Greetings following a very busy summer! Since last we spoke, I was in Buffalo for the Teaching Black History Conference, I did a bunch of exhibition tours at the Center for Brooklyn History (including two as part of Battle of Brooklyn Community Day, where I was captured looking cute and having fun), and I got to bop around the city a little during some time off the end of August/Labor Day weekend. Fall is shaping up to be potentially as busy; on to the listings and stuff for more.

Coming Up Next

My tours at the Center for Brooklyn History may be extended past mid-September (right now the only one on the calendar is a large private group on 9/19), so stay tuned to their event listings for more details. Otherwise, with fall and early winter comes some more tours and classes with Brooklyn Brainery and of the Dyker Heights Christmas Lights. (And I have a few private tours in the hopper, as well; if you’d like to gauge my availability and pricing, get in touch.)

September 2026

• Nothing scheduled as yet

October 2026

• October 11, 1pm: Quenching Brooklyn’s Thirst (with Brooklyn Brainery)

• Additionally, if my work with CBH is extended, save the date for Battle of Brooklyn: Fought and Remembered tours on 10/3, 10/10, 10/24, and 10/31 at 2 pm

November 2026

• November 10 and 17, 6:30 pm: The Olympics that Weren’t (at Brooklyn Brainery): Part One on 11/10 will focus on the antecedents to the Giuliani years; Part Two on 11/17 will examine the Bloomberg years into the future.

• November 27, 7 pm: Dyker Heights Christmas Lights (this and all other dates through Dyker Heights Christmas Lights LLC)

• November 28, 7 pm: Dyker Heights Christmas Lights

Something from the Clipping File

I’m not sure if or how this piece will make its way into my tours in the future, but it has totally shifted my roadside point of view. I never paid much attention to Fisker Motors, a kind of twice-defunct hybrid and then fully-electric firm. But apparently, after Fisker went under (again), the remaining stock of Fisker Oceans were all bought by a T&LC fleet operator, American Lease. Spare parts and software updates are being done entirely in-house (since there isn’t anywhere else to go). All told, New York now has the plurality of Fisker Oceans anywhere in the world.

It’s a fascinating phenomenon that until this summer I had not paid attention to at all, and now whenever I’m in the city it’s something I regularly witness and think about. If you’re like me, you’ll never see street traffic the same way again, a kind of urban Baader-Meinhof effect playing out in real time.

Some Sensory Stimuli

So the new Mountain Goats album came out a few weeks ago, a sort of pastiche-tribute to ‘80s and ‘90s rock, and as a queer millennial nerd of course I have thoughts about it. While the singles are fun ("Charlie Sheen Reaches Out to the Feds" especially, a goofy song that also whips), I've been thinking about a deeper cut and the vibe it evokes. This issue's Sensory Stimuli is "Best Hard Rock Albums 2013" and The Pleasant Passage of Time. "Best Hard Rock Albums" does not enumerate albums, and in fact isn't very much about music at all, but rather all that may have happened before, during, and after they came out. "Somebody's making a list/so you can check out the ones you missed"; leave it to the completionists and instead have listening and consumption be part of your life rather than subsume it. (Indeed, tMG frontman/founder/chief songwriter John Darnielle probably chose 2013 as the titular listicle’s year since it coincided with the toddlerhood of his first child and awaiting the arrival of his second, with a tour for Transcendental Youth in between.) There's a couple of couplets near the end of the song that particularly hits: 

Days of idle pleasure on which nothing much occurred

The look on your father's face the day you said your first word

The days that felt like all of this were really just pretend

The earlier parts of the tunnel before you could see through to the end

Listening to this song on a lazy weekend afternoon, the golden light of late summer streaming through the windows, hanging out with Chrisinda and our foster cat (seen below!) reading the lighter parts of Newsday and having a snack really drive home how valuable those moments are, elevated to the degree of the protean and existential. To me, it's an embrace of the mundane as momentous, as lovely, as much of a reason to stop for a moment and behold its majesty. Not only because those moments are reflective of the bigger ones (and perhaps I've been especially sentimental about this song because Chrisinda and I met ten years ago this month, a chance encounter that feels like it would fit in the song), but because they're big ones unto themselves. They're the moments we're in all likelihood going to get more of and can fully embrace. (As another John Darnielle line from another concept album put it, "it's real sweet to grow old.") And embrace them we ought to.

The Mountain Goats' album, Days, is out now from Merge records wherever music is sold or streamed. They are performing a special two-night career-retrospective stand December 10 and 11 at Carnegie Hall (881 7th Ave, off the N/Q/R/W at 57 St-7 Av, the F at 57 St, the B/D/E at 7 Av-53 St, and the A/B/C/D/1 at 59 St-Columbus Circle, along with the M5, M7, M10, M20, M31, M57, and M104 buses, and via practice, practice practice), and you best believe I’ll be there on night one.

A Cat

Rafiki (aka Kiki) is with us on what I’ve been describing as the Meow Parlour version of a minor-league rehab assignment: brought from the café floor back to foster to recover from an ulcerous viral cold. He’s all healed up now and should be heading back to the café soon, where I highly recommend you adopt this ridiculously sweet, drop-dead gorgeous, belly-rub-loving boy.

Hope to see you in the streets soon! I’ll be back in touch in November. Until then, consider forwarding this newsletter to a friend, and stay safe out there.