The Earshot Bulletin - #001
handsome hikers, delightful dervishes, mom's curry and the virtues of LARPing
Over at Earshot, we’re big fans of stuff. The year(ish) we’ve been alive as a studio, I’ve repeatedly found myself in a specific conversation I adore - being on the receiving end of a gushing, almost manic recommendation or information dump from either a member of the core cast or someone from the Earshot Extended Universe.
Instead of making a hasty note in my phone, or ensuring someone texts me as a follow up - I’m going to do my best to record it here and take the opportunity to formalize our community a little more. Expect announcements, profiles, event recaps and other funky explorations in this bulletin every FRIDAY at 5pm.
This week…
Aodan has been wearing…
🥾 KEEN JASPERS 🥾
To mention that hiking and running shoes are having a moment would be superfluous. Naive, even.
From Basketball to Soccer to Hiking, sports-based sneaker culture has drifted further and further into traditional realms of dowdiness - a movement away from swag, celebrity and hip-hop, towards arch support, KIND bars and talk radio. The speed at which this has happened, however, has produced a charming bifurcation of the enjoyers of certain brands. If you’ve visited the REI on Houston recently, in times past a Soho haven for the middle-aged and the serious, you know exactly what I mean. KEEN, specifically, is only halfway through its transformation - it retains its sourdough starter base, while offering an ‘it shoe’ for those interested.
This recent post on their social media captures this phenomenon exactly - half the staffers profiled are what you might expect from a company that has predominantly produced comfort-focused sandals; lovely, sincere dorks, wearing what resemble orthopedic shoes. The other half, however, look right out of a Dare music video - slender, young and trendy - without exception, they were sporting the Jaspers.
Aodan, Earshot ECD - slender, young and trendy himself - naturally has a pair, too. Bought initially for a week-long trip to Yosemite, they have served him equally well as an accompaniment to his fashion-forward lineup of Japanese denim and trademark baseball hats. He mentioned that he loved the “honesty” of this kind of shoe for a certain type of city goer - why is a being on a D2C shoot for 12 hours any less deserving of sexy tech gear than a day’s hike through the Appalachian trail?
As a fellow owner of these kicks, I cannot recommend them enough. They’re as comfortable as pillows, have a lovely shape with laces that go all the way to the toe and have a great spread of color-ways in rotation - and if you’re not already convinced - “All the girls were wearing these in Japan.”
Chris seeks to dabble in the magic of…
🧙♂️ TERRY RILEY 🧙♂️
Recently, as I’m sure is relatable, I’ve become enamored with a certain aesthetic of high-fantasy, Merlin-style wizard - blue robe adorned with yellow stars, an equally pointed beard and hat, some sort of staff to cast thunderous spells atop a mountainside castle tower, while a bubbling cauldron hisses and snaps with fluorescent green liquid. These beings exist only to supplement a protagonist’s main quest; to induct and recruit them into a battle against some ancient enemy and provide just the right amount of cryptic guidance, existing outside of time or the rhythm of life.
Terry Riley, famed ambient musician of the 70s and the grandfather of tape-looping, is cut from the same spellcaster cloth. I discovered him via the unlikely Google Search “Persian Surgery” - there I was, attempting to perform a demographic survey on behalf of my girlfriend (currently in medical school) to understand if there was a specific bias her countrymen selected as a specialization. You can imagine my surprise, when I was met with the following:
Persian Surgery Dervishes is a recording of two performances of the same composition a year apart - the first in LA, the second in Paris. He released these as a double album to display the importance of improvisation and dynamism within a genre that, to this day, has a totally undeserved reputation as music to fall asleep or fold clothes to.
My earnest recommendation - challenge, even - would be to listen to these individual tracks without doing something else, perhaps other than drinking a cup of tea or going for a walk. Something fascinating (dare I say, magical!) happens around the seven minute mark, where the minimalism and repetitive nature of the synth work provokes a kind of psychic participation - the landscape of these sounds is rendered so clearly, I am able to situate myself within it and plot out a quest of my own.
Viggy cooked up…
🥘 AN HEIRLOOM CHICKEN CURRY 🥘
Viggy will be the first to admit he’s not the most regular or renowned cook. He’s a busy guy with a vast array of responsibilities and (more importantly for our Earshot Eats section) a voracious lover of a restaurant meal - just ask the staff at Torrisi, where he’s recently begun a stint as guest in residence - the Earshot community wishes him and his wallet ‘Good luck’.
Despite this, at the risk of essentializing, the man can cook a mean curry. Over the years, I’ve had the distinct pleasure of watching him prepare his mother’s absolutely scrumptious Chicken Curry - its spice and warmth are unparalleled to any I’ve had in the city - a marvelous sautée of freshness and comfort all wrapped into a luxurious golden sauce.
I was lucky enough to witness the first time he took a stab at it. Even then, the verve and instinctive confidence he was able to identify the degree of onion caramelization and finely tune the spices through smell alone amazed me. I’m a keen cook, but my knowledge is distinctly academic in comparison - any instincts I’ve acquired are through study. Viggy also does this wild thing where instead of using a small spoon or the end of his finger to taste progress, he simply dumps a piping hot spoonful of whatever is in the middle of cooking directly into the center of his palm and then inverts that into his mouth - something, I admit to having tried in my own home and promptly burnt the shit out of my hand.
If you’d like to try and make it, Viggy has very kindly shared it below - be respectful, follow the instructions and if you have trouble with the onions, send Viggy a DM.
Chicken curry! Chicken washed set aside. 1 x Onion (large size) finely chopped 1 x Garlic whole chopped 2 x Tomatoes chopped In a pan add 3 tbsps oil Add condiments 2 x Cinnamon Sticks 9 x Cloves 1 x Star Anise 1 x tsp. Fennel cloves 10, star anise 1 Fennel 1 tsp. Add onions and garlic --> fry well & add curry leaves (Add salt as needed) Add Ginger garlic paste two tsp full 1 x tbsp Coriander 1 x tsp Cumin 1 x tsp turmeric 1 x tsp Garam Masala Add Tomatoes and fry until dissolved and make a thick gravy. Now add Chicken and add one cup water and Coconut milk 1/2 cup mix well & cooked well for 20 mins. Garnish with coriander leaves.
Ethan reflected on…
🔥 BURNING MAN 🔥
A tale as old as time (time being circa. 2013) - man in Finance attends Burning Man, falls in love with the desert and is back in the office on Monday, largely unchanged, albeit with a much higher tolerance for public nudity.
For the past two weeks Ethan has fielded the somewhat leading question “How was Burning Man?” in the region of ten thousand times. This is not an innocuous question - it is accompanied by a poorly-concealed, mocking grin from the inquisitor, who oh-so bravely seeks to point out the obvious contradiction between a yuppie existence and the anarchist spirit of the festival. While watching this interaction has been very amusing (I would know; I make up roughly 800 of it’s 10,000 instances), we’re dedicating this section as a PSA on behalf of Ethan for two reasons:
To spare him this ritual - the attention is getting to him.
So he is able to forward this to colleagues and cut every single one of his meetings 20 minutes short - he’s a partner now, didn’t you know?
In short, he loved getting away from it all - everyone has tattoos, cooking and cleaning for your housemates, working a steady job as a bartender for other desert-goers, bike rides along the perimeter of the allotted areas and going to EDM concerts on your doorstep… sometimes, you have to go to the edge of society of understand that you should move to Ridgewood.
To quote… “This is a one way ticket to a hedonistic dump that accepts everything and anything. Leave your cravings in the desert, don't have sex, come back the same guy you were, do it again.”