Disagree about sharing music publicly, but agree with the ‘sletter’s other pleas for civility. Def going to buy peanuts in shells for the crows to keep the yard’s vibes high.
1 week update on raw peanuts for the yard: Squirrels and crows are all over and vibes are vibing high. Great suggestion that made me get outside, create more joy and get off the phone. Thanks BBSP. This is a nice addtl perk for being a Paid Subscriber. (Also Rome restau recs we’re all on point. 🥰
Hard no to sharing your music and phone conversations, especially on the subway. It's beyond selfish. Start a conversation with a stranger if you want a bit of contact. Game noise too. Nope.
Agreed. I think there's a time and a place for music to be playing out in public. I don't think public spaces should be fully sterile and quiet, but I also don't think every person should feel invited or encouraged to play their music out loud all the time.
Some occasions where some subway passenger or a random person walking on a sidewalk is playing music on a speaker can be enjoyable and add color to the human experience and the city, but if every single person who's listening to music at any given time is now playing music out loud it'd be a wack world. I don't want to listen to 20 simultaneous songs at the same time in my subway car. It would probably give people headaches, panic attacks and there'd be close to no chance of being able to read or have a conversation with your buddy sitting next to you while your brain is trying to process.
I think the spyplane decree and the tweet inspiring it came from a romantic philosophical train of thought, but in practice for every time we caught an exciting and inspiring Terry Riley, Messiaen or Bjork (to name three random but dope examples), you'd hear thousands of the same exact song in the top 40 current pop songs playing.
More likely than not I'd love to hear spynation's music playing out loud anywhere because I trust the taste and excitement for mach 3+ tunes people in this community have, and I would stop and ask about it or share in a moment of enjoyment, but as respectful and egalitarian citizens we cannot live by this rule without expecting that the rest of people shouldn't. And in that case, the world would be like a loud and headache inducing noise generator where the billion stream songs would be 99%+ percent more likely to play than the rare hidden gems with 10000 streams.
1) I’m confused on the seemingly coordinated whispers from different corners of the mens fashions blogger sphere pivoting to anti second hand clothes selling and buying. Dunno if yall are trying to bottom out the Grailed market and reset whatever stupid bubble is going on(the prices have seemed disgustingly high the past year) - but the amount of links embedded in BBSP to eBay searches in past articles creates a dissonance with this current bullet point
2)I’m with the folks in comments on not wanting to live in a world where everyone’s entitlement to share music starves us of silence and or more naturally occurring noises, I feel as if I’m bombarded by music every time I leave the house by every business and dead space everywhere, the only people who’s music I want to hear from a Bluetooth speaker fit any or most of these criteria - over 50, has a grocery cart, errand cart, or rascal, intoxicated. I have Shazammed the songs and made a playlist called “non consensual jams”
ayy friend re point 1): no coordination on this end, I'm curious what other ppl you're thinking of. This one is kind of like "cop irl only," i.e., an ideal or challenge or thought experiment in reaction to cursed online trends (explored in more detail in the recent Is Resale Cooked essay, but there's definitely a growing feeling that a lot of the resale platforms are getting increasingly torched / enshittified).
like any ideal / challenge / thought experiment this one is, of course, ~nearly impossible (undesirable?) to actually follow 100%, and yeah we of course remain pro secondhand clothes, which will necessarily involve buying & selling them online
ideally through ebay and even better craiglist !! 😉🕊️
Conspiracy brain flared up, saw Noah Johnson saying some similar things on GQ recently- figured yall were all in an Illuminati style menswear group chat
Also now time for the praise
1) stand on the right walk on the left needs a govt sponsored PSA
2) no killing animals or bugs is a great rule of thumb, a long term partner who grew up Buddhist put me on to this and it’s wild how my feelings toward the world changed upon implementation
3) showrooming- thanks for championing the small businesses as always, does your mindset on this change in regard to a flagship store for a larger brand let’s say like Margaret Howell or Jil Sander? Would you try something on at a flagship and then cop from a small retailer?
