Sal Randolph

a cyan blue postcard, size a5, a promotional mailer for derek jarman's 1993 film blue, horizontally oriented on a handrubbed pine enzo mari autoprogettazione tabletop

an A5 postcard for staring at while listening to Derek Jarman's Blue on the BBC on 19 September 1993, for people who didn't get Channel 4
greg.org/archive/2026...

A Post on Spring Writing back to social media.

As the news swirls constantly around us, I continue my practice of writing back to posts on social media. It seems I’ve been doing this for a year!

It’s a form of play that helps me reclaim my attention and connect to my sense of being.

I invite you to do the same!

blue sky with wispy clouds

i went outside for my brain again

I love it so much.

Sea of Ice & Other Portable Tales Some strange wanderings.

My notebooks these days are filled with strange wanderings and shards of tales both short and long.

salrandolph.substack.com/p/sea-of-ice...

Jeff is the best.

People are such a cornucopia!

The way he says “cab.”

Laments Words for when language

How do we speak when language fails?

salrandolph.substack.com/p/laments

“Artist refers to a person, willfully enmeshed in a dilemma of categories, who performs as if none of them existed.”
- Allan Kaprow

I don’t want to hear anything from an elected official unless it’s a plan to defund the DHS and impeach Noem, Bovino, etc. No texts. No emails. No talk about the economy. Step up or step off.

More of The Free Words Story How this newsletter got its name.

Free Words was a hot pink artists book I described as “a book that belonged to anyone who found it.” I placed it onto the shelves of bookstores and libraries to be discovered, and people who found it had to make a decision about whether they were truly free to carry it away.

Here’s the story.

You’re probably also right about this space being smaller & therefore less useful for local & regional politics.

I think hashtags are much less important here.

One small thing we can do to help.

B&W photo of a man's face covered in rocks & dirt as if emerging from or buried within the earth

From the great David Wojnarowicz (thread):

"I wake up every morning in this killing machine called america & I’m carrying this rage like a blood filled egg & there’s a thin line between inside & the outside a thin line between thought & action & that line is simply made up of blood & muscle & bone"

Where Are Your Horses? Notes on Attention and Zen for The Empty Cup.

The Empty Cup (from the School of Radical Attention) invited me to write a guest post on Zen and attention, so here is a brief report on my experiences during this winter’s silent retreat.

salrandolph.substack.com/p/where-are-...

Squirrel had that same energy.

Frank

Du Fu, trans. Arthur Sze, full poem text below Spring View The nation is broken, but hills and rivers remain. Spring is in the city, grasses and trees are thick. Touched by the hard times, flowers shed tears. Grieved by separations, birds are startled in their hearts. The beacon fires burned for three consecutive months. A letter from home would be worth ten thousand pieces of gold. As I scratch my white head, the hairs become ewer: so scarce that I try in vain to fasten them with a pin.

The nation is broken, but hills and rivers remain.

Du Fu, trans. Arthur Sze

Be ahead of all partings, as if they were behind you, like the winter that’s just past. For among the winters is one so endlessly winter that your heart, if you overwinter, can survive it. Be dead in Eurydice, always—, climb with more song, climb with more praise, back up into pure relation. Here in the kingdom of decay, among what’s wasting, be a tingling glass that shatters itself with sound. Exist while you know the state of nonexistence, the endless ground of your own deep pulse, so that you can fulfill it completely this one time. With the used-up, as well as the muffled and useless stock of full nature, the unreckoned sum, count yourself in, rejoicing, and then demolish the count.

the endless ground of your own deep pulse,

Rainer Maria Rilke, tr. David Young

I Tried to Be the Government. It Did Not Go Well. My five-month quest to monitor the weather, track inflation, and inspect milk for harmful microorganisms

Here! www.theatlantic.com/magazine/202...

I Tried to Be the Government. It Did Not Go Well. My five-month quest to monitor the weather, track inflation, and inspect milk for harmful microorganisms

Here you go! www.theatlantic.com/magazine/202...

Subito is reading through Jan 15.

Nightboat, Ugly Duckling Presse

Works & Days & I'll be reading at Sunview Acropolis NYC on January 15

Happy New Year! May this coming year offer you liberation.

I’m thrilled to have two excerpts from a manuscript, You Must be an Image to Survive, You Must be a Text to Be Found, in the new issue of Works & Days from out now from Beautiful Days Press.

It’s important for child development to have Dylan Thomas xmas seep its way into your unconscious.

Ways of Seeing: The Gift Joy in the immaterial spirit of giving.

On the immaterial spirit of giving:

salrandolph.substack.com/p/ways-of-se...

Me too!! Happy to be there with you.

The Endarkening Words for the longest night

A Solstice song to celebrate or get you through.

It begins before it begins. It begins before it begins when the light is longest. It begins in triumph and jubilation. It begins in winning. It begins in the fat of the land and the plenty. Such light….

salrandolph.substack.com/p/the-endark...