Next week marks 2 years of Perfectly Imperfect (!!) and we have some exciting stuff in store for you. On Monday we’ll be dropping the new Perfectly Imperfect shirt (seen below) + a Nalgene, and on Friday there’ll be a very special announcement.

If you’re new here after any of our August guests…welcome! Perfectly Imperfect is a twice-weekly newsletter featuring a taste of someone’s taste and once a month we the editors, Tyler and Alex, like to share what we’ve been into.

Check out the archive for more, follow Perfectly Imperfect on Instagram, and subscribe to stay up to date.

Without further ado

Tyler Bainbridge (instagram, twitter, website)

✉️ 🎵 Joe Kerwin’s NYC Music Scene Newsletter & Our “NYC Beat” Playlist

You might have noticed from all our music guests that there’s something special, but slept-on, happening in the NYC music world right now and no one, especially not P*tchfork, is covering it better than Joe Kerwin with his newsletter “You Missed It”.

Every week he does a write-up of all the shows he attends and after reading a few you’ll pick up on all the characters and venues. It’s as funny as it is informative. And what makes this scene particularly interesting is that none of the artists occupy the same genre. The Dare’s “Girls” sounds nothing like Laszlo, and Sitcom doesn’t sound like Blaketheman1000, yet they all play shows together and it makes perfect sense.

To help put on for our friends making great music Joe and I decided to put our heads together and make a playlist. It’s called “NYC Beat” if you want to check it out. We plan on updating it frequently, but who knows.

🎥 Artificial Intelligence (2001)

Is Spielberg…underrated? Okay, I mean he’s pretty “rated”, but Twitter film nerds hardly bring him up despite his goat status. I recently watched his misunderstood epic, Artificial Intelligence, and yeah, it’s a bit of a mess, but it’s also dark and beautiful. Legend has it that Kubrik started working on this film 50 ago, but asked Spielberg to direct it after it was abandoned and he ended up going Stanley-mode for nearly 3 hours. It’s the perfect mix of the two brilliant, but near-opposite, auteurs. The last half hour is especially sick.

🍸 Campari & Soda

A jack of all trades drink. You can have a few of ‘em on a summer afternoon and feel lovely, but you can also have one at 2am when you absolutely don’t need it. We've all been there right? You goofed and you’re veering on too-fucked-up, but you’re not ready to fully slam on the breaks, so get a Campari spritz! They’re low ABV and taste great. The only downside is that people might think you’re drinking a d*rty sh*rly…

🎵 Ride - Going Blank Again (1992)

Most people know Ride from the Nowhere, the album with with the otherworldly ocean on the cover, but this one is definitely my favorite. It’s like if you took all the best parts of shoegaze and blended them with the best parts of brit-pop. Pure alt-rock bliss. Some songs are a bit more spacey and distorted, and others, like Twisterella, Chrome Waves, and “Mouse Trap”, are rock music perfection and it’ll make you sad that nothing else sounds quite like this.

🎥 The Adam Friedland Show

I’ll admit it, I was never the biggest Cumtown fan. It just never clicked for me. But I do love The Adam Friedland Show. It has no business being so good since it’s really just Adam and Nick fucking around and figuring it out as they go. I think Adam said they bought some fancy lenses from Ukraine or something? I dunno, maybe that was a joke, but it looks equally cool and shitty. Excited to watch it evolv.

🎵 Lucy (aka Cooper B Handy)

Being from MA, I regret not being tapped into the music he and the rest of Darkworld were making in Western Massachusetts over the last 10 years. It’s all really cool and I’ve been loving his recent output.

🪑 Harald Relling Wing Chair & Renew Finds

For years I’ve wanted to replace my generic Wayfair armchair with something a bit more interesting. I set out searching for a vintage leather lounge chair and eventually ended up buying a 1960s Harald Relling Wing Chair in Dark Brown from the lovely Renew Finds in Greenpoint, who kindly delivered the chair to my home in just a few days. Don’t just buy an Eames Chair replica, c’mon you’re better than that. You should buy one of these beautiful, super comfortable, and bad ass chairs.

