtle troll of fish and game culture here. Yesterday, an audio version with me reading was published, found here: texashighways.com/culture/essa...

Absolutely wild that there's an NPR story about states preparing a year ahead for election interference *by the president of the United States*

This new letterpress edition of my essay on Jason Molina is available from craftsman Jon Beacham, a favorite collaboration of my career. Jon puts all proceeds from sales back into his work. This edition mostly sold out pre-order. Some left today will go fast. thebrotherinelysium.com/shop/love-an...

Front page of today's Houston Chronicle. We're banning books and running out of drinkable water. Go Humans Go!

4.4M views of shitty video of what could be a great, rare modern video of Zeppelin. The over-cute editing is mind-numbing. You can't see anything. You only see the choices of the absurdly over-clever editor. So much extant concert footage is ruined like this. www.youtube.com/watch?v=K793...

Because of tip on this forum last night from @johnlingan.bsky.social, I bought this download of Bill Orcutt's new album this morning, burned it onto CD, and cranked it driving around in my car today. Surprising, beautiful, and moving music. billorcutt.bandcamp.com/album/how-to...

I picked up this CD by Joan Shelley recently. It is outstanding. The tune "Who Do You Want Checking In On You" kills me. joanshelley.bandcamp.com/album/real-w...

Monday's not even over, but here's your Tuesday post for Degenerate Art! I wrote about going to the No Kings events in DC Saturday, why they're an important step (a beginning!), and what to do next, if you're trying still to figure it out. I also opine on why the NYPD et al. put out those releases.

I wish Springsteen had kept this band together longer, like maybe 10 to 15 years, before he went to back to E Street Band. www.youtube.com/watch?v=hybi...

I read this slim potent book twice in one day this week. Next day I read it back to front. Some deep stuff in here. Tremendous thinking and writing. Gonna be one I keep close by on small shelf of inspiring mainstays.

This is why the Rays have the 3rd most wins in MLB since 2008, in a metaphoric nutshell: www.nytimes.com/athletic/670...

In car in College Station TX this morning, listening to radio, a PSA for event at George H.W. Bush Presidential Library. 35th anniversary of Bush 41 signing Americans with Disabilities Act, led by GOP Sen. Bob Dole. Can you Imagine Trump/GOP today supporting a big bill to help handicapped people?

My favorite bookstore in Houston this morning.

New letterpress edition of my 2018 Jason Molina essay being published in December by The Brother in Elysium of Holyoke, MA. This collaboration (first printing of 200 copies in 2019) is a favorite collaborations I've been lucky to have. Pre-sale available here thebrotherinelysium.com/shop/love-an...

Nixon carried 49 states (!) in November 1972 with historically low voter turnout. Playboy magazine's November 1972 issue sold 7.2M copies, the peak monthly circulation in their history. (I love research).

I want to put in a word for Bendowa Books, a wonderful online seller of carefully curated rare books based in Holyoke, MA. The owner of Bendowa, Jon Beacham, is also a world class letterpress printer. bendowabooks.com

“I am not a partisan for any party, but I am a partisan for democracy. When something or someone threatens free and fair elections or fundamental rights, I will not shy away from coverage even if it means coming off as a partisan.” open.substack.com/pub/gelliott...

My latest Interlibrary Loan caper. Free, I have this book for 6 weeks. One of the great services our culture provides. Book came from a library in Corpus Christi, 204 miles from my house. If MAGA new about this service, they would seek to do abolish it, and call it socialist.

This is one of few books I still have from high school. Public school in town of 10K people in coastal N.C. My great English teacher assigned me this book to read before watching movie (book sadder, deeper). He next assigned me The Magic Barrel and was forever hooked on Malamud.

This 2005 book, "Findings" by photographer Hiroshi Watanabe, is spellbinding. I can't stop looking at it. 61 square, black and white images spanning the globe from the US (mainland plus Alaska and Hawaii), Japan, Ecuador, Iceland, Burma, Spain, Tahiti, India.

Springsteen NYC 2000 is back on Youtube which I appreciate. But gives me new opportunity to feel deep remorse at incessant close-ups & cute over-editing of 99% of concert videos. Please let some images breathe. I'd love to get hold of raw footage and oversee a recut. www.youtube.com/watch?v=1USJ...

White supremacy in a nutshell. www.qasimrashid.com/p/a-white-ma...

I want you all to just watch how quickly mainstream media moves on from this story now.

GOD GOLD GUNS. And hair style. That pretty much covers it. Texas!

The process of art must always go where the most uncertainty lies. So that beauty when its found, as it rarely is, has a touch of the marvelous about it, the unknown. Masterpieces are only beautiful in a tragic sense, like a starfish lying stretched dead on a beach in the sun - Wm Carlos Williams

Been cranking this CD in my car this week. Holy interplay between piano (Angelica Sanchez) and drums (Chad Taylor). Subtle and sizzling music.

It's Friday! Your assignment this weekend: Hang out in a bookstore or library. Spend time with the books. Chat with the booksellers & librarians. Enjoy the community. This is activism. Your presence energizes these spaces & these spaces need energy. Have a great weekend!

Dear World, if you've never streamed WKCR out of NYC before, the next three days are a good time to do it. 72 hours of the music of Charlie Parker and Lester Young. Special note for the posthumous shows of Phil Schaap, who was one of a kind, a true American and NYC original.

Facebook just reminded me of this photo I posted 9 years ago today, rendering an epic edit of my book, Gene Smith’s Sink, in which I carved a more/less conventional biography - 20 years of work - down into something I love more, cutting more than half. (The conventional one would have sold more).

BookPeople, Austin TX. Great store. I spent $97 there today. But dismayed by the similarity of book covers in this section. Coming across this feeling often in good bookstores. It’s like a certain kind of same fog over all of them.

New idea for enterprise: A gym with good music. Perhaps they have a schedule so you can plan around late Beethoven string quartets or Monk's Brilliant Corners or Lauryn Hill or what have you. I'm okay with tuning out the world through ear buds but it lessens the communal experience of a good gym.

At the end of every Tuesday post I write for my newsletter (all of which are available to anyone), I include a list of what regular people can do. There are seriously hundreds of ways you can act. See this post, for example on how to deal with ICE.

First day of 4th grade for our son today. Last night we gave him choice for dinner. Anything he wanted. He chose Rockfish Stew a family favorite, a traditional dish from coastal N.C. Yum.

Important. Use public library as much as possible. For one thing, it’s one of the best public services in our culture. They have services I’m sure you didn’t know they have, that many people depend on. For another, usage determines funding.

Pamlico River near Bath, N.C. looking west this evening. Been seeing variations of this regularly since Day 1. Never gets old.

Me at work. With writer Allan Gurganus. Durham Bulls Athletic Park 2013. I was directing a doc project called Bull City Summer, documenting a season at AAA baseball stadium.

Athletes the world over, in all sports, as far as I can tell, use the words "obviously" and/or "honestly" in every sentence when talking to media.

Four benches by Jenny Holzer in light rain. Also saw a large late Turner inside and, of course, it was stormy. Not a bad day here. The Clark Art Institute. Williamstown, MA.