FOSTERTALK Presents: Summer Fridays Radio.
FOSTERTALK PRESENTS: Summer Fridays is back, and we're on the radio. Also: The Best Cig in Europe, Unfortunate Habits of the Terribly Online, The Best Vacation Advice You'll Ever Hear, and then some.
Deep breath.
Okay.
Here we go again:
Table of Contents:
When to Stay.
An Unfortunate Habit of the Terribly Online.
Editor’s Letter (or: More Wind).
When to Go (or: The Most Important Vacation Advice In The World).
0. Summer Fridays Radio.
Don’t call it a podcast. This newsletter, this entire thing, it was originally conceived as a radio show. Mostly music — great music — with fuzzy dispatches from someone, somewhere, coming out of a car’s radio, windows down, or a speaker at the beach, or in your headphones at the pool. So: I made a radio show. Please meet Summer Fridays Radio. Featuring the sounds of Sardinia, Ibiza, and the soundtrack to your summer.
All the best stuff is in here:
Stream it on SoundCloud here, before it gets taken down. Ideally, as loud as you can, ideally, near a body of water. Pardon any technical shortcomings. If you’ve got any notes, dear god, get in touch.
1. When to Stay.
(or: The Best Cigarette In Europe)
Hydra, GR. Hydronetta.
37.351677, 23.462279.
3:53 a.m. (GMT+3)
With all due respect, he asked — of course, meaning anything but — why the fuck would you go back tomorrow? It’s just hot there. That’s it. For a guy I’d only met five hours ago who was now five feet from me, stark naked, the artist made a good point. Not that someone you met even five minutes ago can’t make a good point.
We’re bobbing up and down in the waters off of Hydronetta sometime around 3 a.m., half-empties of Alfa scattered on the rocks near our clothes along with those of the bartender, and the two friends from Montreal she’d introduced me to, all now naked in the water with us. The artist made fast friends with the bartender earlier that summer: both Americans, both there for the season, she, early 30s, escaping the horror show that is LA these days (and a shit relationship), he, early 40s, spending yet another summer on an island that’s produced its fair share of them, and their work about it — including his, which I realized I was familiar with (a fun moment to be a couple rounds deep for).
The Montrealers were their late 20s, having traveled around Europe for a decent spell, now, they were (like the other two) gorgeous and sun-kissed, eyes sparkling, but also, carrying the lightness of people who aren’t carrying American passports this summer. There we all were, bobbing up and down in the (somehow, even at night) crystal blue waters of Hydra, and the pile-on was starting, four on one. Seriously, why leave now, man, come on, comeeee onnnn do ittt, etc.
I was gonna catch the ferry back to Athens in a few hours, and work remotely for a few days before getting back to New York. It’s just hot there. That’s it. We’re taking a boat to the best beach on this island tomorrow morning. Everyone else I’d shown up with was gone, and I’ve got a habit of never overstaying my welcome, anywhere, let alone with strangers. And yet: Whenever I’ve stretched a stint on an island — even for a day or two — it’s been worth it.
I climb out of the water onto the rocks, fold open the beautiful small yellow box sitting next to the beers, lift the delicate tissue paper in it, nick a stray Karelias, find a lighter, and after the third drag, announce that I’ll eat the ferry ticket, book a new one, check into another hotel, and stay two more nights. They yelled from the water, the noise of four becoming-less-strangers and the brisk, azure Aegean waters hitting rocks still warm from that day’s Saronic sun, cheering me into the unknown. I blushed. I felt dumb. I grinned. Hard not to, at one of the best stripes of small thrill there is: The start of something new — while dick naked and gently buzzed in the Mediterranean night, no less.
I’d tell you what happened over the next two nights with these beautiful people, the artist, the bartender, and the sirens of Montreal, but despite what many a contemporary memoirist and autofiction writer and mediocre Substack diarist and travel “creator” and all of their aspirants will have you believe, the richest pleasures in life (and especially the summer) sit in the elliptical, the unarticulated, the imagined, which you won’t find for the most part anywhere here, on Substack, online, not even close. This isn’t at all a matter of discretion, or cultivating mystique. It’s simply: Why reduce the ineffable? Besides, you already know, whatever it was: Something happened. Something worth staying for.
