Contributor
Ross Simonini is a writer, artist, musician, and staff interviewer at The Believer. His first novel, The Book of Formation, was published by Melville House Books. He hosts Subject, Object, Verb and teaches at Columbia University.
Interviews
An Interview with Pat Metheny
Ross Simonini
An Interview with Will Oldham
Ross Simonini
Essays
The All
Ross Simonini
Geophagy at Red Earth Hole
Ross Simonini
Interviews
An Interview with Maggie Nelson
Ross Simonini
The Return
Ross Simonini
Warm Home Energy
Ross Simonini
A Mundane Immortality
Ross Simonini
Bridget Phetasy Wants You To Kill Your Hypochondria Before It Kills You
Ross Simonini
Interviews
An Interview with David Duchovny
Ross Simonini
The Shaker
Ross Simonini
Interviews
An Interview with Matt Healy
Ross Simonini
Vijay Iyer Wants You to Feel Your Spine
Ross Simonini
Rodney Ascher Burns Simulation Theory into Our Synapses
Ross Simonini
Interviews
An Interview with Sean Penn
Ross Simonini
Jenny Odell Considers New Temporal Realities
Ross Simonini
David Lynch Ushers in a Golden Age
Ross Simonini
Interviews
An Interview with Ottessa Moshfegh
Ross Simonini
An Interview with Livia Kohn
Ross Simonini
An Interview with Katherine Hill
Ross Simonini
Interviews
An Interview with Arthur Jafa
Ross Simonini
Interviews
An Interview with Stephen Harrod Buhner
Ross Simonini
Interviews
An Interview with Temple Grandin
Ross Simonini
Interviews
Eric Wareheim on Winemaking
Ross Simonini
Interviews
An Interview with Jason Moran
Ross Simonini
Interviews
An Interview with Pope.L
Ross Simonini
Interviews
An Interview with Ram Dass and Rameshwar Das
Ross Simonini
Interviews
An Interview with Ezra Koenig
Ross Simonini
Interviews
An Interview with Miranda July
Ross Simonini
An Inherently Paintable Moment
Ross Simonini
Interviews
An Interview with Stephin Merritt
Ross Simonini
Interviews
An Interview with Carroll Dunham
Ross Simonini
Interviews
An Interview with Meredith Monk
Ross Simonini
Interviews
An Interview with Sarah Braman
Ross Simonini
Interviews
The Process: Jemima Kirke
Ross Simonini
Interviews
An Interview with Chris Martin
Ross Simonini
Interviews
The Process: Lizzi Bougatsos
Ross Simonini
Lizzi Bougatsos is a pervasive figure in New York culture. As a musician, she is a member of Gang Gang Dance and I.U.D., two groundbreaking musical groups in which she ...
Interviews
An Interview with Mike Patton
Ross Simonini
Interviews
An Interview with Joe Bradley
Ross Simonini
Interviews
An Interview with Mika Rottenberg
Ross Simonini
Interviews
An Interview with Matt Mullican
Ross Simonini
Interviews
An Interview with Brian Chippendale
Ross Simonini
Brian Chippendale wears a green, lucha libre–looking mask when he drums. He sings and screams, too, but you can’t see it, since the microphone is strapped to the inside the ...
Interviews
The Process: Eddie Martinez
Ross Simonini
The paintings of Eddie Martinez contain a grunting, primal urge for mark-making. With a slew of tools and techniques, he piles up canvases with chunky shapes and smears that ...
Interviews
An Interview with Jim Woodring
Ross Simonini
“ONE OF THE BEST MEMORIES OF MY LIFE IS CONTEMPLATING THAT FIRST FINISHED DRAWING AND REALIZING I HAD CRACKED THE CODE, THAT I COULD MAKE DRAWINGS LIKE THIS WHENEVER I ...
Interviews
The Process: Brian Degraw
Ross Simonini
Brian DeGraw mashes up culture. His artwork dances through a spate of forms and references, reflecting a city-dweller's uneasy relationship with pervasive mass media. His ...
Interviews
A Microinterview with Terence Koh
Ross Simonini
This issue features a microinterview with Terence Koh, conducted by Ross Simonini. Koh’s work involves death, decay, silence, an abundance of white, and, quite often, his own ...
