Welcome back to Tasteland. I am your co-host, Francis Seer. I'm Daisy Alioto. And it's been a couple weeks since we recorded. We recorded the Peppy one early, um, which was a great episode. It was really fun. Mm-hmm.
It was a wonderful cast. Who are we speaking to today? Today we're talking to my friend Josh Sorner.
He is the founder of Night Gallery, which is a New York-based clothing brand and design studio born from relentless curiosity to explore and reinterpret culture.
Uh, he and I have collaborated before through Dirt on, uh, Lana Del Rey PlayStation long sleeve shirt that was referenced on this pod before. Mm.
Our most recent collaboration is an anthology of iPhone notes, and he's done bootleg and authorized merch- Which I'm in, by the way [laughs] for everyone from Elton John to The National, and yes, Francis is in the book.
We're all in the book. Famously. Uh, so we're really excited to have him on today. Yes. Um, before we let Josh on, you had a party anecdote- Yeah, I had a party anecdote... you wanted to tell me about. So
maybe I've built it up too much. Um- You have... I went to Becca of Bad Waitress fame. Becca's basically the third mic on this pod at this point. Mm-hmm. Um, I went to her birthday party this weekend.
Don't say that while Josh is here in the waiting room. It's kind of weird. I'm sorry, Josh. Um, Becca's fourth mic. Um- [laughs] I, this girl that I hadn't met before looks at me and goes, "Are you Dirt Daisy?"
And I was like, "Yeah." And then 10 minutes later she goes, "Hey, I'm really sorry-" You should have said, "I'm actually a hydroponic daisy" [laughs] Anyways, go ahead.
10 minutes later she looks at me and goes, "Hey, I'm really sorry I called you Newsletter Girl" [laughs] And I was like- You didn't in the first place... "You actually didn't call me Newsletter Girl.
You called me Dirt Daisy" But, uh, I'm not offended by either. Um, just a classic interaction. Yeah. Perfect. Well, Josh is here. We should have him on. Come on. We should let him in. Come on in, Josh. We let him in.
Let him in the room. All right. Uh, can you guys hear me? Am I good? Yeah, you're great. Yeah, you're good. Great. Awesome. Um, I'm here. I'm in the room now. Uh, so how's it- He's here. He's in the room.
Brick wall behind him. He must be somewhere in Brooklyn. It's 2011. No. No, Man- Manhattan. Thank you Oh, fuck. Um, but- Never assume... never assume, yeah. Um, but I'm here. Okay.
The reason we're all here, gathered here today- Mm-hmm... a little book, a little book called Notes, a notebook. Um, uh, the two of you, I think Daisy, this was your idea. You approached Josh with it.
Maybe the, maybe I'm getting this wrong. Maybe- No, it, it-... this is how you spun it in the newsletter, and I'm picking that up. [laughs] Um, tell me how it came to be.
Um, well, we, we do these, like, 30-second Dirt prompts- Mm... and they're some of our most popular pieces of content, and the idea is things that will just get people talking.
And we did one where we invited people to send in a screenshot from their iPhone notes. And
I thought it was really interesting, and I thought it showed the full spectrum of human experience from, like, grocery lists to unsent breakup texts. And I really thought, "There's, like, a book in here."
And Josh and I had recently collaborated, and he also put out a book called Fan of the Band- Mm... which is a compilation of comments on songs- Great idea... on YouTube, basically.
Um, and I felt like it, it felt similar in the sense of, like, what type of, like, human creativity- Digital castoff- Yeah... from the One Off notes... and, like, spontaneity that we would try to capture. Mm.
Um, so I, I literally have the text. I tweeted out a text. I literally just texted him, "Hey, can we do an iPhone notes book?" And he was like, "Yeah, sure. We just need a lot of notes." Mm-hmm.
And we ended up with, well, too many notes. I think- Famous tweeter of, of text message threads, you. [laughs] It's not safe to text me. You always- It's true. [laughs] There's always a risk that you become content.
Um, but I think we ended up, I think 110 are actually in the book. We'll probably end up doing a sequel. Mm. And, but Josh's design is really what brought it to life, so I'll let him talk about that. Yeah. Yeah.
The design of the book, I wanted to keep it, um, you know, super primitive, super raw. So it's, I mean, it's literally, like, 95% designed in the Notes app. Um- Yeah...
I think, like, as much as I could design in the Notes app is where I wanted to design the book, um, just 'cause I thought it'd be interesting. And even the cover is, like, made in the Notes app.
Um, it's- You just, like, rewrote everything in the app, every message? Every single thing, um, like, down to, like, the little, like, information page at the beginning of the book. Like, the ISBN is in the Notes app.
Everything is in the Notes app. Um, and I just thought it was really cool. Um, I kind of like to, like, put constraints on myself sometimes- Mm...
and see how far I can push within those constraints, and this happened to be, like, super fun. And
the idea from Daisy was great, and I had just finished Fan of the Band, and I was, like, moving from one area of, like, digital living to another space, um, which is, I think is a little more intimate.
Um, and yeah, I thought it was a great idea, so I tapped in. It was, it was kind of a no-brainer. I mean, Daisy kind of only has good ideas. Not to, like, toot your own horn, but, um- Mm...
I, uh, I haven't encountered an idea of yours yet that I haven't liked, so being a part of this was, like, incredibly fun and very easy. Thank you. That's very flattering. I feel similarly.
Um, and well, I guess, do you, do you wanna talk about, um, Fan of the Band a little bit more? Because- I would like to hear this... I know, like, Oasis' Live Forever is in there, and, like, the book came out- Yeah...
in my recollection, it came out, like, not that far off from when Oasis reannounced their tour- Mm. True, mm-hmm... and you brought back one of your most popular T-shirt designs, which is an Oasis shirt.
Yeah, it's- Which actually how I first heard about you too... yeah... what, like, four years ago, whenever that first Oasis shirt came out. My friend, shout-out Taylor, was like, "Dude, check this out. Look at this.
I'm gonna buy this. This is so cool." And then he'll, he'll, like, text me your, your shirts often since then, but, um- Yeah, yeah. I love it. Um, oh, that shirt. Yeah.
[laughs] Um, that shirt, I swear, it's like, it's like the ghost that follows me. It's- You're a good ghost. It lives, it lives forever. It doe- it does. Um, yeah.
Fan of the Band, though, um, Fan of the Band kind of was like-Something I had in mind for a long time. I, um, I've always really enjoyed reading YouTube comments. Mm-hmm. And, um, especially on songs.
And for years I would just kind of, whenever I'd get bored, I would just go read them.
And, um, at some point I was like, "You know, I think it could be really cool to like make a book of these comments, but I'm not really sure how I'd lay it out. I don't really know what I would do.
Um, so I'm just gonna like let it cook in my brain." And all of last year I, I was like, "Ah, I really should like start this book. It's a pretty good idea. Like, but how am I gonna do it?"
