This week, I started rewatching The Wire. While this will be my third time watching the seminal series, it will be my wife’s first. I’m excited to see the show through her fresh perspective. But it’s also nice to get reacquainted with some familiar gems, such as the exchange between McNulty and Bunk in the pilot episode where they take turns lobbing the line, “There you go giving a f*ck when it isn’t your turn to give a f*ck.”
In addition to being an absolute banger of a line, it also got me thinking about how pleasant it can be to not give a f*ck (GAF). I’ll be honest, in a lot of ways my stock in trade—and a lot of my identity—is wrapped up in the things that I GAF about. When I saw this tweet, I saw myself. I’m one who sagely nods.
And most of the time I take self-esteem from my recognition of and appreciation for those details. But what if I didn’t? To use the example above, what if I just looked at all those different pants and just saw, well, pants? What if my evaluation was based on straightforward, binary criteria, such as, “Do these pants help regulate temperature?” and “Do they cover my genitalia?” And if the answer was “yes” then that would be all I needed to know?
There is a sense of calm that arises when you distill things down to such simple terms. When you remove considerations, like “What do these pants say about me?” and “How do I like this color?” you conserve mental energy. And that can create a sense of space.
This is how some people (i.e. Steve Jobs) justify wearing a quote-unquote uniform. The same logic applies to topics outside of fashion as well obviously. For any area in which taste has value, the absence of said taste can also be liberating.
But something is lost, too. Humans don’t tend to do well with monotony. Nuance and variety are, as they say, the spice of life. As with most things, it comes down to proportions. Yes, we should give a f*ck about a great many things, from pant hems to the provenance of our foods. But we shouldn’t measure ourselves solely by the things we give a f*ck about. And we should allow room to not give a f*ck and to recognize the changes that occur when we do so.
Sam Taggart’s Hard Sell
I found Tad Friend’s story about a door-to-door salesperson to be truly fascinating. Not only was I surprised to find that door-to-door salespeople still exist, but that they can be quite successful. More interesting, though, was learning about the psychological tools (“tricks,” if you want to look at it negatively) that these folks use to gain customers. It’s easy to dismiss them, but at their core, they are skills that anyone in the business of influencing others could learn from.
—Justin
Four Tet on His 155-Hour Spotify Playlist, the Coolest Thing on Streaming
An underrated streaming hack is discovering super-long, artist-curated Spotify playlists. Kieran Hebden, the artist known most commonly as Four Tet (who also released new music today under another alias, ⣎⡇ꉺლ༽இ•̛)ྀ◞ ༎ຶ ༽ৣৢ؞ৢ؞ؖ ꉺლ) curates one of the most eclectic bottomless playlists. Four Tet is, in my opinion, the right amount of successful. Evident from this interview and others, he has seemingly never sold out (and by that, I mean morally), and has still been able to collaborate on some of the coolest musical projects. Every mix of his is a fantastic listen and this interview and related playlist give you a little insight into why.
—Andrew
Vissla x Thomas Campbell
I have been a fan of Thomas Campbell’s films and art for quite some time and found that this look at his ceramics practice provided me with a meditative calm. Hopefully this serves as a jumping off point into a Campbell rabbit hole. I’ve heard that he has a new surf film in the works that I’m eagerly anticipating.
—Justin
Boiler Room x Dekmantel Festival 2022
Two weeks in a row recommending Boiler Room. My recs are not getting stale, electronic music just continues to be the flavor of the summer for me. Specifically with these recs, I’m actually providing a service, as all of the Boiler Room x Dekmantel videos from a couple weeks ago have been delisted from YouTube. As friend of the newsletter, Grizzly Mike said, “This fees like a good barometer for underground club right this moment. Epic + absurd mix, way too many jungle spin backs, and a Kylie minogue gabber closer?” In addition to this set, I must strongly recommend Palms Trax and Eris Drew, two of my favorite DJs in the world.
—Andrew