I guess that could be a way to support a local spot while also supporting the brand itself, I don’t have particularly strong feelings on that particular example
It pains me to say it, but "we want cities to sound like a million melodies bouncing off each other" might be the most disagreeable thing I've ever read in this blessed 'sletter. Your boi's neurodivergent and ~20% of the city's population is too. Managing the sensory overload and burnout from 21st century city life is brutal, and parks might be the only bit of respite folks can find. Do not fill them with your extra noise!
If you want cities to be accessible for all then you gotta be considerate of your fellow humans' experiences. Blaring music and phone calls out into the melting pot is plain rude and uncaring. It saddens me that BBSP would miss that.
In the interest of kind vibes and Mach 3+ craggy-brain community discourse, I'm interested in sharing my own experiences with the beauty that can come from the "Noise Pollution" of other people's music permeating a shared space. And this isn't meant to counteract any of the arguments that have been raised in favour of "keeping the sonic sidewalk clean," it's just simply to offer another perspective.
Some of the most Mach 7+ heavenly moments of my life have been derived for eavesdropping on someone else's vibe and, subsequently, being invited to share a moment with them. I love music enough that I'm often guilty of moving through the world locked into my own sh!t, headphones on and in le zone, so to speak. However, I cherish the moments when a tune has wafted into the lil sonic cocoon I so often build for myself and yanked me by the collar into an experience I never could have planned for. Summer '23, living and working on a secluded West Coast island, I had smoked a doob and was walking to the Far Beach, a few minutes further, but sandier. On my italics-level slanted walk (ur boy was HIGH), my "audio airfield" was breached by what I initially clocked as a "sonic hallucination" - 'Amazing Grace' being sung in a carefree six-part harmony. I made my way over and soon found myself enjoying the songs and conversation of a triple date of couples who were enjoying the stars and the bioluminescence, which was out to a level I'd never before seen and have never seen since - it looked as though the ocean were reflecting the stars. Although not a religious fella myself, I ended up in an hour long conversation with these lovely people, learning about the significance that religion and music hold in their life and, in turn, telling them about the religious significance music holds in mine.
It's certainly not for everyone, but these little moments of hearing the 'right song at the right time' in public are the closest equivalent I have to being lobbed signs by the universe. Getting unexpectedly laid over in an unplanned city and thinking about my ex, only to be hit by Lauren Zocca's enchanting cover of 'I Want You Back' - rushing to the clerk to ask who the hell was singing that beautiful song. Having a hard time sleeping because the raucous sounds of revelry were worming their way into the walls of my Little Portugal home, and rushing out with my roommates to be welcomed with open arms into a night of celebration. Microdosing, staring at a sunset locked in to my GOD TIER shroom playlist and, in a lesson that sits pretty with me today, setting aside my headphones to let the Cuban rhythms dancing out of a nearby speaker lull me into a whole new state of happy.
Not everyone sees these things the same way I do and, aside from bringing my guitar to the park and strumming to myself in a quiet corner from time to time, I don't tend to fill public sonic spaces with much of my own sound. But I am infinitely grateful for how shared music has taught me to let go of my sense of control, and instead lean into the spontaneity of the moment and enjoy the piping hot curveballs the world has whipped up for me.
Thank you. Peace and love to the Spyfriends in disagreement on this one. I’m an extreme “quiet car” type person by nature myself. But “busting out of the cocoon into a shared experience you never could have planned for” is a really nice way to frame the intended spirit of this particular Policy
Yeah. Shout out to the painters up on a scaffolding outside the room where I, a scared 20 year old in Paris, nervously took a diagnostic test in a language I didn't speak. Hearing Jeff Buckley through the window from their radio gave me hope while I pondered being in a city where even laborers' musical IQs are, excuse the pun, elevated. (At 20 I was already pretentious, obviously.) That was the music I needed to hear that day. If those laborers wore earbuds, this moment never happens for me.
love this, with the caveat that i'd be game to hear what window washers play from their radios in places the world over, not just paris ... that's esp. interesting work to think about soundtracking
My thoughts on another very well-reasoned, thoughtful 'sletter essay (one reason why I'm more than happy to be one of your patrons), as the Old Broad in the room (celebrating my big Dragon year six-o this year) . . .
