If you read only one essay this year that features the words "seafood jacuzzi", let it be this one: substack.com/home/post/p-...

Greetings from the water park inside the New Century Global Center in Chengdu aka the world’s largest building

Yesterday we put a human birthday in perspective by visiting a gingko tree that is more than a thousand years old

pstttt there’s a pretty sick deep techno party tonight in Shanghai at Heim

at Xi An Xiao Chi (« Xi An Snack ») in Shanghai there’s a bowl of raw garlic at every table and you’re supposed to peel a clove and nibble some of it between every delicious bite of oily spicy noodles

so we are in this city called Shanghai and

It’s my mother’s 82nd birthday today! Give it up for Kathleen everybody!

Posing up a storm at the Palgrave booth at the WSC conference because actual print copies of Catherine Bates and James Stone’s edited collection « Shakespeare & Psychoanalysis » (for which I wrote the afterword) have arrived. Embrace your symptoms, everyone!

when Reviewer #2 suggests deep cuts:

Verona we are in you (I’m here for a week long Shakespeare conference and M.C. Schmidt is fancy free)

On my (free) Substack, I wrote an essay about reading poetry on a train journey, and the disruption of that journey. Content warning: suicide. drewdaniel.substack.com/p/scorpion-m...

Scorpion Mind

On Byron, Mental Freedom, and Suicide

drewdaniel.substack.com

Sometimes you find a painting of the infant Jesus where he is just chilling so hard

I am 55 years old today.

[sound on] Tortelloni with Gorgonzola at Trattoria Serghei scene report:

Hey! Are you in Bologna this Friday? It will be my birthday and I will be playing a Matmos show at Rione San Nicolo as part of the BOtanique Festival! You should come! 🥂💋🇮🇹🍉🐈👍🎉🎂🥳🎈

Parma Scene Report:

In advance of my turning 55 in a few days, I have written something personal about aging, perspective, and illusion, with cameo appearances from alpine mountains, Chinese rugs, and, er, Søren Kierkegaard. You can read it on my (new, free) Substack right here: drewdaniel.substack.com/p/reciprocal...

Reciprocal Clouds

On Aging, Re-Reading, and the Atmospheric Illusion of a Self

drewdaniel.substack.com

Chateau de Chillon scene report:

For my sins, I have started a (free) Substack, which will act as a splashy tidal pool for citation fondling, essays, and the occasional rant. My inaugural post on stupefaction, "mollusk feelings" and reading through a heatwave, can be found here: drewdaniel.substack.com/p/a-strong-d...

A Strong Desire to Dream

How are we supposed to read when it's too hot to think?

drewdaniel.substack.com

Its 90 degrees in this restaurant and D does not hesitate to order a bowl of hot molten cheese

[sound on] scene report: swimming with a swan in Switzerland

just finished re-reading Kierkegaard / just started re-reading De Quincey (one of the pleasures of growing older is re-reading)

RIP Kjell Nilsson aka Lord Humungus “Be still my dog of war”

This stabs me with guilt because I wanted to see that Orcutt Shelley Miller show badly but also Evicshen and Lexie Mountain were also playing that same night so the actual Matmos guys (at least for now) went to the noise show instead. Sorry! We sent clones to confuse people.

RJC@voguingtodanzig.bsky.social · last mo.

Funny recent memory that I didn’t note at the time: at the Orcutt Shelley Miller show seeing a pair of gentlemen who looked exactly like Matmos, but then over 30-40 minutes realizing that they were actually not Matmos - an off-brand Matmos

Just had a meet up with international man of mystery @fucktheory.bsky.social at one of Athen’s most elite new dining spots

I overheard (most of – the Jubilee line is very noisy) a fascinating conversation on the Tube earlier. Three young people were talking about the cost of living and it being too expensive to move to London, when one of them abruptly rummaged through their bag and produced a hag stone! ...

Trump has monetized the presidency far more than any before him, reaping a stunning windfall in his first year back in the White House, including about $1.4bn from his family’s cryptocurrency businesses. All told, the president pulled in at least $2.2bn in 2025, a figure that includes other parts

Trump Pulled in at Least $2 Billion After Returning to the White House

nytimes.com

We are staying in Exarchia in Athens, a hilltop zone of super narrow streets heavily covered in graffiti that our hosts tell us is known as “the anarchist neighborhood”- there are a lot of riot police with shields around at night, apparently to protect the proposed new infrastructure projects

Οι MATMOS και Jay Glass Dubs θα εμφανιστούν απόψε στην Αθήνα στο Plyfa Space.

Thanks to our hosts & everyone who came out to see us at Archa+ in Praha! 🇨🇿 A ridiculously beautiful city full of architectural treasures, rad vegan restaurants, beer nirvana, & charming people. It had been 14 years and that’s too long - but damn, you sure kept it hot for us! next stop: Athens! 🇬🇷