Interviews
The Process: Christian Holstad
Ross Simonini
Christian Holstad’s practice is broad and includes ornate collages, artfully erased newspaper photographs, enigmatic installation works, and cloth assemblages. With materials ...
Interviews
An Interview with Jason Schwartzman
Ross Simonini
Interviews
An Interview with Trey Anastasio
Ross Simonini
Interviews
An Interview with Bianca Casady
Ross Simonini
Interviews
An Interview with Keegan McHargue
Ross Simonini
In their own playful way, the paintings of Keegan McHargue tug at the very nature of perception. If M.C. Escher created his optical illusions through hyper-dimensionality, ...
Interviews
An Interview with Harmony Korine
Ross Simonini
Interviews
An Interview with Thom Yorke
Ross Simonini
Essays
The Clash of the Jamaican Deejays
Ross Simonini
Interviews
An Interview with Vladimir
Ross Simonini
The artist who goes by the name Vladimir is one of the only known filmmakers working with View-Masters, which, if you remember, are those cheap-looking toy binoculars usually ...
Interviews
An Interview with David Gates
Ross Simonini
Reviews
A Review of: Poste Restante by Derek White
Ross Simonini
Reviews
The Left Bank Gang
Ross Simonini
Reviews
The Wave Books Poetry Bus Tour
Ross Simonini
Reviews
Three New Picto-Novelettes
Ross Simonini
Reviews
A Review of: A Family Daughter by Maile Meloy
Ross Simonini
Interviews
An Interview With Gary Lutz
Ross Simonini
An Interview with Will Oldham
Ross Simonini
Dec 8 2021
Photograph by Ryo Mitamura For years, I’ve turned to Will Oldham for a nice emotional beating. Across his sundry musical incarnations: Palace Brothers, Palace Music, Bonnie ...The All
Ross Simonini
Dec 1 2021
1. I was raised to believe that I was made to do one thing. Find that one pursuit that fills my life with meaning and empty all my energy into it. This is the ...Geophagy at Red Earth Hole
Ross Simonini
Oct 22 2021
N. Dash Untitled, 2018 Adobe, silkscreen ink, jute 80 x 45" / 203.2 x 137.16cm Photo: Jason Wyche ©N. Dash Courtesy the artist and Casey Kaplan, New York. In the morning, ...An Interview with Maggie Nelson
Ross Simonini
Oct 1 2021
Over the last decade, Maggie Nelson’s writing has become one of the guiding intellectual lights for artists of all disciplines. Her books on aesthetics, gender, violence, and, ...The Return
Ross Simonini
Sep 22 2021
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oQcwdM1p9o0 Every day for the last month, I have hypnotized myself. In this state, I am unable to open my eyes — the harder I try, the ...Warm Home Energy
Ross Simonini
Aug 17 2021
“I don’t believe in my name, or even in me existing.” —Susan Cianciolo Everything on earth is food: earth, water, fire, air, plant, animal, light. We eat rocks of ...A Mundane Immortality
Ross Simonini
Jun 28 2021
In Taoism, the wisest of humans can become immortal. Through spiritual work and alchemy, a dedicated sage can discover the philosopher's stone, transcend the physical form, ...Bridget Phetasy Wants You To Kill Your Hypochondria Before It Kills You
Ross Simonini
Jun 2 2021
Bridget Phetasy invented her surname as a description of "the sensation of when reality becomes parody and parody becomes reality.” The word was born as the title of a ...An Interview with David Duchovny
Ross Simonini
Jun 1 2021
At twenty-six years old, David Duchovny decided to switch from working on his doctoral thesis in literature to pursuing a career as an actor. He wanted to understand fictional ...The Shaker
Ross Simonini
May 18 2021
Fasciculation drawing, Ross Simonini, ink and watercolor on paper, 2020 A friend of mine took an interest in my period of lingering ill health. He was older by several ...An Interview with Matt Healy
Ross Simonini
Apr 1 2021
In the golden era of rock and roll, originality was the only true goal for an honorable musician. But now, when the Beatles have lost their dominance over pop, the few bands ...Vijay Iyer Wants You to Feel Your Spine
Ross Simonini
Mar 24 2021