1. As a community radio DJ, but someone who also values quiet (which is the aural negative space that makes the positive space of ambient sound pop . . . balance, don'cha know) - I have mixed feelings on the concept you have presented in the 'sletter. I see both sides. I think it might be something that is context/situation-dependent.
2. My mom raised us to be practitioners of S.A.C.R.E.D. - she's escaped spiders and insects back to the wild all my life, and I do the same whenever possible. I think it does indeed make a huge difference in how we human beings respect and appreciate the other beings with whom we share the planet.
Haven't tried giving peanuts to our crows though - will look into the best way to do that!
3. As a former theatrical costume designer, I have been and will always be a steadfast supporter of getting clothing via second-hand, IRL methods. We are lucky enough to have excellent second-hand stores up here in Nevada Country (lots of Bay Area "refugees" up here) - and the cycle of second-hand clothing life is strong . . . but I find great things on Etsy and eBay also.
Shout out to the guy who rides a cargo bike and blasts Gregorian chants round Prospect Park way in the mornings. Fundamentally changed my attitude towards Weird Bike Music Guys and now I consider myself one too (I am a woman.)
We feed the crow (her name is Danielle) in our front yard. She likes walnuts the best, cashews not as much. I will say if you go out of town they let you know about it when you come back.
LOVE the last one about memorizing something. My partner’s a huge poetry nerd and has tons of verse stored up in the noggin. It’s so moving and beautiful to hear him recite it!
I love that S.A.C.R.E.D. mindset! I’m glad there are more of us out there. Also, pro tip for moving snails off paths if you live in a wet and rainy locale: give the little fellas a gentle tap on top of their shells before picking them up and moving them to safer ground. They’ll retract into their shells a little, ease off on their suction to the ground and you’ll be far less likely to hurt them!
On the point of solely interacting with people through “ID on pants?” It reminded of this incredibly cursed G**gle ad that’s been going around for a few months where someone is seemingly watching video of an influencer who says you’ll never find this jacket and then the person watching uses Google’s AI (🤮) to ID the jacket. We are barreling toward an even more antisocial version of ID culture where you don’t even have to ask someone. You just take a picture of them and have your phone find it for you. I really hope people’s natural desire for interaction curbs the use of that, but they’re pushing it really hard in the ads as this revolutionary way to shop that makes my stomach churn.
On the one hand it makes navigation online easier especially with how unhelpful search functions are now. On the other hand, even less friction when it comes to finding clothes online takes so much of the interesting part out of that process. Searching for something online can lead to learning so much about an article of clothing or any other crafted item out there as you weave through forums and websites related to that thing. It can be fun seeing a cool shirt then stumbling into way more knowledge about the history behind it than I bargained for just by trying to find it online. That same experience is even better in person, but plenty of friction online can produce some cool results.
Suggested caveat for "no-show" socks: exercise. While BBSP finally broke me of my habit of occasionally wearing no-show socks with sneakers in my day-to-day summer life - for which, blessings upon you, it looks terrible - I run in a place where it is hot and humid and so (1) socks are a necessity and (2) my legs gotta be free, I don't want sopping wet sock a quarter of the way up my calves. Running socks ftw. ETA: And, unlike in any other context, I don't think it looks bad on me or anyone else. Similar to heather tees in the gym, I suppose.
Plenty of great running and cycling socks that are a nice height. Defeet is great, but lots of other brands which don’t hold sweat. Great for tanlines too.
Disagree about sharing music publicly, but agree with the ‘sletter’s other pleas for civility. Def going to buy peanuts in shells for the crows to keep the yard’s vibes high.
1 week update on raw peanuts for the yard: Squirrels and crows are all over and vibes are vibing high. Great suggestion that made me get outside, create more joy and get off the phone. Thanks BBSP. This is a nice addtl perk for being a Paid Subscriber. (Also Rome restau recs we’re all on point. 🥰
beautiful update !
Hard no to sharing your music and phone conversations, especially on the subway. It's beyond selfish. Start a conversation with a stranger if you want a bit of contact. Game noise too. Nope.
