Birds are swooping outside my window as they sing towards the verdant canopy. I’m sitting in my our new apartment on the 6th floor of a Parisian building, overlooking the Père Lachaise cemetery. I can wave to Gertrude Stein. She’s somewhere back there, there, insisting that there’s no such thing as repetition, only insistence, and though I’ve only been properly moved into my new apartment for a few weeks, it’s already the homiest home I’ve ever known.

I moved to Paris in 2008 as a student and never truly left. The first apartment I lived in was 9m2 (96 square feet for United Statesians), and I have incrementally increased my leg-stretching space ever since.

It’s a tale as old as Parisian time: a novelist trying to find their way out of existential obscurity in the City of Light, working English teaching jobs, drinking heavily, publishing a first novel only to become a glorified receptionist for four years (to this day, they haven’t a single interesting thing to say about stocks or wearing ties), struggling to finish their second novel while teaching at the Sorbonne, finally finishing the damn thing and publishing it, and so on and so forth, until here they are, back at it again in a new Parisian apartment, the eighth Parisian home in 15 years, by their count, in what they suspect will be the most inspiring home they’ve ever known.

For the first time in my adult life,

I wake up with sunrise, and I cannot tell you what it means to wake up with the warmth of sunshine on my torso, but I can tell you I might just become a morning person.

Perhaps more importantly, for the first time in my adult Parisian life (17 years),

I have a room of my own.

For the first time in my Parisian life, I don’t have to find a café which influencers egomaniacs haven’t destroyed / find a corner of a large table in a public library. The walls are thick, too, which means I can compose music without headphones, can sing without limiting my voice, and can open the windows when the creative energies get too sweaty.

In the new room there’s also enough space for ’s photography desk, from which she conjures magic, and while it’s a great fortune, joy, and inspiration to share one’s home with a fellow artist, after sharing a 29m2 studio for four years on one of the liveliest streets in the city, I cannot tell you how much it makes a difference, immediately, for both of us to be able to close the proverbial literal door and work on whatever we deem fit.

Lo and behold, having a physical space dedicated to creativity engenders creativity … who knew!

In the first two weeks of life here in my favorite part of the city (the 11th/20th), I finished one song that had been dogging me for years and wrote two new songs (one co-written with Augusta) that will become part of a full-length solo album once I find the right producer/recording studio for that adventure (those of you who dig me and my twin brother’s band, Slim and The Beast, will be happy to know we’ll be playing at Rock Bottles (18ème) on Thursday, May 22 circa 8:30pm for a night of harmonies and harmonicas).

And so all this to say, I’m back home, and it feels good, and I’ll be sharing a lot more music in the next months and short fiction, too, because I can now get back to working on the most important project, a new novel (here are a lot of reviews of my latest novel, The Requisitions), but speaking about writing a new novel is an exceedingly dangerous act and I shan’t give the Muses any reason to send their messages to those novelists writing diligently without hope, despair, or fanfare.

PS

Major thanks to the Dublin-based The Murder Capital, a post-punk band, for inspiring the above video reminding me what it means to stand for something—to stand for anything—by expressing their soul on the stage in unapologetic and radically authentic fashion.

Finally, in honor of vulnerability (once you’ve put on headphones and listened to the above video), last week I performed 3 never-before-performed songs in the cellar of the only bar in Paris I’ve ever called home (I know better than to tell you where it is), and it was quite cathartic not to be precious about such personal tunes (I can neither confirm nor deny that I got choked up rehearsing each of them countless times). Here’s to leaning into vulnerability. One of these days I’ll share the full version + the story of “Drifting Away.”

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1

I was having drinks with and a few Texan friends the other night in as close to a legitimate speakeasy one can find in 2024. The bar specializes in whiskeys from all over the world and is only accessible via the utility closet of one of the best Neapolitan pizzerias in the city. But like the restaurant’s name, and like most of the best places in Paris, the details would belie the true value of a speakeasy in the first place.1

Over an elegant glass of Irish whiskey (Green Spot, I recommend it) my friends and I were chatting about our past experiences with psychedelics, when (let’s call her Sally) mentioned the first time she ever tried mushrooms. At a high school party Sally was offered what she thought was an imperceptible dose of mushroom chocolates, only to find the road suddenly split in two during her drive home.

Sally had never taken mushrooms before and, being a teenager, had no idea that mushrooms, specifically, can take an hour or two to take effect (especially after a big meal). Terrified as she was, she distinctly remembered not losing her shit on the highway but rather focusing on staying in the right lane, trusting that yes, the right lane was real, thus focusing on the reality of the white line on the shoulder that led her safely back home.

