For this week, some photos! This is kind of a mishmash of what was on a roll I slowly snapped over the course of our horrifically long, equinox-ignoring winter. Publishing them feels pretty cathartic.

You can see those here.

Some news:

• Em has a concert as part of the Brooklyn Wind Symphony this Saturday the 13th at 5 PM! They’ll be playing music from Star Wars, West Side Story, and Princess Mononoke. It’s gonna be a good time. Maybe you’ll cry like they have at every rehearsal. You can reserve a ticket here!

• I will have a couple of my photos displayed at Green Space Studios in Union City, NJ, as part of their NEXUS series! Those will be up starting with the opening show, Friday, June 19th, and stay up until the end of July.

• Horsie’s first ever show is in Kingston on Friday, July 24th, at West Kill Supply. It’s free.

• Lastly, I will be performing as Ghost Down at my beloved Buffalo, New York’s Revolver Records on Saturday, August 15th. Flyer to come!

It’s gonna be a busy summer!

Misc. Stuff I’m Into:

Music:

• Álvaro Díaz’s OMAKASE;

• Genesis Owusu’s REDSTAR WU & THE WORLDWIDE SCOURGE;

• RaiNao’s Marcriá;

• Ibrahim Alfa Jnr’s Infinite Black Inside;

• Boards of Canada’s Inferno;

• feeble little horse’s bitknot;

• horsegiirL’s NATURE IS HEALING;

• Kim Petras’s Detour;

• Converge’s Hum of Hurt;

• Vince Staples’s Cry Baby.

They are all elbowing each other in the nose in competition for ‘album of the summer,’ and the winner is me.

Movies:

I’ve actually tried to rein in my compulsive movie watching lately in favor of other hobbies, but here are some that stuck out to me:

• I Love Boosters [2026, dir. Boots Riley]. Wrote a big piece over on letterboxd about this one, and am grateful to have had the chance to see Boots live for a Q&A about it!

• Obsession [2026, dir. Curry Barker]. I was invited onto AJ’s podcast dotzip (more specifically its series RAM) to talk about this movie and other stuff! You can listen to that here or wherever you get your podcasts!

• Candyman [2021, dir. Nia DaCosta]. Do not understand the distaste people seem to have for this one. Thrilling, chilling, and upsetting piece about collective black trauma.

• The Master [2012, dir. Paul Thomas Anderson]. Rewatch in 35mm. More to come, I am still chipping away at an essay on this one and want to take my time!

Reading:

• Started reading Elvis Is Dead, I’m Still Alive: The Story of Asian Man Records by Mike Huguenor, guitarist of Jeff Rosenstock’s band Death Rosenstock. It’s good!

• Continuing my dripfeed reread of Chainsaw Man Part 2 as the translated physical volumes are released. Still can’t believe it’s over.

• SpyxFamily continues to be hilarious and magnificent.

Games:

• Mina the Hollower. A beautiful game to experience, listen to, and live in the world of, so frustratingly close to perfection if not for some baffling, seemingly accidental design choices. Still probably my favorite game so far this year though.

• Minishoot’ Adventures. Wild how often I’m saying ‘aww 🥰🥹’ at a bullet hell. Playing a lot of top-down-Zelda-inspired stuff lately!

Other Stuff:

• ”The Opposite of Fast Fashion” by Percia Verlin. Thoughtfully compiled interviews and research into trends, who access to ‘slow’ fashion is really for, tailored to a fashion know-nothing like me!

• I saw Portrayal of Guilt, Street Sects, The Infinity Ring, and Cronies in LPR’s ‘Round’ last Tuesday, a stage built in the center of the room which is designed to encourage immersion but really just means I’m seeing more performer’s asses and getting in more people’s way than I typically expect to. Great show though! PoG’s guitarist and vocalist produces so many disgusting sounds I can hardly wrap my head around them.

For this week: Stewart’s.

One thing I always wonder about every time I have one of these (and never bother to look up the answer) is whether this brand of Stewart’s soda is the same brand as my beloved Stewart’s Shops that dot the Hudson Valley. It would make sense, considering that Stewart’s (the shop) sports the very ice cream that would make a wonderful float if paired with this straight shooter of a root beer. I’ve also never had a root beer float, now that I think of it. Another thing that’s quite easy to correct if I’d just take the time. Ah well. Nevertheless,

A perfect pairing to the salty pizza that obliterated the roof of my mouth this past Sunday, I’ll always reach for one of these if I see it and haven’t hit my sugar quota for the day (or sometimes when I have). It’s pretty basic, not too challenging, but doesn’t try to stifle what makes root beer root beer with an abundance of sugar, cane or otherwise, burying the flavor profile that makes you go ‘hm.’ And what makes root beer root beer? What are all these flavor profiles I purport to know? Hm! Another thing I should really have locked down if I’m writing these round-ups. Ah well. Nevertheless,

Stewart’s Fountain Classics Root Beer: 8/10

I recently refined my sausage and orecchiette recipe with a few small tweaks:

• using guanciale instead of pancetta,

• using half as much ground pork,

• toasting fennel seed and pepper in the rendered guanciale fat before cooking said ground pork, instead of hand-blending it into the pork beforehand,

• fully cooking the ground pork in the first step instead of waiting to finish cooking it with the rabe later,

• toasting more black pepper and fennel seed in the butter before quickly sautéing the garlic and broccoli rabe,

• actually using broccoli rabe instead of broccolini,

• keeping the sautéing of garlic and rabe and the re-adding of guanciale and pork to a ~four-minute window while the orecchiette cooks,

• using more reserved pasta water for emulsification than I had been previously (2/3 of a cup vs ¼ of a cup).

• taking a fork to the orecchiette to disallow its penchant for sticking together in five-piece clumps.

The rest of the steps are in that “review” of La Chimera [2023, dir. Alice Rohrwacher]. It came out looking like this, and it was wonderful. These little ears really are the best pasta shape, they just take a little nudge!

Now that everything costs ten billion dollars, I’ve had to reacquaint myself with The Joy of Cooking^TM, recipe-developing, making enough food to last my hungry ass a full week, and all kinds of iteration. The dishes are Sisyphean, the prep can be mind numbing, but by God, the results, the results, the results. I’m working on developing a vegetarian version too, maybe even a vegan version.

It takes less than an hour, try it out for yourself and let me know what you think, and if you have any questions!

- Will