Yeah, I think it's straight up disrespectful. People don't want to hear your music.
Agreed. I think there's a time and a place for music to be playing out in public. I don't think public spaces should be fully sterile and quiet, but I also don't think every person should feel invited or encouraged to play their music out loud all the time.
Some occasions where some subway passenger or a random person walking on a sidewalk is playing music on a speaker can be enjoyable and add color to the human experience and the city, but if every single person who's listening to music at any given time is now playing music out loud it'd be a wack world. I don't want to listen to 20 simultaneous songs at the same time in my subway car. It would probably give people headaches, panic attacks and there'd be close to no chance of being able to read or have a conversation with your buddy sitting next to you while your brain is trying to process.
I think the spyplane decree and the tweet inspiring it came from a romantic philosophical train of thought, but in practice for every time we caught an exciting and inspiring Terry Riley, Messiaen or Bjork (to name three random but dope examples), you'd hear thousands of the same exact song in the top 40 current pop songs playing.
More likely than not I'd love to hear spynation's music playing out loud anywhere because I trust the taste and excitement for mach 3+ tunes people in this community have, and I would stop and ask about it or share in a moment of enjoyment, but as respectful and egalitarian citizens we cannot live by this rule without expecting that the rest of people shouldn't. And in that case, the world would be like a loud and headache inducing noise generator where the billion stream songs would be 99%+ percent more likely to play than the rare hidden gems with 10000 streams.
1) I’m confused on the seemingly coordinated whispers from different corners of the mens fashions blogger sphere pivoting to anti second hand clothes selling and buying. Dunno if yall are trying to bottom out the Grailed market and reset whatever stupid bubble is going on(the prices have seemed disgustingly high the past year) - but the amount of links embedded in BBSP to eBay searches in past articles creates a dissonance with this current bullet point
2)I’m with the folks in comments on not wanting to live in a world where everyone’s entitlement to share music starves us of silence and or more naturally occurring noises, I feel as if I’m bombarded by music every time I leave the house by every business and dead space everywhere, the only people who’s music I want to hear from a Bluetooth speaker fit any or most of these criteria - over 50, has a grocery cart, errand cart, or rascal, intoxicated. I have Shazammed the songs and made a playlist called “non consensual jams”
ayy friend re point 1): no coordination on this end, I'm curious what other ppl you're thinking of. This one is kind of like "cop irl only," i.e., an ideal or challenge or thought experiment in reaction to cursed online trends (explored in more detail in the recent Is Resale Cooked essay, but there's definitely a growing feeling that a lot of the resale platforms are getting increasingly torched / enshittified).
like any ideal / challenge / thought experiment this one is, of course, ~nearly impossible (undesirable?) to actually follow 100%, and yeah we of course remain pro secondhand clothes, which will necessarily involve buying & selling them online
ideally through ebay and even better craiglist !! 😉🕊️
oh and re point 2) the "non consensual jams" playlist is a fantastic idea hahah
Conspiracy brain flared up, saw Noah Johnson saying some similar things on GQ recently- figured yall were all in an Illuminati style menswear group chat
Also now time for the praise
1) stand on the right walk on the left needs a govt sponsored PSA
2) no killing animals or bugs is a great rule of thumb, a long term partner who grew up Buddhist put me on to this and it’s wild how my feelings toward the world changed upon implementation
3) showrooming- thanks for championing the small businesses as always, does your mindset on this change in regard to a flagship store for a larger brand let’s say like Margaret Howell or Jil Sander? Would you try something on at a flagship and then cop from a small retailer?
I guess that could be a way to support a local spot while also supporting the brand itself, I don’t have particularly strong feelings on that particular example
It pains me to say it, but "we want cities to sound like a million melodies bouncing off each other" might be the most disagreeable thing I've ever read in this blessed 'sletter. Your boi's neurodivergent and ~20% of the city's population is too. Managing the sensory overload and burnout from 21st century city life is brutal, and parks might be the only bit of respite folks can find. Do not fill them with your extra noise!
