Spin This Vol. 9 (March 2 2025)
What I think heaven is like, my apology to subway performers, a group workout life hack, and a question for you
A few weeks ago I restarted my Animal Crossing: New Horizons island. I remember the race against time when, as COVID gripped us ever more menacingly, I was refreshing the USPS tracking page over and over again, praying it would arrive before the world shut down. Even before I’d played it—even before I knew what we were about to be in for—I had some somatic sense that I’d need this to stay sane.
I mean it when I say that ACNH got me through that time. You probably don’t have to think very hard to understand what inspired me to start playing it again. If you need a measure of peace—a quiet, safe place that can’t really be infiltrated in any meaningful way—I highly recommend picking it up, plucking some weeds, and talking to your friendly neighbors.
By the way: You’re always welcome on my island.
Your biggest fan,
AW
“Puutarha (Don’t Cry Tonight)” by Juha Ahlgren
Last year I was the lead organizer of the 2024 Self-Care Film Festival (SCFF). If you’ve never heard of it, it’s because it doesn’t really exist. It was just me finally bringing to life a dream of mine: Spend an entire day at home by myself watching movies.
It wasn’t enough to say that I’d spend an entire day at home by myself watching movies. I knew I had to plan an event around it–turn it into a thing–to avoid getting sucked into scrolling on my phone or doing chores around the house. Thus, SCFF was born.
In the weeks leading up to SCFF, I started designing the program. I wanted a mix of genres and lengths, along with a blend of old favorites and films I’ve been meaning to watch. I made a shortlist, jotted down pros and cons, shuffled the order, planned my meal breaks–an embarrassing amount of work for something so frivolous (which, actually, would be a very good title for my autobiography).
When the program was finally ready, I realized I overlooked one crucial element: I didn’t look up where I could watch these movies.
Thankfully, three were easy enough to find on my existing streaming subscriptions. One required a free trial for a DSP that I definitely forgot to cancel and coughed up $10 for the following month (you’ll never convince me that isn’t the unspoken strategy of streaming companies). Another was free on an app so sketchy I can’t begin to fathom what the catch was.
And then there was Tropical Malady, directed by Apichatpong Weerasethakul1. It is not streaming anywhere. It cannot be rented. It cannot be bought. I found a single used Region 3 DVD copy on Amazon (which, incidentally, is still available if you have a machine from Taiwan and no moral scruples about where you spend your money). The day before SCFF was set to start, I had to completely redesign the program to account for the missing film. It’s a miracle the festival was able to go on at all.
There are brilliant works of art that studios and labels refuse to relinquish the rights to but don’t care enough about to make available. Without physical media, these works could be one crashed hard drive away from being permanently lost. So when I came across a vinyl compilation entitled Satan In Love: Rare Finnish Synth-Pop and Disco 1979–1992, I didn’t think twice about picking it up. Of course many of these songs do not exist on Spotify. The absence that stings the most, though, is Juha Ahlgren’s “Puutarha (Don’t Cry Tonight).”
God, what a song! Maybe heaven is all harps and choirs and trumpets, but I like to think of it as a free-wheelin’, free-lovin’ discotheque with an open bar, an otherworldly sound system, and a massive dancefloor that’s crowded in exactly the way you want it to be and not in the ways that you don’t. Of course we’ll all be suspended on clouds up there (cumulonimbus, not cirrus), and this track is exactly as bright and lush as I imagine that would be.
Now this heavenly song is mine. It is not interrupted by ads, subject to buffering, or governed by the whims of delicate streaming relationships. I can hold it in my hand and play it when I want–maybe even over and over again. No, definitely over and over again. As, I presume, God intended.
Four more
“Jesus Going To Clean House” by Lee Tracy and Isaac Manning
When I’m waiting for a New York City subway and someone on the platform is belting a song through a cheap microphone plugged into a blown out speaker, I’m usually so jaded I hardly take notice. This sounds exactly like that and I can’t stop listening to it. Have I been missing out on primo cuts like this the whole time? Forgive me, subway platform performers!
“The Way It Is Now” by Sarah Jarosz
“Waking up with this feeling like everyone’s figured it out except me” may not be a novel first line, but boy does it hit hard when you aren’t expecting it. Thankfully the way Jarosz’s voice climbs and glides just seconds later in the chorus makes you feel like maybe everything’s going to be okay. Or, at least, it’s just the way it is now.
“Juan Manuel” by Juan Piña con La Revelación
CAUTION! This is scorching hot. Maybe the sonic equivalent of when you order a skillet at a restaurant and the server carries it out still crackling and sizzling. If there’s a sleeper cell in me that, once activated, makes me suddenly know how to salsa, I’m certain this song is the key to unlocking it.
“Legacy” by OVEOUS and Don Kamares
Here’s a tip: If you’re a group workout dude like I am, install Shazam on your smart watch so that you can quickly tap it during a class when an instructor’s playlist slaps. I heard this during a pilates routine this week—thankfully during a lunge and not a plank so I didn’t have to faceplant to find out what this is, though it’s so good I would have made that sacrifice. Thank you, Chris.
A Question
I’m thinking a lot about physical media:
Do you remember your first record, tape, or CD?
Okay, I’m dating myself. Maybe you’re reading this and thinking “I’ve never owned physical media.” But whether you have or haven’t, I’d love to hear your relationship to it! Did you used to buy physical media? Do you still buy it? Do you avoid it? How do you feel about it?
Before you roll your eyes at me (“Of course he picked some obscure thing”), Tropical Malady won the Prix du Jury at the 2004 Cannes Film Festival! It’s a real movie! But if you need proof this isn’t just some isolated incident, here’s maybe a more compelling example: 28 Days Later only just recently became available to stream, and only because there’s a new sequel coming out.