2

Sally’s story brought back to me, “White Lines,” a blues/road song that I wrote almost a decade ago with my former band, Slim and The Beast. We’re all adults here and this is the Internet, which means while I hope you, dear reader, understand that I’m not condoning operating speeding masses of metal under the influence of psychedelics, I’ll say it anyway—don’t drive on psychedelics—but the point here isn’t about how we all do dumb things as teenagers humans, but rather how in doing dumb things we often learn important lessons, i.e. to remember trusting the white line the journey during moments of reckless abandon personal growth.

Such is the unspoken sentiment in “White Lines,” one of the first songs I ever wrote at the ripe age of twenty-six, during a time when I began experimenting with various substances … and while I’m not explicitly condoning the use of drugs for the general public because the pharmaceutical industry does a fine job all by itself, I do advocate for psychic, spiritual, and literal adventures because [see Andre Gide quote up above]

3

“White Lines” is a song story about a person picking up speed on a highway with aspirations for a horizon they have yet to define. Slim and The Beast, with whom I recently started playing music again, got a taste of the rockstar lifestyle before our March 2020 European Tour “career” was rudely interrupted by a global pandemic (as I often tell my walking tour clients, we reached the proverbial zenith at Paris’ Zenith Arena, playing to a room of 5,000 people the day before France shut down and the world changed irrevocably):

With a decade of life and love and sex-drugs-and-rock-and-roll in the rearview mirror, Sally’s story reminded me of “White Lines” and my continued belief that when life gets hairy and when the road splits in two,

there’s reckless wisdom in staying the course, even especially when traveling towards an unknown destination.

TLDR: DON’T trip and drive but DO seek out new adventures.

Happy New Years and to the journey in its myriad forms,

Samuél

“White Lines” (2015) by Slim and The Beast

Leave home in the mirror, landscape fading fast
Keep your eyes on that white line, somebody said, don’t look back
Picking up speed now, I’m finding my way
Won’t stop till I’m empty, I’ll carry that weight
No sign of trouble, no change of plans
And if I don’t make it, they’ll understand

‘Cause I knew where I was going when I left town
and I’ve come too far to turn this whole thing around

Pull off the road now, the sharp edge of town
Looking for signposts, and that’s where I find
A warm kind of feeling that flows through my hands
Get down on my knees with a fistful of sand
Off in the distance a shadow appears
A face that I dreamt of, a face that I feared
Rise from the wasteland, I look in his eyes
Some kind of shelter, I finally realize that

I knew where I was going when I left town,
and I’ve come too far to turn this whole thing around

Stick to the white lines, nothing but white lines, stick to the white lines
I tipped my hat, can you help me sir, I’m trying to find my way
The clouds turned dark and the lightning struck, he said son don’t dig your grave
I’ve seen that devil in the passenger’s side of so many men like you
Drive too fast, it’ll turn you blind, do you know where you’re going?
Do you know where you’re going? Do you know where you’re going to?

But the thing is, we have a choice whether or not to listen participate in the noise,

and if there’s one thing I know about the spirit of a good dive, it’s that when things start to get popular noisy, and when influencers posers show up, it’s that much more important to spot up at our favorite stool at the end of the worn wooden bar and keep having conversations with the stalwarts.

Like every good bar owner knows, the only way to maintain the sanctity of a space is to actively cultivate community over celebrity and people over profit.

Up above are three original songs

from a set I performed last weekend in the cellar of my favorite dive bar in Paris, Au Chat Noir (shout out to for sharing the stage; we met at yet another local Paris dive in Belleville). Substack is the only place in the world where you can currently hear my solo music, which is why most of the other original music on this space is paywalled (I believe independent art remains valuable in a consumerist society that defines value monetarily, which means occasionally paying artists for their work might just be revolutionary).

Down below are links to two Substack conversations

I recently had about the proverbial corners of the Substack Dive with two artists whose wisdom, ambition motivation, and generosity continue remind me of the true value of this space.

Happy Holidays and a Merry Festivus for the Rest Of Us,

Samuél

8 Questions with

As Substack continues to grow, I’m reminded to focus on the community I want to exist in. I met Eleanor thanks to , who were some of the first people to champion my work on this space. It’s only thanks to readers and writers like them and many others, including (but not limited to) , , , , that I continue to be able to share so much work on this space.

Q: In it for the long haul?

