Said the Gramophone

You would have loved these owls

Nathaniel Russell - "It Is Hard To Be Good"
Nathaniel Russell - "Run To A Loving One"

Last night my friend told me a story about this job he used to have in California, measuring owls and then letting them go. You can put owls to sleep by petting them between the eyes, he told me, or you can calm them down by putting them in small tins, because owls like to be in tight spaces. My friend said that his boss was one of thirteen adults in the world who could speak owl really well. He could go into the forest, listen for a few seconds, and then tell you how many owls there were in there. "Six owls tonight," said my friend, doing an impression of his boss in the night.

Outside, adults in elaborate costumes were moving in drifts from one side of the block to the other: guy in dinosaur suit, guy in cartoon mask with a bloody tinfoil machete, women with all kinds of wigs, laughing and screaming. Across the street, in the place with all the sensory deprivation tanks, a shadowy figure checked its email. Next door, in the dentist's office, we could see a video of a turtle moving very very slowly. Then a hundred birds all taking off into the sky at the same time.

(Image and songs are by Nathaniel Russell. Buy Sunlight here, and look at his amazing art here.)

raw vegetables

The Famines - "Faux Famous" [Bandcamp]

Sometimes, raw simple things is all you need like eating vegetables with hummus.

Sterling Silver Lasers

A$AP Mob - "Raf (feat. A$AP Rocky, Playboi Carti, Quavo, Lil Uzi Vert & Frank Ocean)"

This song is mostly just A Song, and barely even that - it's twice as long as it should be, way too much and not enough of anything at once. (I like Quavo, but sometimes it's like they just wheel him into the studio, startle him out of a deep sleep, and press "record.") But it's worth it for what happens two minutes and twenty-three seconds in - when the lights go down, the room floods with a thick purple fog, and the shower of beautiful, hot, dangerous sparks starts drifting down from...where?

Frank Ocean - "Chanel"

I think this is the kind of Frank Ocean I like - a little compressed, a lot fluorescing in the confines of the form, punchlines Patricia Lockwood-packed with triple meaning, lovely and sensitive and not to be fucked with. Something lush and soft and layered to wrap around you, walk around with, shining in the early dusk.