And then I was like, "I'll just do 100 songs, uh, that people know and just find comments." And um, it became like a really like beautiful emotional experience. Um- Mm-hmm.
There are some songs that have some comments on them that I was like, when I was like copy and pasting them and screenshotting them and manipulating them, I was like crying and I was like, "Jesus Christ, like I didn't expect this out of this book."
Like, I kinda knew what I was going for and I knew it would be emotional. Mm-hmm. But then, um, there are just some times you get these people who say these really beautiful things to the void of YouTube, you know?
I, like, I think that's what drew me to it is like these people, um, were saying these incredibly like real things to no one. 'Cause YouTube in my, at least from my point of view, doesn't have like a central community.
There are not like nooks or forum parts of it. It just is the comment wall. Um, and maybe someone will respond to you, but you really don't know who they are and you don't... There's no like, "Oh, this is that guy."
Um, so- This is actually something I was thinking about recently, like if there is a sense of community amongst some, some of these. 'Cause I feel like there are so, such themes obv- I mean obviously- Mm-hmm...
there are these themes of the people saying like, "Oh, I remember when I was in high school and we listened to this song," and blah blah blah. Yeah. Summer nights, et cetera. But like I, I...
You would know, but like in my mind it's like there has to be on some like specific channel that posts like, you know, '70s songs exclusively, like the same five people who like are commenting on every single one amidst- Yeah, yeah...
you know, the other hundreds of comments, but maybe not. Yeah. You know, I, I tried to see if there was any sort of like username through line from song to song. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Um, but I really didn't see much of it.
And, um, the, the way YouTube comments are organized on songs is usually by like their popularity and like count. But- Yeah...
um, I would oftentimes like scroll to the very end if I could and start to find like uncomfortable, um, unpopular stuff. And some of that made it in, but honestly, the popular stuff was the better stuff. Mm-hmm. Um,
and I, I really, the one thing I did find to be a pitfall was if a song had been in a movie recently, that would be all people talked about.
And this happened to me very specifically with Madonna's Like a Prayer because of that Deadpool movie. That song is in the movie, and all the comments were like, "Deadpool," and I was like, "Dude, really?"
Like- Killin' the vibe... like, come on. This is, ugh, ah.
It's like when you go try to buy a book after the movie version of it has come out and it's like all you can find in the stores are like the one with like a photo of the lead from the movie. The shitty cover, yeah.
I hate that. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I always have loved that quote that's like, "Music is how we decorate time" like art decorates space- Yeah... music decorates time. Mm-hmm.
And for me, the comments that I gravitate towards on YouTube are often people's memories or- Mm-hmm... they're using the song to access a certain moment in time. Mm-hmm.
Often, like remembering somebody who's not in their life anymore. Yeah. Yeah. I think that's like really beautiful.
And of course like it would be boring if you made a book that was all like, "This reminds me of my dead wife." But, um- [laughs]... it's part of it, right? Absolutely. [laughs] It is. It's a huge part of it. Yeah. Yeah.
Um, the dead, the dead spouse, dead, dead child, dead brother or sister, um, is a big theme, um, that I kind of knew was gonna be present, but not as much as I thought it was gonna be. Yeah.
And then I would say also like substance abuse was a pretty big through line in some pretty unexpected ways in songs. Mm. Um, so some people like reflecting on like partying to a certain song.
It's like a normal pop song. It'd be like, "My friend and I partied to this but, um, they passed away- Yeah... and now I hear it and I just think of those parties and those nights." Or, um, yeah, it was bizarre.
And then it became like this sort of experience where I was seeing all these like incredible vectors of emotion across pop songs, and now I hear those songs and I think of it like, "Oh, if that's in the book-" Extra layers.
Mm... "I, I know the comments on it," and I'm like, "Ah, it's like a different song to me now." So- Yeah... yeah.
I love, um, this is just making me think of the Jonathan Richman song, That Summer Feeling, which I feel like is- Mm-hmm... about this, about, about this kind of, about what the YouTube comments are saying, right?
Yeah, yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah. It's, um, it's a beautiful space, and I definitely don't know if I'll ever be able to listen to Drops of Jupiter without thinking of the page I designed on it.
It's like, that is to me the most like harrowing, sad page in the book, and I did not know that when it was gonna be that.
Um, and I was just like reading the comments and I was like sobbing at like my coffee table- Mm... being like, "Oh my God," like, "Fuck, shit, this is so much." Like, it's so emotional, and every comment was like that.
I was like, "There's no break. I don't get a break." [laughs] There's not like a laugher. It's like- Mm-hmm... just all these beautiful things about like mothers, wives, uh, grandmothers.
It's like this beautiful song that like now to me, like when I think of my mom and that song I'm like, "Oh, I don't know, this is gonna like destroy me." I don't know. It's like a- Yeah. That song's- That's- Yeah.
That's by Train, right? It is. It's a great song too. So- I've always liked it... interesting about that so- fantastic song, but- Great song... speaking of Dirt Prompts, when we did our worst song ever- Mm...
they also wrote Hey Soul Sister, right, when they tried to come back? They did. It's a bad song. And that came up-All the time. Awful.
And it's like, how do the same minds that brought us, brought this computer- This is, it's also, that one was in some movie recently, right? And that's why it's such a thing. Isn't that right? Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I do think it got some movie play. I think it's, you know, it's one of those songs that definitely falls into, like, uh...
You know there's that NBC show about, like, a big family, and it's like the w- I can't remember what it's called. But it feels like that, where it's like NBC core. Mm-hmm. You know?
Like, it's made for like a- Peacock Core? Sitcom credits. Peacock Core, yeah. [laughs] It's, it's like, oh, this is, like, just gonna be in some slop, whatever. Yeah. Fine. Mm-hmm. That's fine. We get it.
Um, are you, Josh, are you a notes guy normally? Like, do you, are you, are you using notes in your every day? Kind of, yes. Um, sort of.
I've tried to use it more, um, but for me, w- what is a better note is, like, saving image files on my computer. Mm. Um, usually if something strikes my fancy, um, I will save it, and I will remember why I liked it.
But I won't access it again for, like, months. And then I'll come back to it and be like, "I remember why I like this. Let's get to work on this idea now." Mm-hmm.
So for me, I think, like, text can be good, but, um, I am more of a visual guy with memory. So I have a lot of, like, random photos saved on my phone that serve as these sort of, like, nexus points for ideas. Yeah.
But I should get better at writing things down. Um, it's, it would be good, but then I feel like if I came back to it, I'd be like, "What did I mean?" [laughs] This is more of a puzzle now.
It's not really- Well, then you-... like a direction... come back, you come back then five years after that, and then you know what you mean. Or it's a new meaning. Maybe, yeah. Yeah.
Or, or I'm totally, like, fried on myself. Yeah. I'm like, "Jesus," like, "what were you thinking?" Mm-hmm. I mean, I, my favorite, when I was looking through my notes for this, I like, uh...