A: I’m in it for the long haul as a novelist. Whether [Substack] remains a space to engage with over the next years will depend on how much Big Money, “content creators” and “influencers” relegate it to just another place to be sold something sell out. Still, I’ve got faith Substack is in it for the long haul the right reasons, too, because there used to be a time when only cult leaders were obsessed with “gaining followers,” and we don’t need any more cults of personality than already exist. authenticity > content AND community > capital. I can get behind this.

The Literary Obsessive

8 Questions for... Samuél Lopez Barrantes

Samuél Lopez-Barrantes writes, if not, Paris, and has more or less lived in that city since 2008 as a novelist and musician. He says, “I’m interested in how human beings derive meaning in life, whether it be through love, intoxication, power, friendship, or the myriad fictions & truths we tell ourselves during the in-between…

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a year ago · 42 likes · 12 comments · Eleanor Anstruther and Samuél Lopez-Barrantes

A Dialogue about Life, Literature, and All the Rest of It

with , one of my dad’s former drama students at California Institute of the Arts and now a bonafide inspiration and friend.

Engaged Liberation

Pájaro Libre, Community Meet-ups, Paris, Literature, Chat GPT & JOY w/ Samuél Lopez-Barrantes!

I got to chat with the one and only, Samuél Lopez-Barrantes (from, if not, Paris)… The first person I ever heard talk about Substack, and likely the reason I hopped onto this platform…

Listen now

a year ago · 3 likes · Christopher Rivas and Samuél Lopez-Barrantes

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At the Theater

The day started with, continued to, and ended with rain. A single grey cloud covered the Parisian expanse. Still you walked the streets, wandered the cobblestones, scoured the neighborhoods—there was something there, under the surface, invisible to tourists, a mysterious beach … three years of life in the city of lights, but it wasn’t until you went to the theater much later in the evening after a long day of work and metro turnstiles and paper cup espressos and cheap whiskey, only there, in a dark theater, did you find Paris illuminated, the Paris you’d been looking for, the one you’d heard of in song.

It was a one-act in the Latin Quarter, which one you can’t remember and why you went you don’t recall. But when you entered that theater, surrounded by the melancholic echo of the actor’s voice in emptied space, by the suppressed sniffles, the coughs, the nose wipes, the throat clearances, the heavy wooden footsteps pressing into old wooden floorboards, creaking and groaning like an old man entering his bath, his sigh not one of decrepitude but of the exhausting beauty of life, a beauty borne from the wish to create a moment in this expanse and the infinite solitude which we often call time, there, at the theater, where ovations will fall and plays will be forgotten and evanescent reviews will be tacked upon others on the wall, where but for an instant among the sighs and the creaks and tuning of instruments, within the monologues and the scene changes, far beyond the words and the music and even the actors themselves, to reach further still until we reach that state of grace, of oneness with it all because it’s nothing more than all of this: sitting comfortably in our seats, losing ourselves in creation, not in cities filled with props but in a space pregnant with the in-between; not in treatments or in screenplays but in a space dirigible by life, this galaxy’s creators perhaps watching stoically amongst us—not taking notes, not making improvements, not trying to name to this state of bliss, only taking heed of the faces and the smiles and the joyful tears in this audience—all of this eternal proof that if only for a moment yes, we exist, and if only for a moment, yes, we are watching.

Paris Friends: This Friday Night / December 13 circa 9 PM

I’ll be playing another piano/vocals set at Au Chat Noir (76 Rue Jean-Pierre Timbaud). This time, I’ll be sharing the stage with my good friend , one of the most talented singer/songwriters I know, in at least one way, he helped inspire the song up above. Show up before 9pm if you want to have a seat, as the cellar theater is, indeed, quite small.

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On Friday evening, I had the great joy of playing an intimate solo piano/vocals recital in Paris.

I’ve played hundreds of live sets in my life (mainly as a member of Slim and The Beast), but Friday marked the first time since I was a teenager that I’ve sang or played piano as a solo artist to a captive audience.

In Paris, it’s exceedingly rare to find public musical spaces that allow for the natural intimacy of a solo show, and while I’ve played numerous Sofar Sounds gigs that approximate the intimacy of a living room, those gigs were always with a band.

Playing by one’s lonesome is a fundamentally different experience, and I have my twin brother, the singer/songwriter Aaron Lopez-Barrantes, to thank for helping me understand how to play from a space of raw vulnerability.

