This is/was the first of what I think will be a monthly-ish newsletter series… sign up to get it in your inbox here

hello

My first ‘newsletter.’

Why am I doing this? Because I write a fuckin’ lot, and have for many years, but I never show anyone, and I typically find the idea of doing so terrifying; but I’m getting old(er), and I’m trying to be less terrified about things. I suppose this is an exercise in confidence - more on that below.

I don’t agree with all (or even a lot) of what Seth Godin says/writes (there’s too much to have a strong opinion anyway, the guy has posted to his blog daily for decades), but this quote seems true and fair:

“The best practice of generously sharing what you notice about the world is exactly the antidote for your fear.”

There’s no formula yet for how I’ll fit ‘what I notice about the world’ into this newsletter, but I do notice a lot about the world. Noticing a lot lends itself to having a hard time staying focused on anything - a problem I encountered in blogs of yore - but a few threads are evergreen in terms of “stuff I pay attention to and want to talk about” - music, art, reading, travel, and little observations about the hidden joys and blatant absurdities in life.

So, in that spirit of “stuff I pay attention to”....

I took a quick trip to Philadelphia. I hadn’t been to the city in… 20 years? Back then, I didn’t really “do anything” there but drink Heineken and skateboard and try not to get jumped. But this time, in like a day and a half, I crammed in three gallery visits, two concerts, several bars and shops, and many hours in the wonderful Philadelphia Museum of Art. In the PMA I discovered the drawings of Wanda Gag for the first time, and she just blew me away with her small graphite (?) and ink works - and! her hundred year old children’s picture books, which are still in print, and which delighted my kids.

What truly grabbed me about Gag’s work was just how precious her treatment of the ordinary was. I know, this is not a new concept - still life is a thing - but her interpretation of space, the way it bends, the intensity she endowed on everyday objects… her lived experience comes through so clearly, as a person who really felt… all of it. Very relatable, for me. And, of course, Claude is there in the museum. Yes, Mssr. Monet. And he still slaps. And walking up to one of his paintings, standing (shrinking) right in front of it, brings out all kinds of conflicting feelings - like, Fuck you, Claude, old buddy, for being able to do this - and also - Claude, your art is everything, and you changed my whole outlook on life with a few little blots of pigment on linen.

music things

What I’ve been listening to a lot, according to last.fm: Mt. Joy, Turnstile, Nick Murphy (aka Chet Faker)… My wife and I went to see Mt. Joy a few weeks ago and it was a great show. I don’t know all their music - you don’t need to either - but I like “Sheep,” and “Bathroom Light” a lot. Some other shows I saw last month - Dave Matthews Band, Cults, The Head and the Heart, Bloc Party, 311 - it’s been more than usual for me, with the added weight of nostalgia.

I have some friends that are of the type to travel around the country for DMB shows, put his song titles on their license plates, get dancing fairy tattoos, etc… and I’m not there, but man, I can definitely get down when he gets up on that stage and does his funny little dancing and awkward small talk and they just play the shit out of those instruments for HOURS. It’s great. Now, 311 - I just might be turning into that type, with the license plate, trips across the land, alien tattoos… I’ve just liked them too much, for too long, and I’m too old to be even slightly embarrassed about it anymore. Love your life, as they say. And a quick note on Turnstile - holy shit. I feel some kind of parasocial dad-like pride when I think of a band playing music fully rooted in Baltimore/DC hardcore showing up on Fallon, getting spreads in GQ and Guess Jeans billboards or whatever, and turning out insane crowds at all their shows. Can’t wait to see them in Richmond later this year.

I think part of this writing experiment will be including playlists I make, so here’s June Superbloom - new and old stuff I’ve been listening to this month. Maybe in a future dispatch I will also launch a Music League for subscribers - I’ve been playing with a group at work and it’s a lot of fun.

art things

Art people don’t have a realistic alternative to Instagram’s effectiveness at getting artwork in front of other people, finding other artists making cool shit, and looking for IRL places that you can share your work. But at the same time, the principles (or lack thereof) that seem to drive the business of Instagram, and the generally enshittified experience of using the thing, remain as sucky as ever. AI-generated content is not helping. The tug-of-war between my ethics and my desire to connect is a constant battle when it comes to social media in general, but in particular, with this platform. I tried to stop using it at the start of this year, and my failure to do that, I think, is at least partially responsible for deciding to write this newsletter. Because I want to connect with people - like you! - but in a way that isn’t supported by the nanosecond “scroll-and-like” (the foundational user experience of Instagram.) So. I’ll still be there, posting my paintings and liking yours - but for going deeper than that, I’m starting this.