The, the most enjoyable part of that was just looking at the ones I wrote, like, seven years ago when I was like- Yeah...
you know, feeling emotional, and I was, like, journaling into my, into my notes, and then I just hadn't thought about it or looked at it since. I'm like, "Wow, that's, you know... I'm doing okay."
[laughs] Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's funny you say that. A lot of my friends who submitted notes had the same, a similar reaction.
They were like, "I went back to like, you know, however many years ago, and I was like, what was I thinking?" And I'm like, "How, you have notes from that long ago?" Yeah. Like, my longest
length of time for my notes app is, like, 2019, and it was like- Mm... "Hey, don't do this." [laughs] And I was like, "What was I even thinking about? I don't even know." Mm. It was just a warning not to do it. So...
Um, Josh, I guess, I didn't ask you this. Um, we asked people separately, like, initially. Mm-hmm. We were both gonna ask like 50 people and have 100 in the book. Mm.
And then once it was getting up to, like, the deadline, we didn't have 100, so we were just like... I mean, I was texting random people- Yeah... on my phone. Don't say that on the pod. Uh. They're gonna hear this.
[laughs] Well, no, but they will know that they're random in the sense that they're not writers. Okay. Sure, sure. And I have not asked them to contribute to Dirt before.
Like, my college friend Taylor is not gonna be offended that I- Mm... asked her to be in it. Um, which is great. Like, that's the whole thing. Like, I actually prefer the ones that weren't writerly.
So for writers who sent in multiple ones, if it felt like too much of a complete thought or the beginning of an essay- Yes... I chose the more random one, because that's more true. Yeah.
Like, we'll probably get into this at the book launch, but that's more true to the spirit- Mm... of notes in my opinion. But- Mm-hmm...
what I was going to say, and ask Josh, if you had this experience, some people said no, because it was too triggering for them- Hm... to go through them. Oh, interesting. I did not, I did not have that experience.
I had people say like, "Oh, I went through and I read things that I haven't read in a while, and it was very, like, eye-opening to me. And I'm glad I got over that," whatever that was. Yeah.
Um, but I didn't have anyone, um, outright tell me no. I had people be like, "I just don't think I'm that interesting." [laughs] Which I was like, "No. What? No, you're good." Um- I got some of that too.
But, um, not a lot of- Do you think other people are interesting in their phone notes? Like... You know, that's, that was something that I wondered about when we even conceptualized the idea. I was like, I wonder, like,
there's not necessarily a way to be performative for this sort of book. Mm. But I wondered, um, if there was, and if there was some sort of put on that someone could do. I don't think so. But, um- I, I corrected a typo.
I corrected a typo in mine. Wow. Yeah. Get 'em out of there. Yeah. [laughs] Wow. I got- It's not too late to pull yours... I see a page error. It's like- Rip it out... yeah, it's probably good. Um- One-liner...
I mean, I, I tried to choose something that for me felt very unperformative. Yeah. When people gave me a choice, I felt the, I chose the one that felt less performative.
I do like the fact that some things that got in feel like a true micro essay or poem or a complete thought. Mm-hmm. It was just really important that those, the majority of them were not that way.
Like, if you're a professional writer- I agree... I want your stupidest or most vulnerable thought. Yeah. Um, that was definitely, I think, helped by the anonymity of the book- Mm... where it's not like a name to a note.
I think that would've maybe possibly increased the performance of it in a way. Mm-hmm. But, um, anonymizing it was cool.
Um, I guess I know who everyone is, but I also wasn't really judging the note in like a is this performance way. Um, but I agree.
In the sense of, like, writers, I kind of, knowing that there were a lot of writers, I liked that they were more bizarre and a little bit off the wall. I would have not, not have wanted like a, a micro,
you know, true thought. I have my, the ones that came to me through people I know, I have them memorized. [laughs] I know who wrote what. I have like total recall of it, because I had- Yeah...
to look at them so many times. Which will be helpful- I'm pretty sure I can-... on, uh, book launch night if I wanna like air anyone out. [laughs] No. Yeah, yeah, exactly. It's like, "Yo, I know your note. Just- Yeah...
pipe down over there." Yeah. [laughs] Yeah.Yeah. Um, but yeah, I, I found the whole experience to be very cool. I was also, like, in a head space of, like,
um, very similar to when working on Fan of the Band is I wanted to make sure the arrangements and pairings of the notes was very complimentary, and sometimes they're juxtapositions, sometimes they're compliments, sometimes two things are totally in conflict.
Mm-hmm. Um, but then I always like to send things off, um, book-wise into a place of, like, optimism. And I do think that this book kind of organically was arcing that way- Mm...
without me really needing to do much arranging. Mm-hmm. But, um, I do really love, like, the final six pages, 'cause I think there's, like, this kind of beautiful nervousness into optimism that I captured.
Or not really captured, but, like, arranged. And- Yeah... um, I liked it. I liked it a lot. It was very fun after Fan of the Band, which does a similar thing.
Um, and I think, like- What, what were your last songs in Fan of the Band? What were the last songs in the last few bands? Uh, it w- it was, like, a few pop punk songs, but then it ends with Sophie's It's Okay to Cry.
Mm. And that one, that song actually has a comment that really pushed me to do the book, and it's this older man, I wanna say boomer age. And this comment has gone viral on Twitter a few times.
Um, and he's talking about how he feels very bad that his generation has made it hard for trans people to be accepted- Mm...
for the LGBTQ community to be, um, pushed out and othered, and he's like, "I wanna do my best to, you know, support these groups. I'm a teacher." I think if... I think that's right.
He's like, "I wanna, like, aid these groups of young people, and hearing about the way this musician affected people really changed my mind, and I had no idea what hyperpop was. But, um, it really...
Knowing about this person has really, like, changed it." Mm. And then there are a lot of comments on that song that are like, "Thank you. Um, thank you for helping me, like, understand my identity."
And I thought that was, like, a very beautiful way to just leave the book. You have this, like, older generation saying like, "I'm so sorry for messing up.
I wanna help you now," and then you have these new people being like, "Thank you for helping me realize who I am." So it's this kind of beautiful marriage of, like, past and present,
like, flowing in optimism, which is kind of where- Mm-hmm... I think Notes ends. That's nice. Um, speaking of loss, [laughs] um- [laughs]... you wrote something about David Lynch for your newsletter- Mm...
last week, which also touched- Yeah... on some ideas about suburbia, which is how you and I- Mm-hmm... first collaborated. The- Yeah, yeah. It's true...
T-shirt that we did, um, that combined Lana Del Rey with, like, vintage PlayStation iconography- Mm-hmm... um, and advertising images was part of a drop that you did, um, that was sort of, like, suburban gothic themed.
Yeah. And we tied it in with the Dirt editorial that week, and, um, some, uh, audio readings from the Rose Books hotline.
So I would love to talk about the thing that you wrote about David Lynch, but maybe we should back up for a second and just talk about the way that you structure your T-shirt drops, because I think very interesting.