And what a joy it was

to be able to choose how to play each tune in real-time—when to speed up, slow down, improvise, change the melody, and turn a misplayed note or chord into an opportunity (thanks, jazz).

Friday night felt like the beginning of a new chapter in my musical life. It was a welcome and necessary reminder of the difference between performing songs as an entertainer and playing and singing as a solo artist.

After many years of playing to crowds of singing and dancing and chatting people, it was an honor to play in a room fit for a pin-drop, the cellar of my favorite bar in Paris, Au Chat Noir, a community space that hosts live music, comedy nights, and spoken word poetry (Au Chat Noir was the first place I ever read fiction out loud in public; it’s also, lo and behold, where I met my wife).

Thanks to all who showed up for such a human, intimate soirée, and thanks to my paying subscribers for pushing me to keep creating.

Below, if not, Paris patrons will find the show’s program, complete with lyrics if you’d like to read along to the 20-minute recording (note: the recording includes 5 of the seven tunes on the program because technical difficulties there’s virtue in leaving the audience wanting more).

Au Chat Noir Recital, November 15, 2024

1. Les Roches Noirs

2. Slowly

3. Monika

4. Time

5. Waltz in Ab

6. Annabelle

7. You

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Note: Augusta’s introduction to this recording doesn’t benefit from as clear audio as the rest of the conversation because I can only afford two lapel microphones … for now

My wife introduced me to Micah in New Orleans a few years ago. They’ve known each other for a decade and Micah has long been a champion of both Augusta’s and my work. He is a talented barber, a staple in the New Orleans community, and also happens to be one of the kindest, wisest, and most in touch humans I’ve ever met.

Without going into the specific details of Micah’s personal life, suffice to say he’s been through multiple life experiences that few of us can fathom surviving, let alone handling with such wisdom, grace, and humanity.

The first time I met Micah, I felt like I was meeting a sage, a wise person, a deeply empathetic and spiritual individual who hasn’t just lived more lives than most, but is—importantly—able to look back at those lives from the next pleateau.

Last night, Micah and I sat down for a conversation in central New Orleans to talk about The Requisitions in a photography studio with high ceilings, white walls, and Robert Johnson crooning in the background. Before our guests arrived (big shout out to all who came and especially thanks to those who bought the book), we discussed this idea of reaching various “higher planes,” and how there’s an inevitable estrangement from certain unexamined routines, friendships, and patterns in our lives after surviving a serious sickness, injury, substance abuse … or simply when we actually listen to Robert Johnson for the first time, or read Viktor Frankl’s Man’s Search for Meaning or Jill Bolte-Taylor’s My Stroke of Insight.

I like the idea that our lives, just like novels, are divided into different chapters and plateaux. Once we’ve read chapter twenty or hiked to the next peak, we can’t very well go back to the mindset we had at the beginning of the adventure.

Evolution is real, and the way Micah speaks, using such measured, contemplative language, reminds me of this truth—of understanding where we come from but, perhaps more importantly, of understanding when remaining in certain planes of existence no longer serves our spirit.

It reminds me of a quote by the 19th century English philosopher John Stuart Mill:

As Augusta mentions at the very beginning of our discussion, Micah “is not your average consumer of media. He’s careful with what he consumes and is very thoughtful with how he processes it after, so I thought he’d be the absolute perfect person to facilitate this conversation.”

It was an honor to be in conversation with Micah and to meet old and new faces alike. Big thanks to all who came out, especially , the coolest wife I know and a primary reason The Requisitions is what it is; the badass painter Mary Scinto, who asked a great question at MINUTE 36:001, and the author Chin-Sun Lee, who I had the pleasure of meeting last night.2

Happy Halloween folks. I’m going to an epic New Orleans party where the theme is revenge. For my costume, I’ve chosen to embody Rufio, the Leader of the Lost Boys in Hook.

Samuél

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This song is an ode to the great loves in my life, and to the nature of being in love itself.

I first began writing “You” in March, 2020, a few weeks after I’d just met a talented and beautiful photographer who was visiting from New Orleans. We exchanged phone numbers at my local dive, but she lived across the ocean and at that particular time, neither of us had any clue of where our lives were leading.

As antiquated words like “quarantine” and “pandemic” began to infect 21st century parlance, we holed up in our respective apartments and waited out the storm, staying in touch finding solace via late-night text messages and red wine dates on Facetime.

Slowly but surely, we began to fall in love, albeit digitally, and so we wondered if it was real or imagined, and what might happen if we didn’t like how the other one kissed?