If you want cities to be accessible for all then you gotta be considerate of your fellow humans' experiences. Blaring music and phone calls out into the melting pot is plain rude and uncaring. It saddens me that BBSP would miss that.
Totally see where you’re coming from
In the interest of kind vibes and Mach 3+ craggy-brain community discourse, I'm interested in sharing my own experiences with the beauty that can come from the "Noise Pollution" of other people's music permeating a shared space. And this isn't meant to counteract any of the arguments that have been raised in favour of "keeping the sonic sidewalk clean," it's just simply to offer another perspective.
Some of the most Mach 7+ heavenly moments of my life have been derived for eavesdropping on someone else's vibe and, subsequently, being invited to share a moment with them. I love music enough that I'm often guilty of moving through the world locked into my own sh!t, headphones on and in le zone, so to speak. However, I cherish the moments when a tune has wafted into the lil sonic cocoon I so often build for myself and yanked me by the collar into an experience I never could have planned for. Summer '23, living and working on a secluded West Coast island, I had smoked a doob and was walking to the Far Beach, a few minutes further, but sandier. On my italics-level slanted walk (ur boy was HIGH), my "audio airfield" was breached by what I initially clocked as a "sonic hallucination" - 'Amazing Grace' being sung in a carefree six-part harmony. I made my way over and soon found myself enjoying the songs and conversation of a triple date of couples who were enjoying the stars and the bioluminescence, which was out to a level I'd never before seen and have never seen since - it looked as though the ocean were reflecting the stars. Although not a religious fella myself, I ended up in an hour long conversation with these lovely people, learning about the significance that religion and music hold in their life and, in turn, telling them about the religious significance music holds in mine.
It's certainly not for everyone, but these little moments of hearing the 'right song at the right time' in public are the closest equivalent I have to being lobbed signs by the universe. Getting unexpectedly laid over in an unplanned city and thinking about my ex, only to be hit by Lauren Zocca's enchanting cover of 'I Want You Back' - rushing to the clerk to ask who the hell was singing that beautiful song. Having a hard time sleeping because the raucous sounds of revelry were worming their way into the walls of my Little Portugal home, and rushing out with my roommates to be welcomed with open arms into a night of celebration. Microdosing, staring at a sunset locked in to my GOD TIER shroom playlist and, in a lesson that sits pretty with me today, setting aside my headphones to let the Cuban rhythms dancing out of a nearby speaker lull me into a whole new state of happy.
Not everyone sees these things the same way I do and, aside from bringing my guitar to the park and strumming to myself in a quiet corner from time to time, I don't tend to fill public sonic spaces with much of my own sound. But I am infinitely grateful for how shared music has taught me to let go of my sense of control, and instead lean into the spontaneity of the moment and enjoy the piping hot curveballs the world has whipped up for me.
Thank you. Peace and love to the Spyfriends in disagreement on this one. I’m an extreme “quiet car” type person by nature myself. But “busting out of the cocoon into a shared experience you never could have planned for” is a really nice way to frame the intended spirit of this particular Policy
🎵 🕊️ 🌍
Yeah. Shout out to the painters up on a scaffolding outside the room where I, a scared 20 year old in Paris, nervously took a diagnostic test in a language I didn't speak. Hearing Jeff Buckley through the window from their radio gave me hope while I pondered being in a city where even laborers' musical IQs are, excuse the pun, elevated. (At 20 I was already pretentious, obviously.) That was the music I needed to hear that day. If those laborers wore earbuds, this moment never happens for me.
love this, with the caveat that i'd be game to hear what window washers play from their radios in places the world over, not just paris ... that's esp. interesting work to think about soundtracking
reminds me of a great van morrison song: "cleaning windows" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QrRSL7YCwjw
oh man this goes, found a new great song to play out loud on my bike in the city!
Certified joy-spreader of a chune
I appreciate you. This was a nice thing to read.
My thoughts on another very well-reasoned, thoughtful 'sletter essay (one reason why I'm more than happy to be one of your patrons), as the Old Broad in the room (celebrating my big Dragon year six-o this year) . . .