Yeah, yeah. So I guess when I'm thinking of, like, a T-shirt drop, I usually, I usually start with a shirt before I sort of formulate the group theme.
'Cause usually if I start with one item and just have a feel for where my head is at, um, I can kind of find my footing around it.
Um, and typically I'll find sort of, like, artists or ideas that are in concert with each other and start to formulate around that.
So, like, when we did our suburban drop, for example, um, you know, it was, like, Lana Del Rey, and I was like, okay, PlayStation ads, that was, like, me gaming in my basement with my friends. We weren't doing anything.
Um, what else were we listening to or a part of at that time? And I was like, we were all trying to figure out if any of us were good at acoustic guitar, so, like, Elliott Smith is gonna be in there.
And then we were all kind of sad, 'cause we were, like, pubescent boys and we didn't know emotions really. Um, and then I was like, but we also listened to a lot of rap, so Three 6 Mafia's going in there.
And, like, Three 6 Mafia was, like, a very formative group, because that was, like, one rap group that, like, all of my friends and I bonded on.
Like, some were into Wu-Tang or, like, some were into, like, Nas, some were into, like, radio stuff, but we all kind of came together on Three 6 Mafia.
And so I start to follow, like, tangential thoughts and, like, excavating my past a little bit and perspectives to form these drops, um, and kind of, like, hopefully thread the needle.
Um, sometimes I think I've done pretty well. Retrospectively looking back on others, I'm like, I could've done this a little bit differently, but, like, it's still pretty good.
I wouldn't ever, like, throw any of my own work under the bus. I think it's all good, but it's always that, like, the past is more clear in hindsight- Mm... situation where you're like- Yeah...
I could've done a little bit different stuff here. But I like it all, I guess is how- Yeah.
Sometimes, I mean, I feel this way with my writing, 'cause I'm somebody who likes to write in a very hybrid way and pull a bunch of connections together, and it's kind of impossible sometimes to step outside.
Like, when you feel like it's really resonating for you, you hope that it'll resonate for people as well, but you, there will inevitably be some people that are like, "I don't see the connection between any of these things."
[laughs] Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I think that, um, that's always something I think about, but also you... I think for me, like,
I got so nervous of that, not really last year, but in the year before I was really nervous about, like, are people gonna get it? And there's no way, in my opinion,
that you can really, like, either force people to get it or convince them to get it or, like-And there's no, there's no real way.
You could kind of try and teach as much as you can, but really it's just you gotta let it live.
And I had to just like really back off 'cause I was making myself so anxious, and it was, I think, coming through in my design a little bit that I was like h- just hoping that it was like gonna land better.
And then last year I made a promise to myself that I was like, "I'm only gonna put out things that I really, really, truly believe, um, in as an idea," because I want to feel like it's 100% me and not driven by fear at all.
And I think it turned out really well, um, and now I'm so much more comfortable in the way I design that I'm like, I know I'm not gonna change a mind with design. But like I think all of this is...
It's like speaking louder now. Mm. It feels like the personality is fully there, whereas before it might have been at like 70 or 80%. Um, I think it's a lot more authentic now. I hope I always feel that way, I guess.
Well- I hope I'm always, like, feeling it's authentic. I heard you're big in Japan. Can you talk about that a little bit? 'Cause that's... Clearly it's resonating. Yeah. Yeah. Abroad. It is. Yeah. Yeah, yeah.
Japan has been really interesting. Um, I... Every now and then I would get like an order from Japan, but you know, it's like one of those things where you're like, "Oh, that's like cool. It's crazy that it's in Japan."
But last year, um, I had a lot of- Like that meme, uh, somebody orders something, whatever. Somebody orders something from Japan. Wow. Anyways. [laughs] Yeah. No, it is, it is like that. Um- [laughs]...
and I, I often feel like really like surprised that like there are a lot of international orders, and I'm like, "Wow, that's crazy. I would have never imagined it's like going to Cyprus." Like- Yeah, yeah. Cool...
what's going on in Cyprus? Like crazy. Um, but Japan really kind of like lit up last year, and
there have just been like really cool people doing their own styles of like bootleg designs or objects that reach out to me and were like, "Hey, I've been buying your stuff. Um, do you wanna do some stuff here?
Uh, we don't need to like fly you over just yet, but like we want to exhibit your work as like museum style pieces." Um, so that happened in December, and then now- Mm...
there are people who are like kind of stocking clothes more regularly, which is pretty cool. And those, those connections are starting to like really formulate and become more palpable, and it's been
really just kind of incredible. I, uh, I don't know. When I started Night Gallery I never thought it was gonna be kind of what it is.
I kind of was just like, "Oh, we're gonna make some shirts, and like we're gonna see what happens," and like, "I guess it is what it is, shirts."
And now it's really become this like kind of interesting project and creative studio where like I'm helping other people do projects. I'm like, uh, doing a little bit of consulting work.
I'm working with bands and people I used to like admire and like- Mm... cut their photos out of magazines and like staple to my wall. And like- Can you, can you name some names? Are you allowed to name- Can I name drop?
Um- Mm-hmm... yeah, I could. We're fortunately inviting you to name drop, yes. Um, I think the one that... I mean, there have been a lot of really cool ones.
I mean, like working with Elton John was a crazy- That's wild... cool experience. That's insane. And that one was crazy because it was like...
I think that was in like year two of Night Gallery and I was like, "This is crazy." Like, I don't even call myself a graphic designer.
Like, I was so nervous to give myself any title because I felt so inexperienced still. Mm-hmm. And even now I'm like, I really kind of like push away from titles because,
I don't know, it gets a little weird I think for me where I'm like- Yeah... I don't, I don't wanna be an imposter. But Elton was very cool. His team were very cool. Um, that was a very cool experience.
The one connection that I really appreciate is, um, the singer of AFI and I became friends. [laughs] Oh, yeah.
Um, and uh, I was like, you know, growing up AFI was like one of my, I would say, like pivotal three bands that was like formative. Mm-hmm.
And, um, yeah, Dave and I became friends, and I'll send him clothes every now and then or send him the books, and like we'll just talk, and I'm like, "This is crazy."
Like, I used to like burn your CDs and like give them to kids at school to like evangelize this band, and now we're friends.
Um, and then now, you know, there are like other people too that I really admire, like, um, Wes Eisold from Nightmare, American Nightmare and Cold Cave.
Um, we've kind of recently connected and talked here and there and I'm like, "Oh my gosh," like, "this is one of the coolest guys."
Like he's the singer of my favorite hardcore band and like he does Cold Cave, which is another favorite band of mine. And like it gets a little nerve-wracking sometimes 'cause you kinda- Mm...
I get a little nervous where it's like, oh my gosh, like- In the like don't meet your heroes sense? Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I talked to, actually I talked to Dave about this once where I was like, "I got really nervous to talk to you because I was like, what if, like what if either of us aren't cool to each other and like maybe you think I'm weird or like maybe I think you're weird?