There’s a book in there somewhere, obviously (those who’ve followed my Substack since the beginning know this pandemic love story is what inspired me to start writing here in the first place), but I wouldn’t be a storyteller if I gave away everything willy nilly, which is why the complete recording of “You” is only for my paying subscribers—free subscribers can listen to the first chorus of “You,” which should scintillate you just enough to wonder how the song ends.

Thanks to each and every one of my paying subscribers for believing in my work and supporting me in a tangible way. If you’re paying monthly and would like a signed 1st edition of my debut novel, Slim and The Beast, just send me an email with your mailing address (slopezba@gmail.com), or better yet, say hello in the comments section.

Happy Sunday,

Samuél

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I’m back in Paris, the autumn is here,

and tonight, at the end of a chilly Fashion Week (the colorful beach shirts have been packed away), I’ll be linking up with my fellow Parisian Substackers for yet another Substack meetup to imbibe in wine, laughter, and conversation.

For tonight’s meetup, I think I’ll wear a thrifted brown c…

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This one goes out to for opening up their beautiful home to us in the French countryside the last few weeks.

If you didn’t catch last week’s piece about our countryside bliss, why not bear witness to some of Augusta’s glorious (and dare I say sensual?) photography (paid subscribers can see my favorite down below)

Happy Almost Olympics. We’ll be at the opening ceremonies tomorrow and I’ll surely be writing about all the antics.

a bientôt,

Samuél

PS I highly recommend watching / listening to the above video with headphones or on a speaker. The birdsong is delicate and I recorded the piano on my Nord Electro-6D, a keyboard that has impressive synth, reverb, & echo effects that get lost on weak speakers.

enjoy

Bird on Wire

Such a natural thing to perch

on electrified wire,

surveying the earth from on high,

the energy coursing through.

Unnatural machines speed

across the pristine landscape;

birds never linger

in one place for too long.

We anthropomorphize everything

however we see fit,

imbuing nature with lost virtues,

acts of kindness we used to do.

Being one with the

earth is hard

for creatures who move

inside machines;

such a human thing to linger

on electrified ground,

heads tilted skywards

the energy coursing through.

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On June 21, 2024, my former band, Slim & The Beast, reunited after two years of being apart to play an impromptu set. My twin brother, , is the star of this song, a cover of Neil Young’s “Harvest Moon” (you’ll also find a professionally recorded + filmed version down below).

The vibe of Fête de la Musique cannot possibly be captured on even the smartest of phones, but I wanted to share a few videos down below (one of people dancing in the street to our song “Billie” + docile debauchery) because I’m finally taking a few days off of a busy walking tour season to head to the Côte d’Azur for the first time in my fifteen years in France (I wanted to find a beautiful seaside village for me and ; it took all of five minutes to find a town called Beaulieu-sur-mer (beautiful place on the sea).

I love France.

There’s so much more to say about Fête de la Musique, but I must now catch a train to Nice. Songs and dance will have to suffice.

And finally, a professionally recorded video of “Harvest Moon” from four years ago, for all of the sticklers for audio and video quality amongst us.

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I’ve been writing this song “The Train” for about 10 months now—“writing” (the continuous present) because even if the lyrics and the vocal melody are almost there, each time I play this tune, a new aspect of the melody reveals itself to me, especially when I play it instrumentally.

…

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S: “That’s why travel’s—that’s what travel’s about. Reminding ourselves that we live on this beautiful, ridiculous planet.”

Z: “If you put this in a sci-fi movie on another planet—”

S: “It would look like paradise. 100%. That’s why I like doing videos. Doing long exposures. I just like, as a viewer, being forced to look at something longer. If you look at the speed and frame-rates of how commercials … our brains are sped-up.”

Z: “And you feel it.”

S: “You also you feel it in opposite, when you just, for a moment, look at it for a minute. When you look at one thing instead of a thousand.”

Z: “So do you speed up somewhat?”

S: “I either slow them down or I keep them exactly as they are. This one’s a longer one. I’ll mute this and then there will be piano over it. It might just be a song. That’s why I want to take a long one. So I can have—”

Z: “A blank canvas.”

S: “Yeah. You can slow it down to 75% and most people won’t notice, but I don’t like fucking with it. I want the actual footage.”

Z: “Because on some subconscious level, you can tell.”

S: “Exactly. And I can tell. And if I can tell, then what’s the point?”

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I’ve been listening to Tom Waits’ Nighthawks at the Diner (1975) as of late.