George Karelias and Sons, €3.90, 20 Ct. Available at most Greek tobacco retailers.
2. An Unfortunate Habit of the Terribly Online (or: Three of Europe’s Best Thirst-Quenchers)
There’s that thing when someone gets online and writes or says something in their phone camera like “Hey guys, I’m so sorry I’ve been gone, please, let me explain where I’ve been,” as though anybody actually notices when the strangers they let into their brain are on or off the internet for a prolonged period of time. I know you know what I’m talking about — I know you’ve seen this. And the wild thing is, we’ve learned: You basically have to be the literal heir to the throne of the British Empire for anybody to give a shit about the fact that you haven’t been seen online for a month or two, and even then, shrug.
The kind of person who thinks anybody noticed that they were gone, even to paying subscribers, betrays a certain kind of garden-variety narcissism that we’ve started to take for granted as a new status quo. The truth is — and I’m speaking to anybody who makes anything in the modern era of media — I promise:
If you’ve got a compulsion to explain your absence online, that’s less about anyone else’s curiosity about where you were than it is the very human and understandable desire to be missed, to be relevant, to be valued, to have curiosity in the world about you. But it’s also a kind of parasocial sickness that we should vote into the next edition of the DSM. Outside of your close relations, nobody gives a shit where you’ve been. Is that not freedom?
Unrelated: Not even a beer drinker, but christ, with apologies to all the sober friends1, Greek beers on a hot summer day? One of the great pleasures of being, I don’t know, an adult? And: That blue label Alfa with the sea salt in it? My god. And despite (or maybe because of?) the salt, it’s got this weird, subtle sweetness to it I really can’t pin down. A salty drink on a hot day: Who knew? Also, I’m making a pitcher of that Lemaire tomato water next. Sounds great.
3. Editor’s Letter
(or: More Wind.)
Hey Guys —
Sorry I’ve been gone. Lemme explain where I’ve been. Also, if you’re new here, and have no idea what the fuck is happening right now, that makes several thousands of us. Either way, I’ll do my best: Basically, I had the hottest shit newsletter on Substack a while back, pulled a Bartleby when hockey stick growth reached critical mass for legitimate great reasons, and left in its wake wide berth for reframing conventional wisdom about current events and media and life in New York (restaurants, business, whatever) as unique and rarefied insight, or genuine news, something I spent/wasted parts of the last 17 years doing (and in kind, imitating a more robust version that preceded me by, let’s say, six years). But at least it was good? And didn’t always get things wrong? Anyway, lucky for the people into that kind of thing, plenty have since taken up the mantle, some of them are backed, some of them are plucky bootstrappers I genuinely admire and read. I’m glad they’re making money. That part’s legitimately better. But been there, done that, and for a variety of legitimately great reasons, I decided, for quite some time: Couldn’t be me.
SMASH CUT TO: Last summer, when I resurrect this newsletter under the guise of being a Supposedly Useful Guide to Everything Important Over the Course of a Summer to a Cosmopolitan Person in the World. It was an extended bit about that archetype, hidden inside of a fun, escapist (and on occasion, accidentally useful) read: Summer Fridays. We had a fun, sexy, great time, and we turned out to be right about everything.2
It ended like this:
Making a thing, and trying to make it original, and trying to make it for the love of the thing, and trying to do it with the enormous pressures we put on ourselves, to say nothing of all the reasons not to put your whole ass out there for everyone to see? By the numbers, there are more reasons to avoid doing it than not. […] I’m not good enough of a writer to actually convey what it means to have people encourage your weird, creative pursuits, except to say that we should all spend more time encouraging people’s weird, creative pursuits. That’s all I’ve got. Remember: It’s always summer somewhere. Be that place.
That was nice. So, why the delay, here?
