Archive

'The Drama' (Vendors' Version)

There's been no shortage of ink spilled about a provocative new film with a grabby central premise/"twist" from Norwegian filmmaker Kristoffer Borgli (Dream Scenario, Drib). The Drama — an A24 distributed, Zendaya x Robert Pattinson starring cringe comedy — hit theaters last week with sights set squarely

I'm tired.

Waking up is tiring, there is never enough sleep. Being awake is tiring, there is always so much to do. Thinking is tiring, there are always too many thoughts. The thinking is constant and I'm hoping for even one thought, just one really good thought to latch, to

There you are

“Wherever you go, there you are.” This meditation on the human condition has been expressed in so many ways throughout so many years, my personal favorite being this line from PNW indie rock band The Revolutionary Hydra: “You can’t drive faster than your memories.” Also, this: The last time

Full Halloween decoration

One of my cats is going viral on Threads right now. Every time I open the app, I have a new notification. Someone else has liked a tossed off reply I shared to another woman's twisty, multi-post, true crime story with a lighthearted twist. To set it up,

I love my weird brain?

My friend Candice started a Substack called Best Thing, Worst Thing and it rules. It's still slightly surreal to refer to her as my friend because our friendship is something of a modern fairytale: My parasocial friend Candice (co-host of Slate's ICYMI podcast until Oct., 2025)

Adventures in Frogtown

I walked along the concrete banks of the LA River to find the indie rock show that my friend DM-ed me about the day before. It was an early one, with the first band set to play at 5:30 p.m. When I arrived just after 5 and saw

Not a moral failing

Last weekend I walked a combined total of 4.3 miles. The Friday before I managed to accumulate 4.4 in a single day. The latter despite feeling like my brain was slowly leaking out of my nose, and contending with muscles that were tighter than a ball of rubber

Taking a sick day

If you just signed up, welcome, I promise to be more intellectually engaging next week. My birthday was yesterday and last night I gathered with friends at a loud(ish) bar. I drank three non-alcoholic Aperol Spritzes, ate some pizza and cake, and didn't take any cough medicine

Supreme & Lopatin & Emergency

I wanted to share my part two on procatalepsis this week, but I don’t have much that’s fit to print. Maybe what I want to express will reveal itself over the next week or two and it’ll be so insightful that it breaks me apart. Maybe once

Procatalepsis (part one)

I learned a new word this week. More accurately, I learned that there's a fancy label for how I tend to present myself. I finished reading Rejection, a book whose back half becomes increasingly metafictional, going so far as to end on an imagined rejection letter from an

Hot winter days

There’s something very not right about sweltering afternoons in January… even in Southern California. Bodies simply cannot regulate themselves under conditions such as these. Apartments, for the most part, hover around the freezing point until May or June. Mornings offer fresh chill and desert nights officially settle into place

New Year, new scene at the 'Smoking Deaths' billboard

Here it is, the end of the first business week of 2026. Are we surviving, hanging in there, having fun yet? Is anyone, anywhere… thriving? I’m writing this on Tuesday, Jan. 6. The news is bleak. [Editor’s note, it has clearly gotten much (much) worse since then].  But

The New Year, or tumbleweeds for brains

My idea for this week’s essay is moving to next week because I simply do not have the energy or mental fortitude to expand on why Orange Juice’s “Rip It Up” is the quintessential New Year’s song. But you will have a full-throated defense of this thesis

Top 5 Albums of 2025

As I’ve alluded to recently, wrangling Best Of content has been a core aspect of my identity for as long as I can remember. Certainly since I started making year end mix CDs for all my friends in the mid-2000s. But for my final four years at KCRW, it

Borrowed Nostalgia for the Unremembered 2010s

A few weeks ago, I found myself needing to move my body without leaving the house. I think it was because of the foster kittens. So I decided to throw on a DJ mix that I recorded at some point in 2017. I know the year because I cleverly titled

Staying power

The best thing about living alone is the endless space for judgement-free, one-sided expression: Voicing out of context phrases aloud just to hear how they sound, mimicking a line delivery from a podcast or TV show for fun, psych-ward-tier conversational engagement with pets, and best of all, singing. I sing

Just say yes.

[Smacks head in comically exaggerated manner] OH RIGHT! I haven’t done improv since Friday, Nov. 21. That was just a little over a week ago, but the realization hit me with the urgency of an actual face palm late yesterday afternoon while driving from my third cat feeding of

Cat tax in comments

I think about the social contract… a lot. It’s a phrase/concept that gets thrown around a fair amount as if it’s some ancient scroll that was negotiated eons before any of us were born. Ancestral knowledge distributed amongst every living being to ensure that strangers can occupy

So... What's your next show?

I found myself standing next to a former coworker at a panel discussion about music not too long ago and I excused myself to wander elsewhere when I could sense the onstage conversation coming to a close. I’ve always enjoyed the company of this person, he’s funny, insightful,

'Sorry, Baby' is on HBO Max — go watch it

CW: Sexual assault. If we’ve talked IRL in the past few months, there’s a very good chance that I’ve implored you to seek out the movie Sorry, Baby… mainly so I could finally talk about it with someone, anyone. Well, it’s on HBO Max now, so