**Yes, it is Saturday. Yes, this is so early. Just save it for Monday if you’re not ready!**
Est. Read Time: 7 minutes. Read Time brought to you once again by the Ashburton Energy + Hair Logistics Group, in association with the Bradley Hills Bureau of Corrections + Housing.
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BURBANK, Friday April 7th @ 9:30pm. Flappers Yoo-Hoo Room!
Hello, Sternal Journalists!
What the fuck is going on? It’s Saturday. We’ve heard of Sternal Journals coming in late—like hours late, days late, but early??? Are you okay???
I am but I appreciate your concern. Here’s what’s happening. I, as mentioned last week in the Sternal Journal, am in New York. Now, because of that mentioning of my impending trip to New York, one loyal, noble, and/or pitying Sternal Journalist reached out to me and asked if I needed a place to stay because their apartment was going to be empty the whole weekend.
I did indeed have a few places to stay, but they were all either free couches1 or costly beds (all of which I was very grateful to have access to, of course). But a free bed? That was something I didn’t yet have.
So the long and short of it is I’m having the most pleasant, relaxed, quiet day in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, NYC, NYS, USA and thought it would be nice to write, and then thought maybe it would be nice to knock out this wonderful little joy that often turns into a nagging obligation right around 3pm on Sundays.
To put a pin in that, I will say once again a public but anonymous huge thank you to the Sternal Journalist whose couch I’m sitting and whose very design-forward water glass I’m sipping out of. And to other Sternal Journalists, it is never a requirement to read between the lines of my missives to find opportunities for you to help or give me things, but I don’t hate it!
Anyway, I also thought I’d write it now because I’ve been realllly enjoying Rick Rubin’s creativity book, The Creative Act. It is not the type of book that should be summed into a gist, but one thing I’m getting out of it is a meditative, consistent reminder that (a) creativity is not something you can control, and (b) what you can control is whether you’re in an open enough headspace to harness it when it hits.
Hence I was sitting around and thinking “shit, shit, shit, I should really write,” but it wasn’t until I said “fuck it, I’m just gonna relax and read” that I got into a headspace where my thoughts started flowing and I figured I should write some of them down.
***
So I wrote all that in one go, felt all this momentum, and I’m pretty sure I had three or four more directions to go in. And then?!
I saw a notification on my phone and I’ve been deep in that thang for like 45 minutes. I have no recollection of what I was going to say. Rather than try to wait and remember, I think this (very minor) tragedy of creative loss is actually a fitting and honest ending to what I was workin’ with up there.
So it’s time for…
Recommendations!
Our Film Critic on Why He’s Done with The Movies. Podcast Episode. Every now and then The Daily really turns up the creativity of their audio production too 11 and it’s always sweet and interesting. This story on the retirement of longtime film critic A.O. Scott is one such episode.
The Writing of Fragments of Time. Song… ish. One of my good friends and old roommates is/was a musician. Whenever he had songwriting sessions with other musicians, I thought “this is so much more fun than any other kind of writing because you get to listen to the thing you’re making it while you’re making it.” I have talked to enough songwriters since then who have assured me that sometimes they love it, but sometimes it really fuckin’ sucks even if you have a jam going along with it. So what I’ve realized is that it is actually the most fun version of writing to be around. This interesting little bonus of a Daft Punk song featuring Todd Edwards fully emulated that experience for me. 8 minute listen, hard recommend.
TikTok’s Money Guru Jack Corbett Searches New York for the Perfect Apple. Article. I love this guy’s Planet Money tiktoks. I loved this interview more.
A Coup at the WestView News. Article. A couple weeks ago, I yadda-yadda’d about the boringness of True Crime, and how there are more interesting stories than murder for journalism and investigative journalism to explore if it’s not a hugely newsworthy topic. This story about the battle for the future of a Greenwich Village community newspaper (emphasis on community) is a perfect example. It’s Succession meets Only Murders in the Building, but in real life.
Alrighty, that’s all for this special SternJourn Saturday. I hope that receiving it a day early didn’t fuck up your weekend too much, and I hope you make some space to get distracted from, not by your phone. Magical things can happen when you do.
Much love!
Julian
P.S. Here is a picture of some goldfish and fancy waters I took while waiting for a friend whose phone was a going straight to voicemail and when they finally found me, said “Oh, that’s because I don’t have my phone with me!” And you know who you are and I still think I was in the right to assume they would have their phone. What I’m saying is life is complex: no-phone-good, but also no-phone-bad sometimes. And both can exist at once. We found each other and I tried all three negroni variations at this bar and that’s what matters most (the finding each other, not the trying three negronis which is a little too much if I’m being honest {the variations were Old Pal, Left Hand, and Quill. All tasty, but Left Hand was the most interesting.})
P.P.S. I spend anywhere between two and twelve hours a week on the Sternal Journal. If you enjoy receiving it (and are RICH) consider becoming a paying subscriber. For just a few bucks a month, you can provide me with a bit more time to come up with fun topics, poems, and interviews; and you with probably fewer typos.
It is extremely worth noting that, earlier in the week, I did spend a night on one of these free couches and am just as appreciative of the Sternal Journalists who provided that one. I always value the first time I’m sleeping under the same roof as friends, new or old or in between.