Rob

I wrote an essay about what I, cribbing from Baudrillard, call the literary "hologram"—the easily summarized subject of a book, rather than the text itself. We are unwittingly nudging readers to consume holograms rather than books. And it's a disaster. lithub.com/publishing-has…

having myself a very 'my skyscraper' kind of 9/11 x.com/ulyssa_rip/sta…

Kyle Devine’s new book considers various efforts to reduce fossil fuel consumption and greenhouse gas emissions across the music industry—while maintaining a healthy skepticism of climate solutionism. @robarcand reviews “Recomposed.” thebaffler.com/latest/its-not…

A tremendous loss for NYC: Mike Wallace, maybe the most significant NYC historian to ever live, has passed away. His “Gotham” trilogy is the most thorough social history of the city ever written. There will never be another like him. May he Rest In Peace. nytimes.com/2026/07/05/boo…

is it honest? is it politically rigerous? is it methodologically interesting?

deep empiricism

we were not bleak enough

@t_NYC banger

@VALENTI really great piece, Sam! what a record too ❤️

“With this playlist I attempted to represent the specific array of candy flavors that went into the cauldron that produced my new album ‘L.U.V.’ Sickly sweet synthy dance has been my bag since I was a wee lad glued to Muchmusic, MTV and VH1. Many of these tunes harken back to my late teens and earlier, when a vision of pop as sophisticated as it is cavity-inducing dominated. Not so much indie sleaze as indie sweets, with a dose of new wave and punk seasoning for good measure (you did say Herb Sundays right?).” - Michael Silver @CFCFmusic for @HerbSundays

Herb Sundays 192: CFCF (@CFCFmusic) Mike Silver’s obsession is perhaps the Venn diagram of the commercial world and the spiritual interiors it creates, where one can’t be fully separated from the other. It’s an academic approach to experimental pop, but equally pleasure-seeking. Silver has to go through the looking glass of commerce to find resonant truths, which is an honest response to this epoch, more so than a back-to-the-land refusal of it. CFCF projects encourage guilt-free but self-aware consumption; Enter through the gift shop. art by @Michaelcina. link in bio to playlist.

A rent freeze tastes pretty sweet.

"Part of his appeal has long come from his music’s ability to combine narrative and political clarity with avant-garde, nonlinear form without sacrificing the wildness of his sounds" nybooks.com/online/2026/06…

NEW: $100 million went missing from an online bank. "Neobanks" promise higher rates and lower fees, but they exist in a regulatory black box created by Andreessen, Thiel, Musk and more. We investigated an online bank where thousands of Americans' FDIC-insured savings vanished.

“Woke 2”? You mean: the dialectical movement of history?? THE WORLD SPIRIT HAS A TRAMP STAMP THAT SAYS FUCK KAMALA HARRIS

@MitchTherieau hyperpolitics kinda attempts this

Have there been any recent reappraisals of mass society theory/its ability to say anything about the contemporary moment?

end of the american century x.com/FT/status/2069…

"Most urgently, galleries need to push for legally enforceable resale agreements that can block flipping and let them be less fearful of unknown potential clients. And galleries need to stop promoting art as an investment" nytimes.com/2026/06/19/opi…

Last night my friend's husband asked me why I quit drinking and I said "Well actually, tomorrow morning you can read my 5,000 word essay answering that very question." newyorker.com/culture/the-we…

@lexaprotools no lil yachty rock album? also andre 3k ambient jazz and maybe “walk this way”

charting experiments in genre bending on the axis of genre master and 'postmodern turntness'

"Media technologies were used to expand the scope and scale of betting in horse racing in a second consequential way...photography is a cultural technique of what we understand today with the clunky term derivatization" doi.org/10.1215/174321…

larger story to be told here about how the ad-supported web became so actively hostile to knowledge production x.com/CARI_Institute…