Sal Randolph

I love these reports/poems so much I can hardly stand it. What’s the right outfit for these feelings?

Bookselling at AWP I'm at AWP in Baltimore this weekend at Table 536

I’m at AWP this weekend with copies of my book, The Uses of Art, tabling for dispersed holdings. If you’re in Baltimore, come say hi (table 536, catty-corner from Ivy Bookstore).

salrandolph.substack.com/p/booksellin...

“…for amongst the many small things we know about this great saint, soldier, and martyr, is that she cried very easily, whenever she was upset, frightened, cross, or hurt.”
- V. Sackville-West on Joan of Arc/Jeanne d’Arc

6.42 a.m. cool air … voices: sunbird, jungle babblers, crows, red-whiskered bulbul, hawk-cuckoo … my neighbor in his backyard washing clothes in a bucket

This printout of a picture of a deep black monochrome painting by wade guyton is not only pale grey it’s streaky as hell, which mean it’s past time to change my printers toner cartridge and probably clean the roller or head or w/e

Whenever I need to check my toner I print a full page picture of a Wade Guyton painting

X (stacked).

Found Guyton (sidewalk sculpture).

The Resonant Island On the legendary Éliane Radigue

Legendary composer Èliane Radigue died this past week at the age of 94. She was a pioneer of electronic music and many of her compositions expressed her Buddhist practice in their spacious and slow moving sonic fields.

salrandolph.substack.com/p/the-resona...

If you are looking for some feral art criticism, this is the book for you.

Hanging abstract mobile with white discs

Alexander Calder, "Snow Flurry," 1950 calder.org/works/hangin...

Congratulations!

Allegory of alchemy in a bas-relief of the central porch of Notre Dame Cathedral, Paris. The head crowned by clouds —much like the Bride's in Marcel Duchamp's "Large Glass."

The New Days Tell me of these new days of yours.

I am dreaming and writing of horses, but they need time to gather themselves and begin their fiery galloping. Meanwhile, this new year is still emerging from the old.

Tell me what you are carrying from the old year, and what you are wishing for in the new.

salrandolph.substack.com/p/the-new-days

a cyan blue postcard, size a5, a promotional mailer for derek jarman's 1993 film blue, horizontally oriented on a handrubbed pine enzo mari autoprogettazione tabletop

an A5 postcard for staring at while listening to Derek Jarman's Blue on the BBC on 19 September 1993, for people who didn't get Channel 4
greg.org/archive/2026...

A Post on Spring Writing back to social media.

As the news swirls constantly around us, I continue my practice of writing back to posts on social media. It seems I’ve been doing this for a year!

It’s a form of play that helps me reclaim my attention and connect to my sense of being.

I invite you to do the same!

blue sky with wispy clouds

i went outside for my brain again

I love it so much.

Sea of Ice & Other Portable Tales Some strange wanderings.

My notebooks these days are filled with strange wanderings and shards of tales both short and long.

salrandolph.substack.com/p/sea-of-ice...

Jeff is the best.

People are such a cornucopia!

The way he says “cab.”

Laments Words for when language

How do we speak when language fails?

salrandolph.substack.com/p/laments

“Artist refers to a person, willfully enmeshed in a dilemma of categories, who performs as if none of them existed.”
- Allan Kaprow

I don’t want to hear anything from an elected official unless it’s a plan to defund the DHS and impeach Noem, Bovino, etc. No texts. No emails. No talk about the economy. Step up or step off.

More of The Free Words Story How this newsletter got its name.

Free Words was a hot pink artists book I described as “a book that belonged to anyone who found it.” I placed it onto the shelves of bookstores and libraries to be discovered, and people who found it had to make a decision about whether they were truly free to carry it away.

Here’s the story.

You’re probably also right about this space being smaller & therefore less useful for local & regional politics.

I think hashtags are much less important here.

One small thing we can do to help.

B&W photo of a man's face covered in rocks & dirt as if emerging from or buried within the earth

From the great David Wojnarowicz (thread):

"I wake up every morning in this killing machine called america & I’m carrying this rage like a blood filled egg & there’s a thin line between inside & the outside a thin line between thought & action & that line is simply made up of blood & muscle & bone"

Where Are Your Horses? Notes on Attention and Zen for The Empty Cup.

The Empty Cup (from the School of Radical Attention) invited me to write a guest post on Zen and attention, so here is a brief report on my experiences during this winter’s silent retreat.

salrandolph.substack.com/p/where-are-...