(I did not mention TikTok because I have not figured out how it works yet.)

Speaking of artists and making stuff - I just finished a course with Visual Arts Passage and painted more paintings (using actual paint, not pixels) than I’ve ever painted before. Painting with paint is different, and hard, and satisfying. But I’ve been learning from some really amazing painters - shout out to Ray Bonilla and Cassandra Kim. If you’re also an illustrator or painter and looking for community and mentorship, VAP is pretty great - and they host a free (virtual) drawing group every Thursday, too.

I also recently tried designing a few concert posters - I understand objectively how it’s important to try doing things before it feels like you’re ‘ready,’ but the struggle is real, and I’m still learning how to do it. No one is asking me to make these posters, but if I pretend like they are, maybe, someday? (also, I saw badbadnotgood back in May, with Baby Rose, and they were phenomenal - the "slow burn" EP was my favorite release of last year)

I did not actually go to Brisbane for this

I took my daughters to watch an artist (the wonderful @bailzy) painting a mural in our neighborhood, and as we were leaving, my unimaginably precocious Lily (5 y/o) stopped in her tracks and hit me with this question: “Daddy, do you have the confidence to paint a mural?” - after my head stopped spinning, and I asked her “wait, you know what confidence means?” I realized she was asking me, with the same intensity that I ask myself, a question that I ask myself, constantly. Do I have the confidence for [this thing]? But unlike when I ask myself and feel ok brushing the question away, when a sweet kid in a ponytail and unicorn t-shirt asks, it hits different, and especially if that kid is yours - you have to take the question seriously. Thanks for putting me on blast, kid - now I have to go write a goddamn newsletter.

tech

I can’t write anything for a crowd in the Summer of 2025 without at least mentioning AI - so - I’m using AI a lot for all kinds of weird reasons (but NOT writing this newsletter - no robot could sufficiently convey the existential turmoil I swim in daily, and the whole point of this is to try being authentic and vulnerable) but - travel plans, basic ‘how does [thing] work’ questions, even analysis of my personal journals - the robots can serve up some frighteningly insightful stuff and efficient research. You might ask, however - what is my doom outlook? When is the singularity starting? And to that I say: It’s the salad days right now. Doom will come in a few years when the founders and C-people at these companies have done away with idealism, and given themselves over entirely to making (and spending) as much money as they conceivably can. As far as the rest of my thoughts on tech go, at the moment - maybe I’ll save some for the next newsletter. I have three big hardbound books stacked on my desk right now - menacing me with their unreadness - each some flavor of critique on techno-utopianism. I don’t need to read three more books on this topic to know how I feel, and I definitely won’t read them all before my next thing that I write, but I keep buying (and not reading) them anyway. (the books are - ‘Superbloom’ by Carr, ‘Careless People’ by Wynn-Williams, and ‘Tech Agnostic’ by G. Epstein - has anyone read these? Are they good?)

books

Since I just mentioned several books I haven’t read, I am obligated to mention one or two that I actually did - and lately, friend, there are not many of those. However! One that I enjoyed recently was Get the Picture, by Bianca Bosker of the Atlantic. Bosker is a terrific reporter and the book is her record of launching herself as lamb to the feral wolves of the New York City art gallery world, where she sets out to understand - what the fuck are these people doing and why are they all so mean? The result is a curious and inspiring and entertaining account of how the wheels turn, from the gallery owners of Chelsea and the coveted MFAs of Yale to the sore-footed immigrant museum-minders of the Guggenheim. If you have any interest in making art, or looking at it, and the market that exists between those two states - this book will do something for you. Another book I read in the last month (quickly, since it’s only like forty pages long) was a random poetry thing (Signs, music by Raymond Antrobus) that I picked up while killing time in a Wilmington, DE bookshop - I went for it when I saw on the jacket that it “explores the before and after of becoming a father with tenderness and care;” since landing on the ‘after’ side of that sentence myself almost six years ago, I hadn’t really looked to poetry for perspective - in retrospect, a mistake. One should often look to poetry for perspective, for fatherhood or anything else.

that's all

Some gratitude to you for making it this far! We did it! I did a thing I wasn’t sure about by writing this, you did a thing you weren’t sure was going to be worth your time by reading it. May we both move on from our screens to find that our uncertainties were unfounded. I will keep trying to notice things to share here if you’ll keep reading about them. If you found any of this interesting or boring or enraging or whatever, let me know. This may shock you, but I’m not doing this for the certain wealth and fame it will bring - I’m doing it to start conversations, so let’s start one.

If you know any other humans who would have read all the way to the end of this, please send it to them.

❤️✌️

june superbloom - newsletter #1