Jordan Swartz-The Rad Times #12

I went to an art museum last weekend and spent a long time passing through genres and time periods. I saw some amazing Contemporary work, Victorian furniture, Impressionistic classics, and Egyptian artifacts, but there was something that stood out above the rest. After a couple hours of wandering from room to room I turned a corner and stumbled upon a perfect piece of work. On the ground next to a closed door was a wooden doorstop, an off cut, in a low triangle shape, with a deep curved gouge from repeated use. It’s one of only a few things I took a picture of in that museum. This wooden everyday object communicates as much to me as the pieces on the wall or pedestals; it has the marked use of days, maybe years of visitors and employees, as well as the hand of it’s fabricator. Seasons coming and going, expanding and contracting ever so slightly with the humidity and temperature changes, and a sweeping curved groove growing ever deeper and deeper, leaving a love note of its every use. I watched the movie Mona Lisa Smile the other day and the one woman says “art isn’t art until someone says it is.” I’m here to tell you that it all is art; look around, find the things in your daily life that speak to your existence, bring you joy, and say something about who you are in this time.

This issue marks one full year of The Rad Times, thanks to all those who read, share, and respond to this newsletter. I’m trying to share the things I like in the world and it’s nice to know some people are out there listening.

Thanks for hanging!
Be good to each other.

Between 2009 and 2012, iPhones had a built-in "Send to YouTube" button in the Photos app. Many of these uploads kept their default IMG_XXXX filenames, creating a time capsule of raw, unedited moments. Riley Walz made a bot that crawled YouTube and found 5 million of these videos! Watch them here, ordered randomly. I love projects like this, the videos cover the whole spectrum of human emotion, and range wildly in subject, and environment, but all these snapshots make up who we are as a collective.

I love crime and thriller novels but they’re a double-edged sword in that they can become often be formulaic or by the numbers. Everybody Knows has a propulsiveness and freshness I haven’t felt from a book in a while. The main character Mae works for a pr firm that keeps the bad news from getting out for its clients, when her boss is murdered on the way to a meeting with her, she knows it’s something bigger. This book was on a number of best of lists of people whose taste I align with and they were not wrong.

In that magical early 2000s internet everyone was experimenting with various mediums, and honestly there were a lot of good ideas that the technology just wasn’t there for yet. One of those great ideas is AOL Sessions, they would invite musicians to play acoustic versions of their songs in some solitary studio and broadcast it out. This would launch a ton of acoustic please play some songs while you sit on my couch videos as well as lead to so many of the sessions we have today; ie Tiny Desk, AudioTree, and KEXP. I love Paul Westerberg and this is one of the videos that has aged a little better than the rest.

As a kid I remember both the Playstation and PS2 releases being huge. From the beginning, with their advertising, they leaned into pushing the boundaries and catering to an older audience. When I first came across the above ad I thought it may be a modern remake but doing some research I found a number of ads that I remember seeing. In hindsight they’re a perfect capsule and combination of influences of the time.

If you’ve read this newsletter for any length of time you know by now that I love snapshots into other’s lives. Tehran Youth Diaries fits perfect into that spot. It genuinely feels like a teen just documenting their life with their friends and the places they find themselves. It reminds me a lot of the ‘90s video cam/ skate culture. You end up at a dance party, your friends car breaks down, just hanging in someone’s apartment. I could watch these all day.