#431: SIMPLE TOWN

🔧 Repairing shit, 🤫 Silence and stillness, 🔦 Flash Lights, 🎥 Spectacle Theater, 👵🏻 Grace Paley, and more.

Perfectly Imperfect is a newsletter offering “A Taste of Someone’s Taste” from guests like Charli XCX, John Cale, Julian Casablancas, Lena Dunham, Mac Demarco, Dasha Nekrasova, Tim Heidecker, Ayo Edebiri, Michael Imperioli, Rayne Fisher-Quann, Mel Ottenberg, Chloe Cherry, Matty Matheson, Anna Delvey, The Dare, Caroline Calloway, Snail Mail, and more. Check out our full archive here.

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Cool people like cool things, which is why we asked Simple Town to share a taste of their taste on Perfectly Imperfect.

Simple Town is a New York City-based comedy group comprised of Will Niedmann, Felipe Di Poi Tamargo, Sam Lanier, Caroline Yost, and Ian Faria. They began as an advertisement for a bank, but these days Simple Town puts on live sketch shows + produces genius shorts like Scary Car & La Piscina. Their surreal & grotesque style has led to praise from Vulture and Short of the Week, and they’ve been featured on Comedy Central, [Adult Swim]'s Smalls, and Off The Air. They’re currently working on their debut feature film, but in the meantime you can catch their monthly sketch show at Union Hall or head to Roxy Cinema on April 25th for a round-up of their video work. Lucky for us, Simple Town are here to tell us what they’re into.

Without further ado

Simple Town (instagram, twitter)

(Caro) 🔧 Repairing shit

The strap of my dress snapped a few years ago and then in minutes I sewed it back on and felt a satisfaction so profound that it had to be Ancient and Just. If you don’t know how to mend it, someone does… COBBLERS are REAL!!!!! I’ve seen them with my eyes and they have re-birthed my shoes like Gods on Earth. Mass consumption has us addicted to buying and discarding but I highly recommend repairing your shit - relationships too! My uncle who doesn’t shut up once told me that “life is all about maintenance” (genius) so I forgave him for being the way that he is! 

(Caro) 😇 Meditation

People say you’re supposed to do it sitting in silence but you can actually meditate anywhere and at any time. All you have to do is place your attention on an “object” (breath, soundscape, foot on ground, ass in chair, tree in wind) and observe what is happening now. When you notice thoughts, feelings, sensations have entered the landscape of your mind, acknowledge them and non-judgmentally return your attention to the object. You’re not doing it wrong :)

(Caro) 👽 Otherworld podcast from Jack Wagner

Specifically episodes 38-42 on Eilish Poe and if those are too scary, start with episodes 20-23 on The Black Widow and Ball of Light. If you are too skeptical and need a primer, check out the book Phenomena by Annie Jacobsen about how the US government secretly researched the “supernatural” for years. Your mind will be opened and over time you may open and open until you are so open that you too receive insights from the Truth beyond.

(Caro) 🌱 Lemon Balm

Make it tea and feel goooooooood

(Felipe) 👧🏻🧔🏻‍♂️ Julia Mounsey and Peter Mills Weiss plays

Our friends Julia and Peter make really cutting edge theater in New York that people should go see. They’ve been written up in the New York Times and the New Yorker, but I really feel like they deserve way more heat in the scene. It often takes the form of strange monologues delivered straight to the audience that feel like they’re about to lock the doors of the theater and not let anybody out. You can watch a recording of their play “Protec/ Attac” on Youtube.

(Felipe) 🎭 Peter en el cielo con Capusotto

Peter Capusotto is an Argentinean comedian who was active in the 90’s and 2000’s. Over there he’s very well known. Sometime in the 2000’s he had a sketch comedy radio show, and the sketches he had on that show are really really funny. But it’s all in spanish.

(Felipe) 🎸 Dave Grohl performing “My Hero” on Howard Stern

There’s a video of Dave Grohl singing “My Hero” acoustic on Howard Stern and I’ve watched it one million times. I think it’s because it gives me a strong nostalgic feeling. I’ve memorized Howard asking Dave whether the song is about Kurt Cobain, and Dave Grohl saying “It’s just about heroes who are regular,” and then Robin saying she thinks it’s about Kurt Cobain, and then Dave Grohl being like “To me it’s more about when heroes are regular.” Something comforting about it. 