And then like, then it's weird." And then we both kinda talked about musician heroes that like we had similar thoughts about like not wanting to meet them on.
And I was like, okay, so like we're all pretty much just normal people at this point. Um, but it's kind of nerve-wracking for me still. Like every now- Mm...
and then I'll like get on email with someone or I talk to them in DMs and I'm like, "I really don't know if I should be doing this." Like this, I, I maybe would just like to know you in this pristine imagined way- Mm...
of being the artist. But thankfully, um, I have not met or had any conflicts with anyone, um, that I've encountered, which I consider to be a huge blessing. So.
Well, that sort of happened to me with Jeff Rigglea who is in the book. Yeah. And wrote an intro for- Jeff's another one, yeah... Fan of a Band. Yeah. Um, I had an ex-boyfriend who was a huge Thursday fan. Yeah.
I had never heard of Thursday. I started following Jeff on Twitter in the way that you like try to take an interest in your partner's interests. Sure.
And fast-forward like seven years, I end up in the acknowledgments of Jeff's book.And it was like- Yeah... I didn't do this on purpose, but that's a crazy trajectory. Yeah.
I, I felt that way about Jeff too, where I was, um, I was introduced to him through a friend of mine, Heather, and, um, we kind of just like sat down and had this amazing conversation.
And I was like, "Shit, I'm talking to Jeff Rickly right now." Like, I've listened to so much Thursday while attempting to know how to skateboard when I was a teenager.
[laughs] Like, this guy is so wonderful and pleasant, and I'm sitting here now. And then, like, we stayed in touch, and i- for him writing the afterword for Fan of the Band, I was like...
I think I was, like, laying on my couch one day and I was like, "I don't really know if this is gonna, like, work out. Maybe, like, we'll just see. We'll just see." Like, I'm just gonna text Jeff.
And then I was like, "Jeff, uh, would you wanna do this? Like, would this interest you at all?" And he was like, "Yeah, that's cool. It sounds great."
And then [laughs] like, it just kinda became this thing, and I was like, "This is so crazy." Like, 15-year-old me would freak out right now. Mm. And I think that
one thing I've tried to do is, at least with Night Gallery, is like if I can do things that make 15-year-old me be like, "What the hell? That's what my life is gonna be like?" Then it's, like, good, then it's pure.
So, like, I always kind of try and go back to, like, earlier versions of me and be like, "What would impress that version of me?" I think that's, like, maybe my only creative goal, [laughs] to be honest. Yeah.
Is, like, impress younger versions of myself. What about, like, the books versus the, like, the, let's say, the sets of shirts? Is there one that, like... I mean, they're different things.
Obviously, you like making- Yeah... both of them. But is there one that gives you more creative satisfaction or, I don't know, the differences between working on the books versus the shirts? They're different, I think.
Um, they are different. I think, like, a book... Books I still feel like I'm kind of, like, getting my footing a bit. I don't feel... I don't, I don't really feel like a master of clothes in any way.
Um, but I do feel very comfortable there. Like, it's a- Master of puppets... it's a canvas. I'm like a, uh, like that canvas- Feel comfortable in clothes. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[laughs] I think I'm, like, very comfortable with that canvas- Mm... uh, of clothing. I know, I know how to work that. Um, I think with books- You got two sides of a shirt, and you got a couple sleeves, and- Exactly...
pretty straightforward. Yeah. It's like I know how big it can go and everything. I know all the stuff. I know how to freak it. I know how to make it conservative. Josh- Okay...
Josh briefly almost gave up graphic design in the middle of trying to lay out The Don't Stop. [laughs] I, I... You know, what was crazy is the design of that book is so simple.
What got crazy about it is that, like, uh, when you do... Like, a, like, a book for me is, like, I love a book because you get to work on it kind of, like, slowly over time, and you can see it build.
Then you get to edit, and you get to, like, iterate much more calmly. Mm-hmm. What Daisy and I got kind of, like, pushed into was, like, a, a compression of notes. So I was like, "Oh my God." Like, "Oh my God."
It was, like, three weeks. It came together in, like, three weeks, right? Yes, something crazy like that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Um, and you know, I was like, "I've never done this like this before."
Like, and I was really nervous. I was, like, so neurotic because my book process has been like, "Okay, it's a month of design. It's a month of, like, edits. It's a month of, like, 'Hey, do we just like this?'"
You know, it's like- Aren't you a Virgo? I'm a Leo. Mm. Oh, right. Um, but, uh, I, I just like to take my time with books. So, like- So you're a neurotic, but you're a Leo. That's cool. Yeah, yeah, definitely.
[laughs] Um- Francis is neurotic because he's a Virgo. [laughs] Yeah. Well, and you know, it's obviously- Many such cases... two days I'm into Catholicism, you know, all those things.
Yeah, you've got, like, a cocktail of it. Yeah. Yeah. Um, but yeah. Uh, books I think are rewarding in a different way, where
I, I saw a lot of people that I really admired doing publishing and, um, I kind of just wanted to try it out at first. And the first year I made books I thought they were cool, but they were not, like...
They didn't feel fully baked retrospectively. Mm-hmm. And then last year when I really committed to books, I think they all were, like, really wonderful. I got to work with some great poets, some great artists.
Um, and Daisy, um, our book kind of, like, came in right at the end. And this year I'm doing four books, and now I feel like I have my footing a little more. Mm. Um, but it's always, like, a learning experience.
I never really like to consider myself, like, a, a master of anything. I think that's a, a bad headspace to get into. You're doing four books this year. You've...
Are, you're like, uh, you're kinda working on them all at once, like, gathering things? Um, no, not necessarily.
I think, like, a lot of the people I'm working with this year, 'cause I'm not, I'm not publishing anything myself this year. Oh, these are all with people. Okay, okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So they, they have most of the materials done. It's just like, "Hey, we're gonna do this in the spring. We're gonna do this in the winter-" Mm... summer, fall. Um, but yeah.
I really wanted to, like, pull myself back a bit this year from book world. Fan of the Band was, like, a, kind of a big undertaking for me.
It was a lot of design, and it was, like, a lot of logistics, and it was just a lot. So I wanted to focus on other people this year, and that was honestly kind of the idea of the press side is to make it less about me.
Mm. So, um, yeah. I'm, I'm mostly focused on other people with the books, and that feels better for me too, 'cause- It's kind of more fun in, in a lot of ways. You have more creative- It is... experience.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I think it's... I don't know. So much of what I worried about with Night Gallery was, like, I didn't want it to become, like, the, the Josh show. I didn't want it to be, like- The Josh Gallery.
Yeah. Just... Yeah. I, I didn't want it to be, like, me, me, me, me.
I, uh, I always wanna make sure that, like, the partners are people I admire or things that I think are really cool are getting highlit and talked about.