📱 Making Videos For Yourself

I get a little too caught up in the rat race sometimes and overthink what I post online. TikTok though? I could care less, it’s a playground for me. I use a free app called CapCut to whip up strange collage-like videos from other videos or sometimes I make videos that include me in them like the sad Family Guy one I shared on Instagram a while ago. I slow them down, speed them up, add overwhelming effects, use TikTok’s narration, and pair them a dissonant song choice. And best of all, no one really watches them except for me. It’s little my creative bubble.

Alex Cushing (instagram, twitter, goodreads, moodboard)

🌴📕  Vacation Books

I’ve enjoyed plenty of books that are good, but there’s something to be said about enjoying what may be dubbed a beach read. Lower effort books with straightforward, predictable plots. A small-coastal-town-with-wildfire-gossip read crammed with all the tropes you can think of. I find myself getting into grooves where I crush several of these books at a time. It’s like watching Gilmore Girls or an old rom-com, the fun is in the lighthearted romp, and you may find yourself craving to come back after a few months away. 

🌆🧡  Evening Seltzer Time

For the summer evenings, my wife and I have started most nights with tall glasses of Pellegrino, fresh lime wedges, and a couple books out on the deck. It’s a time of relaxation and conversation. It feels so right and has become truly integral to our everyday. Spending quality time with those you love is the greatest thing you can do with your time on earth, and making it part of your everyday is the best way to be sure it happens.

👟  Wales Bonner Red Sambas

An iconic shoe silhouette with a twist on craftsmanship and color.  When you pair these with the right fit, it’s so good. They’re extremely classic with their satin lining, textured 3-stripes, tongue stitching, and patterned laces, but just custom enough for a fresh spin. All this handled so expertly it feels effortless and could easily pass as a vintage design brought back.

📕🐆  The Leopard

Buckle up for a longer one ~~ The book the iconic Visconti film of the same title is based on, the leopard is a luxurious multigenerational magnum opus that explores the demise of an aristocracy and a noble family in power at the time, the Sicilian family of Don Fabrizio, The Leopard. This book is the exact opposite of those vacation reads I rec’d above. It’s some effort to read, but worth it ~ an exercise in extravagance, lush and lavish environments, theatrical parties, and mouth matering feasts. Don Fabrizio is a decadent prince who has become numb to his opulent lifestyle, bringing the jesuit priest with him everywhere to make amends with God as he continues to commit cardinal sins. He carries this numbness beyond his lifestyle, to how he handles the signs of the falling aristocracy - failing to act but rather observing as the world changes around him. His nephew, Tancredi, is his foil, willing the changes in his world that Don Fabrizio dreads. Their relationship, as well as the rest of the families, feels so full and fleshed out, I truly understand and relate to each of their motives. The Leopard is a true work of art.

🟢🔵  Bottega Green, Jacquemus Blue

With 2021, BV brought Bottega green and in 2022 I’m seeing a lot of what I call Jacquemus Blue. If you don’t know it - BV green is a kind of “tennis green”, a little more grounded than a kelly green but not far off. My self-dubbed Jacquemus Blue is a cerulean shade of blue, which evokes a similar feel to the BV green for me. It’s a summer day on the mediterranean kind of blue and I’m dying to enhance my wardrobe with these colors. From sweaters to tees and jackets. 

🎵  Watch Your Step - Ted Hawkins

Classic acoustic southern soul. This album is extremely easy to put on, it’s got a natural flow to it, little personal (mostly) single instrument songs that go straight from ted’s soul to your own. You may know the classic Sorry You’re Sick where he iconically croons what do you want from the liquor store, something sour or something sweet? It’s just a song that feels like music home, which is a common theme in his music.

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