[SIC] DAY TWO HUNDRED NINETY SEVEN

Vol. 3, No. 16. Brodernism Kraut

Mar 07, 2025

[SIC] DAY TWO HUNDRED NINETY SEVEN

Since I started the ‘new’ volume of [SIC] Day a few weeks back - less ‘naked’ links, more daily ruminations, I’ve broken things up with a playlist post on Wednesdays. I opted to write about the perplexing PETA protest of Pitchfork’s print publication instead on Weds, so no [SIC] 10s this week.

But, since Aphex Twin made a 12-hour “mostly mellow” playlist you can stream on Spotify (and YT, apparently, if you’re a visual listener), songs have been rattling round my head.

“Kraut” by International Music, in particular.

Typical algo-enabled interest from me here - it popped up in my Discover Weekly on Monday and listening passively, a catchy refrain “Come on home / Stay with me /And take anything with you need” grabbed me. I added it to my ‘liked songs’ thinking it’d be good one to investigate later.

Separately, Nate Gallant publishing .Bros of literary criticism in the excellent “One Thing” newsletter he alternates writing with The New Yorker’s Kyle Chayka.

The post is about “brodernism” meme (new to me) and “difficult” literature; essentially books that dudes brag about reading because they’re opaque / oblique / overlong / overcomplicated, but also objectively “great” by some measure. As a self-identifying Pynchon fan, I … identify.

I was thinking about that when “Kraut” came back on shuffle and I realized that the catchy refrain I’d picked out was a tiny section at end of the song… and in fact the rest of the tune was a The Soundtrack of Our Lives-esque dirge (meant as a compliment, btw) with lyrics in the German.

As I commented on Nate’s post, I think "Kraut" is also brodernism. (but I like it?).

Speaking of (my) bros: my longtime homie and denim superstar Shawn Joswick gets named the “most important guru” in Mel Ottenberg’s appearance in HTSI’s “The Aesthete” feature this weekend, in which Ottenberg, the editor-in-chief of Interview professes his love of blue shampoo, double denim and his black leather de Sede couch. Joswick has been beasting in the underground for years as an IYKYK style icon so it was great to seeing him get that shine in my favorite weekly magazine.

Apropos of the silver-maned Mel, this Digiday story about Brands hiring Gen X and boomer influencers as the 'power of the silver influencer' rises made me think of Joswick too (he’s more a JCrew type plug than a Progresso Soup or Harmless Harvest go-to, but as brands look to get in front of more shoppers and set their sights on influencers from a more senior cohort, who knows what’s possible.

More old notices; this THR piece about Old movies barely existing on streaming services got me in my nostalgia bag - apparentlythe oldest movie on Netflix was made in 1973. Which is good news maybe for the longterm viability of The Criterion Channel, but also underscores how weird the last 25 years has been in historical context - where always-on availability of old content flattened the timeline and made “Just the Two of Us” contemporaneous with 2Hollis in the experience of young people (in particular).

A good time to reflect, then, on what makes a vital new entity. Cue Ed Cotton and his “Provoke- The A24 Issue”: Eleven lessons from thirteen years of A24's life. It’s a good one.

Corollary to that, in a ‘brodernism’ reversal of sorts, Robert Rodriguez — the renegade filmmaker behind genre classics like From Dusk Till Dawn, The Faculty, and Machete — is launching a new banner called Brass Knuckle Films, allowing fans to directly invest in movies in exchange for various perks. Difficult projects made easy is the 2025 idyll.