Journal: Jan 2026
NYC/Art/Me, Overestimating for Good, 25 in 7, Enjoyable Regrets, Feminists on 45.
Dec 2025 | New York City
Greetings, Earthlings.
There’s a lot to complain about living in NYC, which is why New Yorkers are excellent at complaining, but our access to art is not one of those things.
Even walking down the street, one encounters street art, public art installations, cleverly designed windows in department stores, and buskers.
Some residents of New York City are works of art unto themselves. Sadly, there are fewer of these delightful eccentrics now, as the city has become so expensive that it has driven out many such people (save us, Mamdani!). I miss them in the same way I miss the 24-hour family-owned diners that used to be on every block, with their exhaustive, laminated, coffee-stained menus. The immigrant kid, a full-blown New Yorker in streetwear, clearing plates as his family, from the old country and in traditional garb, take orders and do the cooking. Grandma, smoking in the back corner, silently dares you to cross her.
Still, they are out there. The Pigeon Man in Washington Square Park, the guy who rides around on a bicycle with a full-size recycling bin balanced on his head, and the man who used to walk a turkey on a leash come to mind.
For many NYC museums, one needs only to prove residency to be granted access for whatever amount they can afford to pay (including nothing at all). For others, if you arrive on the right day and time, you can get in for free. It’s usually crowded at these times, so when I can afford to pay, I do, but otherwise I figure some access to art is better than none, even if I have to peer over a few heads to see it. I am also fortunate that I can rely on the kindness of non-strangers who have memberships to these institutions, which allow them to bring accompanying riff-raff like yours truly along at a significantly discounted cost (thanks, Patrick!)
I enjoy the shared experience of visiting a museum or gallery with a friend, but also love to go alone, when I can take my time, stopping for as long as I like when something really connects. Sometimes I’ll pause for extended periods, letting the work wash over me and noticing how it makes me feel. What is it projecting onto me? What am I projecting onto it? How did they make it? What is the technical part of its creation? Why did they make it in the first place? I try to imagine the artist working on the piece and what they might be thinking about it.
I’ll read the little descriptions beside the works to glean factual information while generally actively ignoring any interpretation from the overeducated expert they’ve chosen to tell me how to think and feel about it. I’m a rebel, Dotty1.
I will sometimes think about how I might have perceived the work when I was younger. Would it have a different meaning when I was 25? Often, yes.
Art will sometimes, often unintentionally, demonstrate the unquestioned world-view of people at the time. What was considered shocking, acceptable, the “truth”, etc? Which leads one to wonder what accepted beliefs that we currently take for granted will seem outlandish 100 years from now. Things are, of course, only as we collectively agree they are.
After hours of wandering, I often emerge physically tired but emotionally and creatively restored.
Human creative expression is sacred and essential, but the powers that be don’t value it, so they make it increasingly difficult for people to survive and create art simultaneously. The recent answer to this problem seems to be handing off creativity to AI. AI is created by non-creative people who think only of efficiency and outcomes. They’ve missed the point. It is in the making of the thing where the majority of human joy is primarily found, not in its completion or presentation.
Without context or explanation, here’s a handful of cool stuff I saw and particularly liked in 2025:
From L-R:
Top: Bergdorf Goodman 5th Avenue Christmas window (2025); model used in 1973’s “The Exorcist” (Museum of the Moving Image); Big Peek (2022) by Jenna Gribbon (Brooklyn Museum)
Middle: Chinatown Block Watch (2022) by Susan Chen (Brooklyn Museum); Life Takes a Life (1984) by Lee Quiñones (Museum of the City of New York); Miss Piggy in her wedding dress, featured in 1984’s The Muppets Take Manhattan (Museum of the Moving Image)
Bottom: Blaze Starr in her living room, Baltimore, MD. (1964), by Diane Arbus (Park Avenue Armory exhibit); Untitled (Parabolic Lens) (1971), by Fred Eversley (MoMA); Singer (1950), by George Tooker (Brooklyn Museum)
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👀 Watch
Viktor Frankl, the Nazi concentration camp survivor and author of the essential book “Man’s Search for Meaning” explains why overestimating people is essential to their ability to meet their full potential.