And Night Gallery Press is a way for me to publish things for people who I really admire, um, that are having sometimes a hard time or-Um,
maybe, like, they don't wanna work with a traditional publisher or they don't know how or they just have cool art and they're like, "I don't know how to put it out there. Like, what can I do with this?" Mm-hmm.
Um, so I kind of come in and I'm like, "Let's just do a book, and people can enjoy it. And I'll market it for you, and we'll see what happens." And that's pretty much what happened.
[laughs] I wanna go back to that David Lynch passage- Mm... in your newsletter. Um, I'm just gonna read it out loud. "It's hard to make sense of the American experience sometimes.
I think often about the high school I went to and the way it looked like the high school from Grease. It felt like I was living on a movie set sometimes.
Other days it felt like I was living in the ghost of an old movie about the 1950s. My parents went there and so did their parents.
It made a lot of sense to me that my grandparents would love it and have affectionate memories of dances, football games, and rallies, and quirky teachers. I didn't ever have that feeling."
Um, this was sort of a tee-up to write about David Lynch's America. Mm. Um, can you talk about that a little bit? Yeah. Yeah.
I think, you know, like, when I was writing that I, I was definitely, like, kind of remembering what it was like to exist in a setting that felt, um, like, real but kind of surreal.
Um- Constructed? Constructed, yeah. Like, m- the high, the high school I went to really did very much look like the high school from Grease. It was like- Mm... beautiful 1950s.
I mean, sort of like Back to the Future-esque vibes as well. Was this in Indiana? Yeah, yeah. And, um, it was really, like, um...
I mean, it was visually very beautiful, but then, like, I would be in there and I'd be with, like, my peers, and it was sort of this experience where we were like, we all knew that our families had generationally been there.
Like, one interesting thing about the city I grew up in is, like, generationally a lot of people stay, and they- Mm...
just sort of have these micro dynasties of, like, this family name is, like, they're a construction family. They've got a business. Mm. And they also own a bakery.
And then, like, this family are, like, blue collar workers, and these guys run the bank. And it was like, it was sort of like, you know how in Twin Peaks they're like, "This is the old Packard Mill," and like- Mm...
"These are the, the Bookhouse Boys." It was, it was like that, and I didn't have Twin Peaks as a reference during any of it. So I was kind of, like, living in this space where I was like, "Oh, man, like,
we are, like, these kids," but, like, there's this weight of this past generational stuff going on that we're all sort of aware of because our, our parents and, like- Mm...
our parents are still friends or maybe they're enemies. And like, I remember sometimes I'd, like, mention someone I went to school with and my mom would be like, "Oh, I know their family."
Like, "This is what their dad does." Like, this is, like, random drama about them. Like, you know, I would just get this, like, profile. And I was like, "This is so much." Like, it doesn't feel like any of us are us.
Like, it feels like- Well, it's kind of like the YouTube comments. It's the people saying, like, "40 years ago I was listening to this song with my friends," and like- Yeah, yeah...
now you listen to it and you're living in that memory. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I, I kind of always felt like we were just like paper dolls in this, like, really old stage that, like, had been passed down to us.
And I guess I kind of always, like, had this fear that, like, I would end up a memory there or something. And I, like, I never knew how to articulate it though.
Like, it was like something you don't really have a language for because you're like, "Well, like, what am I... Like, why am I thinking this?" And like, "What is this about?" And, um,
yeah, I just remember in college when I, I left, I...
One of my friends had introduced me to Twin Peaks and I was like, "Oh my gosh, like, a lot of the things that, like, are happening here were kind of similar to things that, like, my friends and I got into spiritually."
Obviously, like, we had no Twin Peaks events, but like- Mm-hmm...
uh, we were, like, watching it and I was like, "Oh, this is kind of like exactly the way I felt about being in this space," where you're like, "Oh yeah, there is some haunted, weird generational stuff here that, like,
the only way you can work through it is by being away from it." Or, like, maybe sometimes steeping in it. But, like, I was not really willing to steep in it. Yeah. I think,
I haven't, actually I haven't thought about this in a while, but I did write about it in that Suburban Gothic essay- Mm-hmm... that became the organizing principle for the T-shirt drop that- Mm-hmm... Burt was a part of.
That, like, one of my strongest memories from high school is when my c- one of my classmates died senior year. Mm. Blonde woman, wandered away from a party, drowned in...
was very inebriated, drowned in a very, very small amount of water. Mm. And was missing for a few days before she was found. When she was found, the news...
She was found dead, the news trickled out while we were in school. Yeah. And I found out because somebody ran past my classroom door screaming and crying. That, yeah. That's Twin Peaks episode one.
And when I watched Twin Peaks I was like- Yeah... "Oh my God." Uh, but there was not... [sighs] The other sort of elements of Twin Peaks I feel less of a relationship to- Mm-hmm...
I think because my family was not that implanted in the town I went to high school in. But I did recently... That image of the dead blonde girl is so strong. And you know, there was, like, an open casket.
There were, like-Signs that this person had drowned. It, it was- Mm-hmm. I... It profoundly affected me. Yeah, yeah. Um, and I think about it every October because that's when it happened. But- Mm-hmm...
it was weird to see that experience sort of refracted, and now I'm like, do I remember things... Like, is my memory now the implanted sort of Twin Peaks- Mm. Sure, sure... hallway memory?
Anyway, but I had an, an experience recently with, uh, Marissa Larusso, who's a music writer, and she's contributed to some Dirt prompts, and then she's written for Dirt. Mm-hmm.
Um, I saw her at a book launch, and she was like... I don't know how we figured it out. We're, we're from the same town. We're from the same, uh, like... It's called a tri- it was, like, a tri-town. Mm. Mm-hmm.
'Cause there's three schools that fed into the same public high school, but she had gone to private school. But I was like, "Larusso? Like, like the trucks? The Larusso trucks?" [laughs] And she was like, "Yeah."
And then I was like, "How do I even remember that?"
Um, so it's interesting to hear you say there was, like, these family dynasties, 'cause my family was just, like, really not that socially connected or embedded, um, in this town that I grew up in, but there's still those sort of like things that are the same across- Yeah...
where it's like, okay, yeah, I guess I, like, can't remember anything from algebra, but I remember seeing a Larusso truck. [laughs] Yeah. I think that- Yeah...
that, like, there's two very American experiences of, like, your parents and your grandparents being from the same place and then not at all.
Like, for me, I think on my mom's side, probably going back, like, seven generations, I think it hasn't... Like, back to, you know, U- Ukraine and Poland, it hasn't been in the same place.
And then on my dad's side, it's like some of it, but, like, I'm not from where my parents are from. If I have kids, they probably won't be where I'm from. And, like, to me, that's like...
It, it, it's, it's like so foreign to me to think of my f- my parents and my grandparents both having gone to the same school and, like, living in that routine, the paper doll of it all. Like- Mm...
I, I, I think that's something I, like, run from almost. Yeah, yeah. I, I mean, I certainly run from it.
