FUTURE GAMES
Aaron Stern from Another Newsletter
New Year. 2026. Thought about my new to me favorite song. Future Games. Fleetwood Mac. Unclear why I never heard it before a few months ago. It’s a long track. I like the instrumental at the 3 min mark.  Opening line. “I did a thing last night” kinda made me laugh. Lyrics are more introspective after that. And what you’d expect from the title. How many people sit home at night Wondering if they still will be here tonight? Wondering if children they bring to the light Inherit the world, or inherit the night? Wondering if neighbors are thinking the same All of the wild things tomorrow will tame Talking of journeys that happen in vain Well, I know I'm not the only one To ever spend my life sittin' playing future games Thought about my own future. And that my fears are all the same. 2025 was good bad year for me. Lotta shows. Mexico City, London, New York, Paris, two in Los Angeles. Looking forward to the one at ICP. Opens January 29th in New York. Think it was a not so great year for the world. America. But life was always tumultuous.. People have always done terrible things to each other. Since ya know— Abel sdkflasdf’d Cain. We just get to see it more now. In the palm of our hands. Reminds me of a line from Alex Dimitrov’s Out of Some Other Paradise “What can be said about what we do to each other.” A year of shitty headlines makes me want to run away to Japan. Think I’m obsessed with Mount Fuji. Cuz the Takashi Homma xeroxes I made for Hard Copy reminded me of a Masao Yamamoto picture. Feels god like. Angelic?
Are you into Another Newsletter! Share it with friends for me. I think I’d post more if more people followed it. I asked Asako Narahashi to be in the ICP Hard Copy exhibition too. Thanks to Rose Shoshana for introducing me. For being so supportive. Gonna build a table for Asako in front of Homma. So it’ll be like land and sea.
Yea ok that is Mt Fuji in the background also. I said I was obsessed. Running away made me think of the ocean. And this Caroline Corbasson painting. She had it in a show in Paris in December.
Which made me think of this Pooya Abbasian installation. It’s carpet designed from images from the Turkish encrypted channel Ciné5.
Both are soothing to me. Which had me thinking of time running away. Reminds me of The Days Run Away Like Wild Horses Over the Hills. My favorite Bukowski book of poems. Going fast reminded me of a book Mikael Jansson did. Speed of Life. Formula 1. 2003 - 2006.
Have always been drawn to the rich reds. The way he captured the frenetic energy of F1. I like that as a fashion photographer he turned his camera to something else. Which reminded me of William Klein’s The French.
 A visual masterpiece. Klein was the first to be given so much access to the French Open. 1981. Humanizing superman-like athletes. At the same time focused on faces in the crowd. Small details. Ambiance. Thought about this Bob Dylan interview. He doesn’t know how he wrote his big early hits. Had to been magic. Said he couldn’t repeat it now if he tried.  Reminded me of something NOT magical. *Meta reportedly earned $18B annual ad sales from China 2024, 10%+ of its global rev. $3B + linked to fraudulent ads. Scams. Google purposely made their search worse. Cuz then you have to try it twice to find something, then can serve twice the ads = make more money Which made me think about how nothing else fucking works. My texts are riddled with typos. Can barely use my phone. A lot of times out of ten— I’d like to throw it against the wall. It’s not in my head. Enshittification is real. Cory Doctorow - gradual decay of online platforms/services shifting from benefiting users to extracting max profit. Streaming got expensive +ads, social media full of ads, retail (amazon) overrun w dupes, confusing layouts. I could go on. Actually I will. 3/5 times when I order food online it’s wrong. Last four flights I took wifi, tv, headphone jack didn’t work. Seat didn’t recline. Also has to do w having an administration that rolls backs regulations. Doesn’t hold companies or anyone accountable. These things etch away at quality of daily life. World changing tech reminded me of this JR Eyerman picture. Up at Staley Wise Gallery til Feb 7. A crowd watching the world’s first full length 3D movie.
I thought about this when I saw Adam Mosseri’s ten slide diatribe— Nothing’s real on his app cuz AI. But as my pal Bobby pointed out, nothing was ever real. All staged, contorted, filtered, manipulated to show a fictitious narrative of a life. Was is entertainment. Was always like that. Mosseri’s long-winded post reminded me why poetry is so great. A tremendous amount of thought, in just a few words. It’s a skill few possess. Reminds me of To The Dead. Frank Bidart. I thought about Bowie’s Changes.  And how time has been immeasurable to me the last several years. Thought about my dog. She died Monday night. At home in my arms. She was 17. I had her through all of it.
Found her in the back of some shitty pet store. Long closed. Not far from where I live now. My friends all had dogs. Nic and Jenn had Ham and Chief. Terry had Leo. Scott had Buster. Bean outlived everyone. I think and write about bookends a lot. This was one. I got Bean with someone I thought I’d spend my life with. I wanted a big dog. Rot or Pitt. She wanted something small. Plane ready. We compromised and got the small dog. Then broke up shortly after. Funny. Reminds me of this Pettibon Paris Review cover. She has accompanied, 2014. Portrait of his own dog Boo. A Brussels. Looked like Bean. Who was half Brussels half Pekinese. I often called her Boo. Story was written by my old friend Nicole Rudick. Who interviewed me two years later. Extra special for me.
Yea, I have a good life. But there have been tough stretches. She was there for me. Like no person could be. I have endless good memories of her. Enriched my life. And the people around me. She too accompanied me on all my wanderings. She liked the Sunset Tower.
My parent’s place in Florida. Freeloaded with me at friends in the Hamptons.
Like me, my dog loved to eat. Raced to the kitchen at the sound of the fridge opening. Made her a ribeye on Monday. She had a stuffed hippo almost the same size as her. If someone came over she’d run into the bedroom, grab the hippo, drag it out to the living room, throw it down, sniff sneeze loudly. “This is mine”. She’d stand on her hind legs and growl at the tv if another animal or cartoon appeared. Then run into the other room. Grab her hippo. Repeat the above. She had a big personality. Used her front paws to ask for things. Sniffed sneezed to get my attention. Watched TV like a person. Looked at you like she understood the words coming out of your mouth. People stopped me on 7th Avenue daily. Like the Dogist. She always slept in bed with me. Started on my left side. Crawled over me, circled, laid on the right side the rest of the night. Didn’t mind her waking me up. Was cute.
All this stopped about 6 months ago. Not sleeping in the bed sucked. Knew I had to prepare myself. Which didn’t work. Can’t help think of my parents. My own mortality. Yea, 17’s a long life. Yea, I’m so lucky. Doesn’t make me less sad. Don’t have a dog? Prob won’t understand. That’s fine. Not interested in anyone understanding. Just saying my peace.
Thanks to my family. My vet of 16 years, Dr Nguyen. Who changed his hair every time we visited. A dog’s love is different. If you’re good to them— they’re unwavering to you. Love unconditional. But what a shitty part of life this is. We should have shiva for dogs. If you have a good boy or girl make them a steak. Hug them. Walk them. Spend extra time today with them. For me. Thought of a scene from one of my favorite movies. Beginners.
Bean 2007 - 2026 ∞ You're currently a free subscriber to Another Newsletter. For the full experience, upgrade your subscription.
© 2026 Aaron Stern
|