I admire the days of live-album recordings, of artists figuring out exactly how to play the song from start to finish, going through the motions over and over again until they settle on something resembling completion peace.

The Beatles were famous for recording scores of take…

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“Everything one does in life, even love, occurs in an express train racing toward death. To smoke opium is to get out of the train while it is still moving. It is to concern oneself with something other than life or death.”

Jean Cocteau

The above quote inspired me to write a song. Here are the lyrics:

Time is a train unto its own, forever keeping pace

As the world speeds by my window, I search for an escape

‘Cause I want to get off, take a look around

Out there, alone in my thoughts, in the fertile space

I see things I’ve never seen before my eyes, angels surround me they are light

The pendulum swings to the other side, a circle traced (dappled light)

Sunshine surrounds you in the shade

Most of what we see in life is from this train (step outside)

Exhale—mind the gap when you awake

And when, when you get off, take a look around

Outside, alone in your thoughts, in the fertile space

You’ll see things you used to see just as a child

Angels surround you they are light

With my novelistic mind finally open to new ideas,

I’m returning to piano and voice whilst I sow the literary fields1 for whatever story appears next. It took me a decade to finish and publish my latest novel, The Requisitions. With my literary energies now resting, I’m turning to music for inspiration.

The recording below is for my paying subscribers,

the first of a series of homemade recordings I’ll be sharing for those who’ve been supporting me over the past two years.

Why is music paywalled?

First, to honor those who’ve been supporting me since the beginning. It’s thanks to my paying subscribers that I was able to save enough money to pay an illustrator, editor, designer, and printer to independently publish The Requisitions. That being said, if you can’t afford an annual subscription, send me an email and I’m happy to provide you with a comp.

Second, I was in a band for seven years (I was the lead singer alongside my twin brother ) and did the music label thing, which means I know the costs involved in trying to make money with music (see: near impossible).

Voila. Thanks to all of you—paying and free subscribers alike—for taking a chance on this space. As you can see below, it’s been a slow and steady process since I started if not, Paris two years ago:

Here’s to pursuing our own narratives in all of their many forms. For my free subscribers interested in what my music is all about, you can watch this video, which includes an early instrumental piano recording of “The Train”.

For my paying subscribers: sit back, throw on a pair of headphones / a decent speaker, and have a listen:

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I came across a Jean Cocteau quote a few months ago that’s been flirting with me ever since:

This video is an ode to Cocteau and to the many artists who’ve given me the opportunity over the last few months to concern myself with what Cocteau is talking about, with something other than life or death.

Dance, music, drugs conscious-altering substances, friends, sex, fellow artists1—without these things in my life, I wouldn’t make any art at all because I’d be too apathetic.

So thank you to the artists of the world for making me feel alive

and for reminding me that’s there’s so much more to existence than being worried about the fact that yes, in fact, we are all going to die. (Isn’t it amazing how even reading those words does something to our stomachs? The most obvious truth of existence and I hesitate to even write the phrase).

The song is called “The Train” (recorded in Bb major)

and the video combines scenes of night-life in Paris, and tranquillity in the Italian countryside, because these were recents moments when I felt, to Cocteau’s point, that I was able to “get off the train while it’s moving.”

I have written lyrics for this song as well, but I’m still tinkering with them, and only paying subscribers will be able to hear me sing them.

As the above video suggests, it’s essential to support living artists if we want them to keep making the art that makes us tick; and while it remains extremely uncomfortable for me to suggest that my work might be valuable enough for a few people to pay for it, such is the nature of being an artist in the 21st century. If I could make art for free for a living, I would, but alas, I have multiple jobs, and it’s only thanks to the 60+ paying subscribers on this space that I’m able to devote extra time to videos like this.

But Sundays are for piano.

Enjoy,

Samuél

support the arts

PS

The best way to experience this 5-minute video is on a computer screen with a decent speaker—or better yet, with a pair of headphones. I didn’t make this video to be watched or listened to via cell phone, even if I did film everything via my phone (I think that’s called a paradox). But please, please allow yourself the 5 minutes to listen and watch to “Life, Lately (Take 1),” and maybe, just maybe, step off the train for a few seconds.

1

My good friend, the talented singer-songwriter , features in this video. His most recent album “Soft Power” is a melodic meditation, and his Substack is a treasure-trove of his songwriting process:

organizing an accident

Sharing a new song every Wednesday + dispatches on music life in Paris

By Ryan Egan

Big ups to Jimmy Cox for writing the song, Madame Simone’s for hosting me, for sound editing & the lovely for the images.

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