I, I think it gives me, like, a lot of anxiety that, like, I'm just, like, a part of, like, a, a soap opera that I didn't sign up for. You know, like, uh- Mm. Your soul sister. [laughs] Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh. It's like...
It's, uh, it's- Peacock core... it, it's kind of spooky though because, like, you carry this weight of this thing that, like, you're just... Like, I didn't really sign up for that. Like- Mm, mm-hmm. Yeah...
I'm, I'm just here, man. Like, I didn't decide, "Hey, I'm thrown in with these people." I just kind of came from them. So, like, yeah, what do you do? And I think it also makes it hard,
uh, for people to distinguish their true identities too. Um- Mm-hmm... I notice that a lot in, like, my peers, and it certainly happened to me for a while, where I was like, "Am I me?
I- was this really, like, my decision or is this, like, the decision of the perception of what I am?" Totally. So yeah, it was, it was an interesting, like, mind-bending time. Hm. I have to admit something. I've never...
I've seen one episode of Twin Peaks, and I've never seen any David Lynch movies. It was one of those things where I was going to college in the Pacific Northwest. Everyone was talking about it. I'm like, "I get it.
I'll like it. I'll get around to it eventually," and I still haven't done it.
I've been planning to watch maybe Mulholland Drive since, you know, since David Lynch died, but I have only ever watched the first episode of Twin Peaks. Have to admit it. Yeah. Uh, that's, um...
I would keep that private. Um- [laughs] I considered it. But no, no, no. I considered it. I, I, I actually, I actually think that's really cool.
I think, um, you know, I like when people are like, "I have not seen this, like, pivotal piece of media." Yeah. Because I think that, like,
if you didn't encounter it, that's great, but you're gonna encounter it probably soon-ish. Well, I think I was... It was like I, I, I... There was so many j- I, like, specifically chose not to encounter it.
I think it was some way of, like, you know, youthful 19-year-old wanting to be different. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like, the other examples, I've never read Kurt Vonnegut.
That one, though, you usually read in, in high school, in high school English- Yeah... or whatever. We just never did. Yeah. And so it's one of these things, like, I get it. I know I'm gonna like it.
But now it's like, now I'm 30 [laughs] and I haven't- Yeah, yeah, yeah... you know.
[laughs] I've, you know, c- consumed other pivotal pieces of weird media and such, but, uh, yeah, the Twin Peaks one, I think I just wanted to be different. Yeah. I- I think that's good though. Yeah.
I think it's also like there's some... It's like a rebellion of some- against something that seems to apply too directly to you- Yeah, exactly... or is, like, too taken for granted in your social group- Yeah, yeah...
as, like, common knowledge. Like, I've never seen Titanic. Mm. I've never read Infinite Jest or even tried to. Other things like that.
And, um, I'm always trying to get my husband to read one of my favorite books, which is called Prep by Curtis Sittenfeld, and that came up again recently 'cause she has a new collection of short stories coming out, and the last short story is sort of a follow-up to this book Prep.
Hm. And Prep was my favorite book for years, but my husband grew up on a boarding school campus, and he won't read it because he's like, "It's too-" Like, I get it, and then just- Well, it's too raw. Yeah. Yeah, yeah.
I know. And I'm like, maybe I can guilt him because he did just write a play about a startup founder, so maybe I can guilt him into- [laughs]... reading it that way. Yeah. But, um,
it's, it's a very real phenomenon, um, that we're like- Mm... well, I've kind of absorbed it by osmosis, so do I really need to experience it? Mm-hmm. Uh, but having- Yeah...
watched Mulholland Drive for the first time last week, um, I will say that, like, it was nothing like what I expected. Yeah. Mm-hmm. I had been hearing about it for years.
I knew there was, like, these themes of, like, twinning and doubling and, um, you know, whatever, sort of like shots, like the perfect blue- Mm... shot, which comes from- Mm-hmm...
some other movie about twinning and doubling that I can't remember at the moment.
Um, but the experience of actually seeing the film was not anything like I had assumed, so.Um, I wanna read a passage from this book that I just finished. Indulge me for a second here. All right.
I think this connects to a few things. One- Mm-hmm...
uh, we had Mike Peppy on the last episode, and something we talked about with him was like the myth of AI being like, you know, this ultimate way of like a, of human, human thinking being computing and being data and how that's not true, and that's just like a recent technol- technological metaphor for human thinking, right?
Um, and I'm also kind of thinking of the bit in that same issue of your newsletter we were talking about where you, near the end of it you talk about this wild experience with this deer at your high school. Um- Mm.
[lip smack] Anyways, I, I won't spoil it for any listeners. You should go read it. It's good. Uh, but so this book, it's just this little kinda novella by Jean Giono, published in like 1932 or something.
Um, got a little New York Review of Books translation. But this is actually from the intro.
Uh, so the book is about these like f- French peasants who live up, uh, live up on this hill and it's like this very like, the nature, the Earth is alive.
It's kind of this brutal thing and, you know, all the, all the beings of it are just like ants and hills on it. Anyways, um, [lip smack]
Giono's insights into the consequences of a way of life that elevates itself above the rest of nature, and his insights regarding the contours of a truly ecological culture hold vital clues for our contemporary situation.
His early novels call us toward the primacy of place and the importance of bodily engagement with the creatures and the seasons of a place.
They encourage a renewal of small-scale, face-to-face community and stress that no human community can be healthy without honoring it through embedment within a wider, more than human community of animals, plants, and earthly elements.
For Giono is convinced that our social bonds inevitably fray and falter if they're not fed by interaction with the living land, that the best chance for a just society and the only prospect for a meaningful peace lies in renouncing the dream of mastery and dedicating ourselves wherever we find ourselves to the replenishment and flourishing of the, of the local Earth.
More significantly, Giono realizes that we'll continue to hold ourselves aloof from the rest of nature as long as we assume that subjectivity is an exclusively human possession or even that the capacity for feeling full experience is reserved solely for those beings that are deemed alive by the natural sciences.
Only by reconceiving life as a quality proper to the whole of this earthly cosmos do we free our bodily senses to engage, to participate, to resonate with every aspect of the sensuous surroundings.
When we concede that mountains and rivers have their own forms of vitality, that the ground itself senses our weight, that the winds and the thunder clouds seethe with sensation and feeling, only then do we free our own sentience to find its place within the wider matrix.
Um, which is David Abram wrote that bit.
But I, I was, when I read that I was like, "This is exactly what we've been talking about and what, what people are talking about with AI right now and, you know, whether or not it's this new way of human thinking."
But I kinda love this like radical, I mean it's 1933 or whatever when, when the guy rewrote the book but this kind of radical naturalism and way of relating- Totally... to nature. Yeah.
