burned grooves
Untitled / Christopher Mcholm / 2026
Hey folks.
It’s been blazing hot in Northern California this week and I’ve been luxuriating in it. Draping myself across the couch with a book in hand, dozing through the back-half of some network television, and just enjoying the pleasant dampening the heat has on my energy levels. It made me think.
I came across the term “unproductive joy” the other day. It was in a newsletter about the lives lived by adults who don’t have children and the author was discussing her excess of time where she can just enjoy her life without having to think about it leading to anything of import. She can handle the responsibilities of her own life that she feels are unavoidable—work, body, house, etc.—and when those are accomplished she’s free to just sink down into whatever it is that’s currently giving her unfettered enjoyment. Pleasure that has nothing to do with work, or family, or responsibility. Just enjoyment for the sake of the enjoyment.
As you may know, I have a child so by nature the amount of time I have for “unproductive joy” is limited. Trying to manage the life of another human not surprisingly eats up a lot of time and mental energy and so in the hours I’m not with him (and sometimes even the hours I am) there’s a feeling that I need to be “doing something” to be “making use” of my time. “Doing something” doesn’t mean it has to be unenjoyable, but it in the strange corridors of my mind, it means that it has to feel like its “important” or leading to something bigger. It makes activities other people do for fun—watching television, reading books, listening to an album—into chores, albeit fun ones, but chore-like nonetheless. It puts too much meaning on what are ostensibly hobbies, and then if I’m not doing those hobbies “right” (and please, know that I’m shaking my head at myself right now) it opens the door for me to feel bad about it.
I’ve always been like this though. I tried to be a cultural critic for a long time and outside of a few published articles, all I really came away with was an inability to enjoy anything for the sake of enjoyment. Everything I loved—movies, books, music, food—was something I needed to think about. All of my joy was funneled towards productivity, and now, ten years later I still think of all my media consumption—past, present, and future—as a means to an end. I need to watch the “right” movies. I need to listen to an artist’s full discography in a certain order, so I better understand their motivations. Even if I hadn’t been a critic, I wonder if I’d still be like this. I’m a person who’s always struggled with direction in my career and because of it I’ve shored up my professional identity by convincing myself that my hobbies need to be monetized. That watching movies, reading books, and listening to music aren’t just things to enjoy without reason, but the walls that define my ambitions and my successes.
I’ve been, to some degree, a professional writer for more than 20 years. I’ve convinced myself that having an opinion and the ability to write about that opinion is my main skill. And you would think in a time where the maw of capitalism is fully open, and everything—every opinion, every conversation, every belief, everything—is a means to financial gain, that I’d fit right in. That this nearly lifelong inability to look at the simplest of pleasure as anything but a foothold to something more would make me primed to dive into a cultural moment where everything is about success and more so, profit.
To say the least, this hasn’t been true. The more opportunity I’ve had to turn my joy into a career, the less I’ve been inclined to do so. Maybe I’ve just spent too long trying without measurable success (whatever that means). Maybe it’s just my longstanding dislike of charging (and being charged) for what amounts to a written record of what I talk about with my friends and family. Maybe I’m just sick of how craven the worldview is and how that opinion seems to be in the minority these days. Or maybe I’m just getting old and I’m nostalgic (with all the flaws that comes with it) for a slower time where an afternoon spent reading a book didn’t feel like it came saddled with any expectations. Maybe I just needed someone to say the words “unproductive joy” so I could realize how much of my own joy came burdened with the weight of unnecessary responsibility.
What activity in your life do you feel is entirely free of a need for productivity? Tell us all in the comments.
things we’re doing
The Racket is coming baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaack
Thursday, May 28th @ The Sycamore
Yesssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss.
Yessssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss.
Yesssssssssssssssssssssssss.
(more details to come)
But, yesssssssssssssss.
Leigh Lucas in conversation with Kristina Ten
If you haven’t taken a moment to sit with these two as they talk about grappling with the tangents of grief, well, now’s your time to remedy that decision.
Well, what are you waiting for?
things other people are doing
Lucky Charms / Sunnylyn Thibodeaux (City Lights)
I happily published a string of Sunnylyn Thibodeaux’s poetry fragments throughout a certain run of The Racket Journal. I am very excited to see Thibodeaux’s work from the last twenty-five years now being collected by the venerable City Lights.
Supporting the literary world is always worth your dime.
This is especially so.
done done
Claire DeWitt and The City of the Dead / Sarah Gran
If I’m reading mystery novels they have to be dark, weird, and, preferably, just a touch mystical. Sarah Gran’s Claire DeWitt novels do just that. DeWitt is the self-described “greatest detective” in a world where being a detective is an acknowledged skill. She’s brought back to devastated, post-Katrina, New Orleans to find a dead lawyer and instead finds herself smoking “sherm” and dodging bullets while the world quietly falls apart around her. There’s mysterious dead detectives aplenty, an ongoing gang war, and DeWitt’s own demon-filled past to grapple with and Gran does it just close enough to the edge of the genre to keep it interesting. Recommended.
in the middle
Pretenders to the Throne of God / Adrian Tchaikovsky
Adrian Tchaikovsky writes so many books that just listing them out almost fills an entire two-column page. And somehow, somehow, they’re all good, if not great and let me tell you I’ve read two chapters of the fifth book in his Tyrant Philosopher series and I’ve already been introduced to an elderly wizard who pees fire and Clamshell Armor and a magical sword that imbues the wielder with the knowledge of the greatest once living warrior of all time. Sign me up for a hundred more of these.
Thief, d. Michael Mann
There’s a scene in Thief where James Caan arrives two hours late to date, kidnaps his date (Tuesday Weld), spends five minutes screaming at her, and somehow Michael Mann still makes it feel like a believable beginning to a relationship. It feels like the prequel to Heat. Hell, maybe in Michael Mann’s head it was the prequel to Heat. It’s not as good as Heat, but man, if you’re looking for one last job that goes terribly wrong flicks, it’s got to be in the Top 20. Highly recommended.
The Night of the Juggler, d. Sidney J Furie
The kind of New York in the 1970s film that makes you want to take a bath after you’re done. There is no juggling of any kind in this movie, but Scott Brolin does run across seemingly the entire island of Manhattan before fighting every person in a strip club. Recommended if any of that sounds good to you.
I found two hundred and fifty ‘45s tucked into three bags on the street the other day. It was mostly singles from the 1950s, but quality of tunes wasn’t where the joy was found. The joy was found in making a spreadsheet and tracking each song (and accompanying b-side) and trying to figure out who these people were that had collected all these one-time bangers. Who was excited about Sarah Vaughan in 1957 and Larry Gatlin and The Gatlin Brothers almost 30 years later? Who burned grooves in Blondie’s “Rapture” and also had more than one copy of Heatwave’s “The Groove Line”?
we like songs
Got to Have It / Soul President
Like somebody let Hendrix loose on the streets of Detroit.
The bounciest lil beat you’ve ever done heard.
Tying Up Loose Ends / Chet Sound
VHS Cowboy is the character that comes to mind.
Go Fuck Yourself / Dutch Interior
Nothing like a soothing acoustic jam that tells you to, well, go fuck yourself.
Someone screaming “predictive text” over and over again over grinding post-punk is my happy place.
###
All of the song, we, uh, like, right here.
And that’s the ballgame.
What a game.
N
The return of The Racket is the best Bay Area news since Alysa Liu's win!!
Yesss, The return of the Racket! Can’t wait🔥🔥🔥