Lithophyte Photography / Vivian Wang

04/08/2026

💚 Thoughts on music, loss, love, and our beloved Old 97's.

Thanks to Derrick K. Lee and Blurred Culture for carrying this unconventional concert review.

A deeply personal live review of Old 97's at Webster Hall, blending music, memory, and emotional storytelling from a longtime fan.

01/26/2026

Everything is on fire, but everyone I love
is doing beautiful things
and trying to make life worth living,
and I know I don’t have to believe in everything,
but I believe in that.
- Nikita Gill

Thank you for the beauty you bring into this world, Jesse, not only through your music but also (simply and profoundly) through who you are. I’m so, so, so lucky and grateful for all that’s followed our first conversation down in Berlin. ❤️ Happy, happy birthday to the menschiest mensch we know.

And happy birthday, ! You’re the people’s queen and truth-teller for our troubled times. A new album is an incredible way to mark the turning of the next page.

Been having a lot of convos lately that circle back to this idea: every act of care for our friends and neighbors, and every act of creation (be it a meal, painting, song, photo, poem, cartoon—anything, really) is also an act of defiance against those who would have us feeling disconnected and hopeless. We will keep each other safe. We will write the next chapters together.

Photos:
1) December 2025, NYC
2) and 3) July 2025, opening of
4) September 2022, ’s studio, Nashville
5) September 2025, opening night of at Gramercy Theatre

01/15/2026

Silver Manhattan is a narrative of someone who has never stopped creating, from his boyhood days taking the subway from Queens to St. Marks Place, to the present day following a spinal stroke. Life is messy, loss is devastating, and through it all, every song and every show is part of a story that is ever unfolding, ever defying the odds.
•••
It was a big deal to me, getting to do this shoot with Jesse. The team’s “ask” was to present the chair clearly. But I know that it’s gotta be hard to be confronted with the stark reality in the form of a photo. I’d spent the last 1.5 years trying to shoot more tightly, interpreting spoken and unspoken cues to avoid the chair or walker in the frame. It wasn’t necessarily how I wanted to shoot from a visual arts standpoint, but I couldn’t bear the thought of adding to a friend’s pain.

I really hope that the photos we made, two of which I’m sharing today, begin to tell a story of both/and, not either/or. You can both use a chair and be a formidable frontperson. You can be both changed and undiminished. The person I know today is an even stronger and deeper soul than the (already exemplary) person I met some years ago.

It was so fun to bring fam to the final Gramercy Theatre show, and to see Lucinda Williams and Jim Jarmusch among the luminous faces of Jesse’s friends and fans. I’m looking forward to the next chapter at Bowery Palace. Tickets are on sale now. Link in the comments below.