I mean there's nothing ecological about artificial intelligence but there is something ecological about the materials that become the infrastructure for it and that's like what Mike is trying to bring out- Mm...
in his book. But when you were reading that it reminded me that the first time Josh and I met we took Polaroids of each other. Mm-hmm. And that became part of the essay that I wrote about filler- I remember this, yeah...
that included the earth room- Mm-hmm... that I think we talked about on our first ever episode and to me the Polaroids and the earth room were related, um, in that there was a, there's sort of like a slowness to them.
Um, and I also just think it's really funny that that was like, uh, the first time we met and- Yeah... like you really liked the Polaroid that I took of you. You, you submitted it as your headshot to McNally Jackson.
Yeah. Yeah, you know, [chuckles] I don't show my face very much. [laughs] So I, I did. I was like, "Uh, this is the last like photo taken of me that like is good so take it." Yeah. Yeah. The um- But I did like that one.
Yeah. Yeah. No, it's good. I recommend this book. Um, the, the earth room I think is so funny too in that way 'cause I, like I go there sometimes when I'm like, "Fuck, I haven't left the city in like four months.
I need to go smell some dirt" and it's, but it's this like self-contained thing where it's like, it's like, uh, it's like you're vaping dirt, you know what I mean? That's a funny way to put it but I, I totally get that.
I kind of agree. If anyone from the Elf Bar team is listening to this podcast, um, and you would like to collaborate- [laughs]... hit me up.
I feel like there's no better way for me to squander the goodwill of my audience than a dirt Elf Bar collaboration that nets me- I don't think that would squan- I think your audience would love that.
Well I think- There's a lot of vaping freaks in there... I think you're up on that one. Yeah. [laughs] I think there's a lot of equity in that idea. All right. Well- Um, okay one other thing- Onward...
I wanted to talk about going back to-- I, I, I reread the interview y'all did in September right before this. Mm. Um, and I'm going to dig up, um, the merch is dead idea. Um- Thank you, Sam Hine. Yeah. So I don't know.
W- we were talking about a little bit about this I think or I, um, I thought of this earlier when you were talking about like people in Japan ordering it and having like a show over there where I think what makes merch fun and cool is distance and it's like two types of...
A, a couple types of distance. One is like an old T-shirt, you know, aged merch- Mm-hmm... is always more exciting than new merch. Um, and then the other one is like just the lack of familiarity.
Like, you know, uh, uh, reversing it, like let's say I ate at some ramen shop on some side street of Tokyo and they had a T-shirt and I bought it and I'm like, "This is cool 'cause nobody's gonna have this and it's gonna be so decontextualized when I have it in New York," right?
So I think- Mm-hmm... I don't know. I think mer- I mean, uh, again, we're just kinda rehashing this, um, you guys talked about this in the interview.
But to me like-You know, it's the, the Zabars merch is maybe less interesting now if you live in New York and you've got a Zabars two steps that you can get in. Or like Erewhon. Or Erewhon, yeah. Yeah.
It's too, it's too, it's too accessible, it's too known. But I think it's the distance that makes it good. Mm. Yeah.
I also, like, no longer think somebody actually would have had to go there to get the shirt, which feels like a posturing. And exclusivity. Totally. Like, I'm, you're only printing so many of your shirts, like- Yeah...
exclusively in distance. Yeah. I think that, like, uh, I think, like, I, I mean, I still feel this way, but I, I definitely don't think merch is dead. I think that's...
It's just, it's still so bizarre to me sometimes to even conceptualize to, like, plant your flag in that zone. Mm-hmm. Like, uh, because it's so, like, ugh, I don't know. Well, here's something.
Like- So you, you, you're familiar with Bootboys, I'm sure. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. They're honestly a, a huge inspiration to me. They're... Like, I've, I've met a couple of them, and they're wonderful people. Yeah.
So living in Ridgewood, I, you know, I have a few Bootboys things, and I feel like in the summer maybe especially when people are just wearing T-shirts, I, if I'm, if I spend an hour walking around the neighborhood, I'm gonna see somebody wearing a Bootboys shirt.
Of course, yeah. But I saw yesterday on Instagram they posted they're bringing back, um, they're, they're, they're bringing it back as well as a magazine. And so [chuckles] I was thinking- Yeah...
of you again where it's like it's the, it's the magazine. It's the, the books and the shirts. But, um, I don't know. I think th- they, they were dormant for, like, two years or whatever, but clearly- Yeah...
they're back. Yeah. I think that... I'm, I mean, I'm very excited for that. I saw that news, um, and I was just so happy because for me, like, I remember buying their stuff before I was even really making stuff. Mm-hmm.
And I was like, "Man, this is so cool. I, like, I don't understand how they're able to do this." And then, um- It's so dense... again, it's, it's v- it's very dense. Um, it's very like... It's their own language.
Like- Yeah... they have truly created a language, which is amazing, and not a lot of designers can do that without coming across as, like, very pretentious or very, like, weird.
But they did it in this way that's so beautiful and, like, um, organic. And seeing them come back, I'm like, "I really hope that, like, people invest as much this time around as they did pre-break," because- Mm-hmm...
the break, to me, was a little bit, I don't know if... I wouldn't necessarily say heartbreaking, but it was like, "Oh, man, I feel like you guys are, like, at top form right now." Yeah.
Like, you guys are really in the zone. And, um- Well, but then, like, on, so, so was Online Ceramics maybe, and they kind of- Yeah... maybe they should've dialed it back sooner.
You know, I th- I, I respect each project for so many different reasons. Yeah. Like, I... Because the thing is, is, like, when you're, when you're doing this thing where you're trying to create, uh,
clothes that all, like, work together or, like, visuals, it can be very hard because you're, you're living in your own world so much. Mm.
Sometimes it's like a hall of mirrors, and you're like, "I don't know if I've, like, overplayed this visual thing I've done. I don't know if I'm, like, telling the story the right way anymore."
And I actually am, like, a bit envious of each- Mm... of those two projects because there were multiple people involved. Um- Yeah... Bootboys was, like, a collective. Um, Online Ceramics was, um- Two guys... two guys.
Mm-hmm. And now it's one, and I'm like, "Oh, man," like, "I would give anything to just have, like, a second guy." It was like- It's easier to create your own language when you're talking to someone. Right. Yeah, yeah.
And the people I talk to typically about what I'm doing are, like, my close friends, and they keep me very honest with what I'm doing, which is great.
But, like, I have always, like, really wished for, like, a creative partner to- Mm... bounce this stuff off of. And, like, I always have this fear that it becomes too me. Like, I'd never want it to be Josh World.
It should be- Yeah...
filtered through me, but, like, it, it's really not about me, I, I guess, is kind of how I think about design, is I never want it to be about me, uh, which I think is why, like, I don't show my face very much.
I try and, like, be very selective about who I talk to. Um, it's really like I'm just a vector for this, like, idea transference is more of how I feel about it. I think that is a great place to end the episode.
It's not about Josh. It's not about me. [chuckles] It's not about Daisy. Listener, it's about you. It's about you. Thanks for coming on. [chuckles] See you next week. Peace. [outro music]