![A noir-style black and white photograph of the New York subway, as seen through one of the vertical turnstile entrances. In the foreground, the curving bars of the turnstile make dramatic gestures across the image. Through the bars you can see a stairway with the words “Exit Park Av So-32 St” and on a wall to the right a tile mosaic with the number 33. A noir-style black and white photograph of the New York subway, as seen through one of the vertical turnstile entrances. In the foreground, the curving bars of the turnstile make dramatic gestures across the image. Through the bars you can see a stairway with the words “Exit Park Av So-32 St” and on a wall to the right a tile mosaic with the number 33.](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Facb76f0c-3570-46d1-a779-e7396e023637_1172x1563.heic)
Dear Friends,
As I mentioned recently, I’ve moved to an every-other-week schedule for my regular posts over the summer. In between, I’m holding our space together with these quick postcards featuring photos of New York by my dear friend, Bobby Duvet.
Despite the noir, subterranean energy of the photo, I’m in Provincetown this week. Today is a day of hazy sky and high wind. It’s surprising how quickly your body changes when you leave the city for a bit. I always sleep a lot when I get here, as if I’ve been running on empty for a while. I spent the afternoon working on a craft project and now I’m bathed in the dreamy afternoon light and the sound of the wind.
Wish you were here.
— Sal
Tell me what it’s like where you are. I’d love to hear from you.
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Further adventures and new ways of seeing can be found in my book, The Uses of Art.
Artist Sal Randolph’s THE USES OF ART is a memoir of transformative encounters with works of art, inviting readers into new methods of looking that are both liberating and emboldening.
Dazzlingly original, ferociously intelligent.
— Michael Cunningham
A joyful, dazzling treasure-box of a book.
— Bonnie Friedman
Here’s a guide, to waking up, over and over again.
— Roshi Pat Enkyo O’Hara
I am in Lexington Kentucky. I moved here almost exactly a year ago. Yesterday, I received 75 copies of a book I’ve been finishing since then. It was printed and bound in the last five weeks. I have worried about the subject matter since I started work on it several years ago, but somehow and weird to me, it insisted that I get it out of me. So I listened and created a book about gay male fucking—at age 82, when many people I know are writing memoirs. But the book that arrived on my doorstop yesterday, in one of the reddest of red states, is to me beautiful and humane. Last night, I came across a documentary, completely accidentally, about George Platt Lynes, who also worried about the same issue in the 30’s, 40’s, and 50’s, but created his images anyway. I found this immensely comforting, in the reddest of red states, as if some agent of fate had told that finding the documentary was not accidental. “Hey you,” it seemed to say, “calm down.” I know that subway station. I have passed through those bars.
Tom
Early evening in Windmill Hill, Bristol UK. It's warm, for once, and everyone has their windows open. Birdsong, and a soft cheer that must have been England scoring in the (soccer) Euros. Later, I'm going to an old fire station in the city centre to hear my neightbour, Polly Barton, talk about her book, Porn: An Oral History. Is a theme emerging? Full moon tonight, wherever we all are.