Strange Exiles: Freestyle Media
Podcasts, blogs, books, magazines, and zines: a few new views and interviews.
I’ve been on the road for the past month, from Jacksonville, Florida to southeast Alabama, over to Austin, Texas, to the hills of middle Tennessee, back to Alabama... I’ve visited with friends I’ve had for decades, my partner of 13 years, and my parents and sister. Getting offline and into the real world with real people sounds as corny as it is simple, but it’s been a great reminder of who we really are. I recommend it.
With that said, here are two of the best interviews I’ve ever been the subject of and a couple of articles from the last few weeks—even a bit of one from several years ago.
Read on!
Freestyle Media
Bram E. Gieben, the host of the Strange Exiles podcast and newsletter and author of The Darkest Timeline (Revol Press, 2024), and I had an hour-long discussion that covers most of my writing, from zines and magazines to blogs and books, and many of my influences along the way.
Here’s a bit from Bram’s introduction:
I’ve been especially looking forward to this interview with media theorist, cultural critic and hip-hop futurist Roy Christopher, author of one of my favourite books of the past decade, Dead Precedents: How Hip-Hop Defines the Future.
A treatise on the common origins, concerns and themes of cyberpunk and rap music that takes in William Gibson, the CCRU, Rammellzee and The Bomb Squad, it’s a mythopoeic masterpiece of research and criticism.
We spoke for an hour about his origins in BMX zine culture, the life of a culture journalist, his journey into media theory, and his influences from Spike Jonze to Marshall McLuhan.
Give it a listen, share it with someone who might dig it, and give Strange Exiles a follow. Bram is doing great work over there.
My “Mining Affordances” piece in the Henry Ford Magazine
I wrote a piece about skateboarding for the Summer/Fall 2024 issue of the Henry Ford Magazine. “Mining Affordances” explores the way that riding a skateboard reshapes one’s relationship with the world, the environment, and oneself.
Here’s an excerpt:
Skateboarders find their own use for everything in the city. First it was surfing the open waves of sidewalks and streets. Then the challenges of the steep walls in empty backyard pools beckoned. Eventually, street skating found affordances in everything: ledges, curbs, stairs, handrails—edges and angles of all kinds. The pro skateboarder John Rattray adds, “It’s been game-changing for me to learn how and why the actual movement of skateboarding helps us to neurologically regulate.” Even with the proliferation of skateparks, pure street skating is still the true measure of skill and vision.
Many thanks to Kristen Gallerneaux for inviting me to do this piece, Jennifer LaForce, Julie Friedman, and all at Octane Design and the Henry Ford Magazine.
You can flip through the magazine online or download the .pdf of my essay.
“A good idea well-articulated is what moves me. Sometimes that’s a song, a poem or a movie. Sometimes it’s just a well-formed sentence. There's nothing quite like a novel thought taking root in a fertile mind.” — Roy Christopher
ICYMI: Another Interview
As you know from my last newsletter, Chase Griffin recently did an interview with me for Metapsychosis, a journal of consciousness, literature, and art. Chase is the author of What’s on the Menu? (Long Day Press, 2020), the forthcoming Peter Zoidoid & the Commonplace (Corona\Samizdat), as well as co-author (with Christina Quay) of How to Play a Necromancer’s Theremin (Maudlin House, 2023). Thanks to Chase’s insightful questions, he and I cover quite a lot in this short but wide-ranging conversation.
This is a very different discussion and a nice companion to the Strange Exiles discussion above.
If you missed it, check it out! If you read it, share it with someone!
#tbt
Finally, I shared this bit from an essay I wrote on November 9th, 2016 on Instagram, and it seems to be hitting again. Maybe it’s just a reminder to call your mom or your dad, tell a friend you love them, or just to hug someone a little longer. Some would rather keep us apart, but we’re not who they think we are. As Kevin Seconds once shouted, I still believe.
As always, thank you for reading, responding, subscribing, and sharing my words and work.
I appreciate you,
-royc.
http://roychristopher.com
A pleasure talking to you Roy! 🙏