(Felipe) 🤫 Silence and stillness

I used to feel that comedy needed to be really fast and something always needed to be happening. But recently I’ve been thinking more about stillness and silence. On stage, for instance, I try to find moments to stay as still as possible, so that any time I move, the audience notices it. Being perfectly still and silent (but relaxed) after delivering a joke is very funny: it shows you are committing.

(Felipe) 🦟🥅 Mosquito net

Every summer I get mosquitos in my room that keep me up. This doesn’t seem to happen to anyone else I know, which confuses me. Anyways, after trying spiral candles and spraying myself with Off before bed (which you should absolutely not do), I figured out the mosquito net. It hangs from my ceiling, and covers my bed when I go to sleep. My friends think it’s funny, but it’s very effective, and I think it even looks kind of erotic.

(Sam) 🔦 Flash Lights

I love these things. You can get some really powerful ones online now. Military grade even. Makes you feel like a soldier or a spy. Good for pointing at your girlfriend in the dark.

(Sam) 🚙 FiDi DMV

If you have to go to a DMV in New York, go to this one. People are nice and no one is there. Don’t go on Monday or Friday though.

(Sam) 🚔 Blue Streak

Been thinking a lot about this movie. I love Martin Lawrence, and this is a great send up of cop culture. Would love to make a movie as funny and dumb as this some day.

(Ian) 🚷 Walking from 34th street to Central Park without using avenues

It is possible to get from the mid 30s to Central Park without walking up a single avenue, by snooping through the office buildings and parking garages on most blocks. This is according to my dad who remembers once reading an article where someone did this. We’ve tried ourselves and made it 80% of the way - the closer you get to Central Park the more moxy is required, exiting through hotel kitchens etc.

(Ian) ✍️ To the White Sea

This year I discovered Jordan Fish and Ray Tintori’s podcast To the White Sea, in which they read an unproduced Coen brothers screenplay and talk about filmmaking with various guests. Jordan and Ray manage to be obsessive in detail without ever sounding pretentious, and I’ve learned a lot from the research they bring to the show. They host screenings at Dunkunsthalle on Fulton Street that are equally enlightening, look out for their next one in 2024.

(Ian) 🏖️ Robert Moses State Park in the winter

Robert Moses State Park is open in the winter, and if you go on a weekday you’ll probably have the entire beach to yourself and a few fishermen. Great for a contemplative walk wherein you mull things over spiritually. Towards sunset, can start to feel like you’ve reached the end of the earth and are about the meet God. Bring a blanket, some grapes and your copy of The Power Broker.

(Ian) 🎥 Spectacle Theater

The best movie theater in New York seats 35. See a movie here you know nothing about and you will be inspired. For me most recently it was a screening of Dave Wascavage’s Suburban Sasquatch. Simple Town has been lucky enough to play videos here twice. The first night was packed, the second night we sold two tickets, and both nights were perfect.

(Will) 👵🏻 Grace Paley

This is my favorite writer. She grew up in Brighton Beach going to socialist preschool and then when she was older, as a mother, she wrote stories on receipts and scraps of paper, keeping them in her apron and then taping them together. She cared a lot about politics and life in the city, and she was always funny. The way she reads aloud is amazing, and there is a good recording of one of her classic stories here. You will notice it is me who uploaded it, two years ago. I had to learn how to “rip” audio.

(Will) 🥁 Ragdoll Dance LP by Institute

I’ve just been listening to this album a lot. It rocks. Smart gloomy punk. I might just leave it at that. 100% hitville.

(Will) 🐦  The yellow-bellied sapsucker at Herbert Von King park

If you go to Herbert Von King park in Brooklyn, there is a droopy blue-ish pine tree by the southeast entrance, across from the deli and the police station. There is almost always a woodpecker there, and it’s called a yellow-bellied sapsucker. It’s not super rare or anything, but who cares. It’s beautiful, and it drills neat rows of holes into the tree. I have seen it there for about three years now. Reliably, you could get a coffee or a CBD seltzer, and go look at this cool bird.