In a word: Vibes. Which, this summer, have largely been goddamn abysmal. I’ve started referring to it as the Summer of Stress. Last summer was a wholly appropriate time to talk about things like rationality paradigms and noncompetes between notes on poppers and your balls on steroids. This summer is…not? People are getting divorced, they’re losing jobs, the dollar’s down, Brian Wilson’s dead, the worst companies in the world are merging, the masked unidentified police are stealing helpless people off the streets and situationships are stealing lovers from love.
It’s not all bad: Some people had babies, cute ones, even. ‘Heat’s not killing everyone, everywhere — in some places, it actually feels good. And, in the straw that may have tickled this camel’s back, the residents of the greatest city on Earth decided they’d elect to high candidacy someone the rest of America warned them not to, and these voters did so, maybe, at times, for no better a reason than fuck you.3
Whatever it was, thus spoke a vibe shift. Like maybe I could maybe have some fun with this again. And so here we are. But the remit I’ve committed myself to is: Getting people outside. Or sending you dispatches from something beyond the world of New York and salads and bowls and Zoomers and all the ways they aren’t fucking and the DTC brands they’re blowing money on and the “creators” whose voices aren’t just rewiring their brains but melting the wires. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not bad, I still read that stuff, and I’ll still go on about it, too. I’m not immune to it. But I want more on the adults who are, in fact, fucking. Figuratively, too. Maybe moreso. More on the parties nobody needs to be at, in places you’ve never heard about, that you’ll otherwise never know about, and the small moments that give them their glory. I want the best place to make friends and find some gum in the garden after four hours on the floor of Pacha with a sore jaw and saucer eyes but feet still very ready to move. David Lynch used to give a direction to actors: More wind. There were those who didn’t get it, and those who did. As much as I can, my promise, here, to you, this summer: More wind.
4. When to Go (or: The Most Important Vacation Advice In The World)
Hydra, GR. Paralia Agios Nikolaos.
37.300660, 23.395178
4:02 p.m. (GMT+3)
The next day: Floating on our backs off St. Nicholas Beach, the artist and I shooting the shit again, the other three on beach chairs trading books, “Beautiful Losers” (of course) and a new translation of “Steppenwolf“ and a Henry Miller I can’t remember the name of. I toss out an idea: Maybe I stay another week, for the Deste opening? Can’t imagine what kind of shitshow this place turns into when the entire art world and a handful of celebrities descend on it. He was even getting feted that weekend. For my money: Sounded fun.
He shook me off, a pitcher who didn’t like the sign. It’s a different vibe, definitely not this one. If you take no other advice from me, just…Don’t rinse it.
I was hurt for a sec, maybe two, but not much more, because it didn’t take much longer for me to hear what he was saying. I knew he’d seen people overextend, who try to clench a fist around fine sand, who get greedy with the magic, try to train it, smother it, stay too long, and then everyone has to suffer the constituent disappointment they experience when things invariably shift. There’s a reason lingering air’s referred to as “stale.” It’s supposed to move — especially across a shoreline.
He was right: Few things could fuck up the core of this moment quite like the expectation that it’d continue on a straight line, let alone an entire industry descending on the island for a weekend of see-and-be-seen. Kind of the antithesis to what made the last 24 hours (and what’d make the 24 to come) so great. If you need to make an appearance somewhere during your summer to make your summer great, it probably needs some work. And if you don’t know when to leave, or can’t bring yourself to, does it actually count as fun?
On that note: Thanks, as ever, for reading. And listening. ‘Means the world.
There have been seven Summer Fridays. There are seven Summer Fridays to go.
More wind,
-f.
For whom I’d suggest, here, the weird and alluring salinity of an ice cold Vichy Catalan. But please, for the love of god, drink your Vichy over ice. You don’t want this stuff at room temp, trust.
Especially the BUY rating we issued on poppers.
New York: Still got it.
🍅💧
Welcome back, this missive has been missed. And second the Vichy Catalan recommendation. I'm actually headed out to the grocery to pick up some more because goddamn, it's hot here today.