🎧 Listen
Every year, I create a new Spotify playlist (I know, I know, the heck with Spotify, but I have other priorities much lower down on Maslow’s hierarchy of needs right now).
Anyhoo, I add songs throughout the year. Some are new (in general or just to me), some are old songs that pop back onto my radar for one reason or another, and some I Shazam in shops, while watching episodic TV, and even from passing cars.)
My Spotify Wrapped told me that I listened to 476 genres of music in 2025, and this list is representative of that audio sluttery.
The collection, cleverly titled “Stevenson’s Soundtrack 25,” has something for everyone within its seven hours, but likely also has much not for everyone. It’s Schrödinger‘s playlist (a little physics humour for you there.)
Spanning everything from Olivia Rodrigo to Stormtroopers of Death, Kool and the Gang to Pissed Jeans, and Roberta Flack to PIGS PIGS PIGS PIGS PIGS PIGS PIGS (yes, this is a real band), it will take you on a musical journey like no other. Steal what you like, skip what you don’t. Enjoy!
This new-to-me track from six years ago, featured on the playlist above, summarizes my feelings about 2025: “Everything Else Has Gone Wrong” by Bombay Bicycle Club.
I’m still waiting for the “second wind” and “hope” mentioned at the end of this song.
Don’t let me down, 26. And don’t let the door hit you on the ass on the way out, 25.
📖 Read
Restaurateur (a word, among many, he loathes) Keith McNally sprang from working-class England and set out on his life’s adventure, which spanned exotic locales, movie sets, and the launch of umpteen New York restaurants, making him wealthy and frequently in the orbit of the rich and powerful.
Now in the Autumn of his years and post-stroke, his memoir, “I Regret Almost Everything,” looks back on a remarkable life with humour, self-deprecation, appreciation, and, yes, some regrets.
McNally has no shortage of opinions and does not shy from sharing them, including some juicy gossip about various famous people (who would’ve guessed that NYC art-darling Patti Smith was an asshole to waiters?)
Although there are some repetitive themes in the book (words and situations he “hates” and “loathes”), and his life does feature the Boomer-specific experience of having opportunities and money arrive with little to no effort (an annoyance for those of us in other generations who have experienced the opposite throughout our lives), overall it is an honest and frequently funny account of a life lived by the seat of his pants.
McNally also has the courage/foolishness to share anecdotes that present him in a poor light and can occasionally make him unlikable, confirming that the title of the book is not just a playful reference to Edith Piaf’s musical declaration to the contrary, but a sincere mea culpa.
While this is an easy and enjoyable read for anyone who enjoys memoirs, it will especially appeal to anyone who has ever attempted to kick the dust of their small town off their boots and chase a dream in New York City.
Fellow former Torontonian and lifelong music obsessive Misty Fujii (AKA DJ Misty) has just released her first book, Turn It Up Loud: Revolutionary Women on 45 RPM eBook & playlist, a “deeply curated, feminist love letter to women who shook music history, told through 45 RPM records with stories and cultural context.” Misty, a DJ with a particular specialization of rock and soul music of the 1950s and 60s is a creator, mom, and all-around cool person now living in Japan. You can buy her book here, which includes all sorts of extras and goodies, and you can follow her on Instagram here.
🕰 ICYMI
In last month’s journal: Winter Blahs, Orson’s Pals, Chair Conspiracies, Chill Pill, Nick Hustles, Ugly Duckling, andThrobbing Boys.
In “Our Computers, Our Selves” I wrote about the duality of our online and offline identities as AI surges and non-corporate social media posting wanes.
Thanks for reading.
Ref: “Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure”