The Watermelon Protocol
A dispatch on the watermelon as the one appointment August keeps, and the unhurried ceremony that surrounds it.
The Idle Gazette
A weekly letter about paying attention to the things that don't scale. Written from Cluj-Napoca; sent Fridays, at the hour of two.
Latest posts
Idleness Before Idleness
The gazette's first guest essay: Patrick Riecke, who led a hospital chaplaincy team through more than fifteen thousand patient deaths, on the idleness nobody chooses and the practice for it.
When the Mind Still Wandered Freely
A defense of the unfocused gaze, with Hammershøi's still interiors, Poincaré's omnibus step, and the etiquette problem the phone was built to solve.
The Bench as a Made Object
A field note from the shed in Sălaj, where an oak offcut has begun asking questions, and proportion turns out to be a form of thought.
The Idle Gazette, No. 11 — concerning drift
August and its sanctioned idleness, Walker Percy's The Moviegoer, a journey with no destination, and the first clue of the third figure of the Idle Pantheon.
Who Is Last?
A dispatch on the queue as institution, the place held in trust, and the civic engineering hidden in one small question.
The Joys from the Closet — about two very different hunters
An interlude letter: the Criterion Collection, the closet videos, Dersu Uzala, and what movies about friendship are actually about — time.
The Skipped Stone
A dispatch on skipping stones, the one ancient game with no stakes, no equipment, and no way to keep what you win.
The Idle Gazette, No. 9 — in which the wastepaper reader is revealed
The second feast-day letter: the reveal of Haňťa, the wastepaper reader of Prague and second figure of the Idle Pantheon, with the roll of guesses and their verdicts.
The Rain Delay
A dispatch in praise of the summer storm that calls everything off, and the barometric absolution that follows.
The Idle Gazette, No. 8 — the last clue abandons all discretion
On Borges's Library of Babel, an afternoon in the unread streets of your own city, the unsorted box, and the third and final clue before Friday's reveal.
The Committee on Clouds
The naming of clouds as a discipline of attention, and the sky as the last completely unmonetized spectacle, free to whoever lifts a chin.
The Idle Gazette, No. 7 — on the art of rescuing the condemned
On Canetti's Auto-da-Fé, giving something away, and rescuing condemned books from the press.
Six Hours by the Moving Water
Fishing examined honestly as the oldest alibi for doing nothing, from Walton's contemplative recreation to catch-and-release finally coming clean.
The Pillow on the Windowsill
A dispatch on the pillow set on the windowsill, the grandmother leaning on it, and the street watched as a full occupation.
The Bench at the Gate
Idleness is not a possession of the comfortable but a common inheritance that was fenced, priced, and sold back, with Flaubert, Veblen, and a bench at a village gate for witnesses.
The Idle Gazette, No. 6 — concerning a tender kind of destruction
July, the discipline of surrender to the heat, and the first clue of the second figure of the Idle Pantheon.
The Idle Gazette, No. 5 — the man who did nothing, brilliantly; the first portrait arrives
The first feast-day letter: the reveal of Zacharias Lichter, the vagrant philosopher of Bucharest and first figure of the Idle Pantheon.
The Forgotten Bargain
Three idlenesses, European, Eastern, and Japanese, set against the industrious creed that time exists only to be converted into money.
In Praise of Everbrown
A dispatch against the cult of the evergreen article, in praise of writing made to age, where the style outlasts the season and the dated references are allowed to turn to gold.
The Idle Gazette, No. 4 — the longest light, and the last clue before the reveal
On the year's longest light, the eve of the first Pantheon reveal, and the final, most concrete clue toward the first figure.
The Idle Gazette, No. 3 — concerning a walk and a poem thrown away
On Robert Walser's vanishing pencil, a walk taken without a phone, and the second clue toward the first figure of the Idle Pantheon.
The Idle Gazette, No. 2 — in which a mystery begins
The gazette assumes its proper shape, four fixed sections, and the Idle Pantheon begins with its first clue.
Raised by the Dead
An essay on reading the dead, the library as a room full of better company, and why the long-gone make the present bearable.
The Last Free Act
An essay on noticing as the final act of freedom, and on attention as the one thing that cannot be confiscated, only given away.
On the Difference Between Rest and Idleness
An essay distinguishing rest, which serves work, from idleness, which serves nothing and answers to no one.
The Shop Where Nothing Is Bought
A dispatch on the lost pleasure of browsing, the slow handling of objects one will not purchase.
The Idle Gazette, No. 1 — in which nothing productive occurs
The first issue at last, an explanation, a small apology, and the symmetry of a publication about doing nothing that had done nothing.
The Unanswered Message
A dispatch on the small freedom of letting a message wait, and the tyranny of the instant reply.
The Public Bench
A dispatch in praise of the public bench, the rare seat that demands no purchase and no purpose.