STFU summer
OML #73
Welcome to Human Pursuits, the column that features need-to-know names and stories in media and other creative spaces. Today, some thoughts on shutting the fuck up, and updates from Friends including Cloud Nothings, Katie Heindl, Erin Sommers, Norman Brannon, and more.
A few weeks ago, Shomas conducted an informal survey.
He went around the table with a simple question.
“What are your goals for the summer?”
Someone said swimming in the ocean. Another said solo camping, maybe.
I didn’t say much. It wasn’t intentional, but it was indicative of where I want the summer to go. Increasingly, my goal is to STFU.
The idea began to form around May long weekend. We were driving east with Kevin, out past the city and the farmlands and through the Fraser Valley, en route to the Okanagan, and had stopped for lunch in Hope. I got chicken strips and fries from A&W. For a long time, the restaurant’s poultry products were branded with a mischievous-looking bird in a chef’s uniform.
“Eat up, Chubby Chicken,” said Kevin from the driver’s seat.
I replied almost without thinking.
“Bitch shut the fuuuuuuuuuuuck up.”
I had been listening to a lot of Iceman. I had been playing “Janice STFU” on repeat.
I laughed, and then Kevin laughed, and then Leah. Every trip has its own inside joke, and this was ours. We spent the rest of the weekend politely telling each other to STFU.
Back in Vancouver, though, I started to wonder if shutting the fuck up might actually be the way to go. Not because I’ve been speaking out of pocket—I haven’t—but because I’m remembering how nice it is to enjoy the silence. Both as a speaker and a listener.
On Monday, I awoke to find my phone completely dead. Leah and I were supposed to leave for the gym. I tried unplugging the phone and reconnecting it, but the screen remained black. I had no access to music or my Notes app, where I track all my workouts. I was adrift.
“I should just go back to bed,” I thought. “This will be pointless.”
But then a little voice emerged from the recesses of my brain.
“Shut the fuck up!”
I paused.
When I wasn’t fixated on how the morning could go wrong, I realized I could get about 90% of my workout right from memory. Better than nothing. I decided to grit my teeth and bear it.
What followed was weirdly zen. While most of its clientele are wired for sound, rocking over-the-ear headphones and AirPods, Anytime Fitness also pumps its locations with pre-determined playlists. On this particular morning, the all-seeing selector skewed heavily towards contemporary R&B.
“No Diggity” by Blackstreet
“Livin’ It Up” by Ja Rule
“Milkshake” by Kelis
“Lollipop” by Lil Wayne.
Songs I’ve heard hundreds of times. But they sounded fresh in the face of my relative silence. It’s not a monastery by any means, but I realized there was a meditative element to the whole experience. Releasing your desire to control your environment. Accepting whatever is happening in the moment.
STFU summer applies to external communication, too.
These past few weeks, our social calendar has been slightly overloaded, and I’ve been thinking that while I sometimes regret saying too much, I never regret shutting the fuck up. It’s not that I don’t want to speak for the next three months. It’s just that I want my words to have weight. For my conversations to feel less like a comment thread and more like an actual dialogue.
Because the reality is that there are a lot of important messages I want to hear. Things about art, and literature, and climate, and war, and the New York Knickerbockers. But it’s hard to remember that when you’re trying to craft your next pithy comment.
When I think about the summers of my youth, I think about the whirr of lawn mowers, and the hiss of sprinklers; the sizzle of grade A eggs on hot sidewalks, and the zap of an alien invasion vaporizing the White House. I don’t think much about what was said, about dialogues or diatribes or discourses. The movies in my head are silent pictures.
“All of humanity’s problems stem from man’s inability to sit quietly in a room alone,” wrote philosopher Blaise Pascal in 1654.
In modern terms:
“Is it necessary that every single person on this planet expresses every single opinion that they have on every single thing that occurs all at the same time?” asked Bo Burnham in 2021’s Inside. “Can anyone shut the fuck up?”
Forever? No.
For a summer? Perhaps.
Oh Messy Life
ICYMI: Last week’s interview was with the West Texas emo band Oakwood. We discussed the band’s new record, Blurred Away, as well as embracing bad vocal takes, improvising art, the Alberta-Texas connection, and their tour rider.
London Calling: Oslo hardcore outfit Hammok have announced they are playing Pitchfork Music Festival London this year. Tickets here.
Colin Miller is also headed across the pond, with a stop at p4k LDN. Routing and tickets here.
And Cloud Nothings have also announced some new European dates. They’ll be crossing the UK and mainland starting in November. Routing and tickets here.
Willem Smit and his pals in Personal Trainer have shared a new single, “Moping”, from their forthcoming album, Human Assholes. Great, weird album title. The band is also touring Europe and the UK this fall.
Sports Business Classroom has announced the incomparable Katie Heindl as a new instructor for its 2026 Business of Basketball Immersive Experience. The program offers those looking to work in basketball a chance to take their “experience, knowledge, and network to the next level.” More info here.
Erin Somers is bound for BeaconLit fest. She’ll be participating in a panel on ‘Crafting Reality in Fiction and Nonfiction’. Info and tickets here.
Norman Brannon and Texas Is The Reason are reissuing the band’s classic album, Do You Know Who You Think You Are?, on coloured vinyl to commemorate its 30th anniversary. Shop here.
Oh, and I really enjoyed kate lindsay on “How I’d use social media if my job wasn’t social media”!
Proper Chune
red, white, and blue lights flashing
My next guest is…
Author Allie Rowbottom . Her new book, Lovers XXX, is a provocative character study that starts in ‘80s porn and ends with a modern mystery. A beach read that is too hot for Barnes and Noble, apparently.
Meme machine
waiting in line at Bar Tartare like
