the role of the artist
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Whose Standards?
It’s easy to forget how arbitrary many of the standards and expectations we measure ourselves against actually are. So many of them were put in place for other people’s reasons, in different contexts to our own, and for purposes that are no longer relevant or sufficient. But path dependency takes over, and before we know…
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Aphorism 22 & ‘Delay the New Day’
I come to you this Thursday with my first aphorism of 2025, and news that the second Red Telephone album, ‘Delay the New Day’, hits digital shelves from midnight. To violently wean you onto it, here’s a surrealist music video that we filmed for the song ‘Faithful’. Fighting, masks, religiosity, dancing. The human experience in…
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Disagreeing With Mike Tyson
No, I haven’t had an in-person altercation with the great boxer Mike Tyson. But I did see a video of him telling a young interviewer that he doesn’t care about legacy, because, in his view, legacy is all about ego. I don’t know why I carried this with me for any longer than the 20…
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Embracing Discomfort
More often than we care to acknowledge we might not be facing a tangible barrier, but an unwillingness to engage with an uncomfortable situation. And while it’s almost automatic to think of discomfort in the negative, it’s also often a natural companion of progress and growth. The Thoughts of Others Today’s ‘thoughts of others’ are…
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Genius Death
Stop trying to be a genius and start being a writer. A writer writes, just as a runner runs. Just as a child builds sandcastles and Lego structures in ignorance of Gaudí. Create without pretence. Without expectation. Without lofty desires. With an indifference to results. And if you’re lucky, some genius may emerge. The Thoughts…