1. As a community radio DJ, but someone who also values quiet (which is the aural negative space that makes the positive space of ambient sound pop . . . balance, don'cha know) - I have mixed feelings on the concept you have presented in the 'sletter. I see both sides. I think it might be something that is context/situation-dependent.
2. My mom raised us to be practitioners of S.A.C.R.E.D. - she's escaped spiders and insects back to the wild all my life, and I do the same whenever possible. I think it does indeed make a huge difference in how we human beings respect and appreciate the other beings with whom we share the planet.
Haven't tried giving peanuts to our crows though - will look into the best way to do that!
3. As a former theatrical costume designer, I have been and will always be a steadfast supporter of getting clothing via second-hand, IRL methods. We are lucky enough to have excellent second-hand stores up here in Nevada Country (lots of Bay Area "refugees" up here) - and the cycle of second-hand clothing life is strong . . . but I find great things on Etsy and eBay also.
Well put across the board !
Shout out to the guy who rides a cargo bike and blasts Gregorian chants round Prospect Park way in the mornings. Fundamentally changed my attitude towards Weird Bike Music Guys and now I consider myself one too (I am a woman.)
need this guy to spin past me some time !
Truly a a hot-take-dilemma for the ages, Jonah: would you rather live in a city where everyone wears headphones or backpacks?
Hahaha 😂
If you’re going to sell clothes online sell them on the non-cursed and very considered Noihsaf Bazaar.
Patron of the arts. Hell yeah
We feed the crow (her name is Danielle) in our front yard. She likes walnuts the best, cashews not as much. I will say if you go out of town they let you know about it when you come back.
😂
LOVE the last one about memorizing something. My partner’s a huge poetry nerd and has tons of verse stored up in the noggin. It’s so moving and beautiful to hear him recite it!
Lovely!
What I wouldn't give to actually go into a store and try on the Tanaka jeans that Erin recommended. Would be happy to give the store the business!
I love that S.A.C.R.E.D. mindset! I’m glad there are more of us out there. Also, pro tip for moving snails off paths if you live in a wet and rainy locale: give the little fellas a gentle tap on top of their shells before picking them up and moving them to safer ground. They’ll retract into their shells a little, ease off on their suction to the ground and you’ll be far less likely to hurt them!
great tip
On the point of solely interacting with people through “ID on pants?” It reminded of this incredibly cursed G**gle ad that’s been going around for a few months where someone is seemingly watching video of an influencer who says you’ll never find this jacket and then the person watching uses Google’s AI (🤮) to ID the jacket. We are barreling toward an even more antisocial version of ID culture where you don’t even have to ask someone. You just take a picture of them and have your phone find it for you. I really hope people’s natural desire for interaction curbs the use of that, but they’re pushing it really hard in the ads as this revolutionary way to shop that makes my stomach churn.
yeah obvious benefits to that but also immense downsides !
On the one hand it makes navigation online easier especially with how unhelpful search functions are now. On the other hand, even less friction when it comes to finding clothes online takes so much of the interesting part out of that process. Searching for something online can lead to learning so much about an article of clothing or any other crafted item out there as you weave through forums and websites related to that thing. It can be fun seeing a cool shirt then stumbling into way more knowledge about the history behind it than I bargained for just by trying to find it online. That same experience is even better in person, but plenty of friction online can produce some cool results.
Well put
Suggested caveat for "no-show" socks: exercise. While BBSP finally broke me of my habit of occasionally wearing no-show socks with sneakers in my day-to-day summer life - for which, blessings upon you, it looks terrible - I run in a place where it is hot and humid and so (1) socks are a necessity and (2) my legs gotta be free, I don't want sopping wet sock a quarter of the way up my calves. Running socks ftw. ETA: And, unlike in any other context, I don't think it looks bad on me or anyone else. Similar to heather tees in the gym, I suppose.
Plenty of great running and cycling socks that are a nice height. Defeet is great, but lots of other brands which don’t hold sweat. Great for tanlines too.
My grandpa in a way implemented S.A.C.R.E.D when I was kid. He stopped me from killing a slug
good on grandpa