photograph by Monica Jane Frisell. Vijay Iyer was a graduate student of physics when he began playing as a professional pianist. He has since worked simultaneously inside ...Rodney Ascher Burns Simulation Theory into Our Synapses
Ross Simonini
Feb 24 2021
Rodney Ascher's documentaries are studies of the knotty, sometimes terrifying theories born in the human intellect. His first feature, Room 237, depicted four obsession-level ...An Interview with Sean Penn
Ross Simonini
Feb 1 2021
Since the 1980s, Sean Penn has been an American symbol of the cool, cigarette-smoking masculinity that peaked in the 1950s. His early films established him as a dedicated ...Jenny Odell Considers New Temporal Realities
Ross Simonini
Jan 19 2021
"I think it’s insane to expect anyone to be working at full capacity during a slow disaster like this." Jenny Odell is a writer and visual artist who researches the ...David Lynch Ushers in a Golden Age
Ross Simonini
Dec 10 2020
"This is how we can change this world from suffering and negativity to a world enjoying positivity—end of suffering—real peace." David Lynch is a filmmaker, musician, ...An Interview with Ottessa Moshfegh
Ross Simonini
Dec 1 2020
In 2017, I met Ottessa Moshfegh in a San Francisco hotel room on the press tour for her third book, Homesick for Another World. At that time, she was visibly rising into the ...An Interview with Livia Kohn
Ross Simonini
Sep 15 2020
An Edo Period painting of Immortals Iron-Crutch Li (Li Tieguai) and possibly Liu Hai, by Soga Shohaku (1730-1781), 18th century. Museum of Fine Art, Boston. In the last ...An Interview with Katherine Hill
Ross Simonini
Sep 10 2020
I met Katherine Hill in grad school, where she wrote the beginnings of her first novel, The Violet Hour. She achieved the holy grail of grad students: a thesis worthy of ...An Interview with Arthur Jafa
Ross Simonini
Jun 1 2020
Five years ago, Arthur Jafa was a little-known cinematographer whose career had peaked in the 1990s. In that decade, he shot one of the defining films of contemporary Black ...An Interview with Stephen Harrod Buhner
Ross Simonini
Apr 1 2020
Stephen Harrod Buhner is a generalist, a scholar of all things, both human and not. He is best known as a writer, but I first came to his work through his talks, which take ...An Interview with Temple Grandin
Ross Simonini
Feb 1 2019
Before committing to an interview, Temple Grandin asked that I give her a call. She wanted to hear the tone of my voice. Like many people with autism, Grandin finds vocal tone ...Eric Wareheim on Winemaking
Ross Simonini
Oct 1 2018
Eric Wareheim is one of the great visionaries of comedy in the new millennium. Over the last sixteen years, he’s made several television shows, movies, and books that push the ...An Interview with Jason Moran
Ross Simonini
Aug 1 2018
Jason Moran is cutting a wide path for jazz in the twenty-first century. He embraces tradition and courts innovation, joining the past and the future. He’s reinterpreted works ...An Interview with Pope.L
Ross Simonini
Jan 1 2018
At this year’s Whitney Biennial, Pope.L exhibited 2,755 slices of bologna. He pinned the meat with a grid of photographs on the walls of a large pink and green cube and ...An Interview with Ram Dass and Rameshwar Das
Ross Simonini
Nov 20 2017
The human appetite for devotional guidance remains as voracious as ever. In the last half century, that guidance has come increasingly from the East, in the form of ...An Interview with Ezra Koenig
Ross Simonini
Sep 1 2017
Ezra Koenig is a smartly dressed, culturally savvy rock musician living in the age of hip-hop. His band, Vampire Weekend, has released three widely successful albums (a ...An Interview with Miranda July
Ross Simonini
Oct 1 2015
For each of her sundry projects, Miranda July requires herself to inhabit a slightly different identity. In her performances, often staged in museums, she cultivates the ...An Inherently Paintable Moment
Ross Simonini
Jun 10 2015
An Interview with Artist Roger White Roger White is an artist and writer who lives in New York and Vermont. His oil paintings and watercolors use the traditional techniques ...An Interview with Stephin Merritt
Ross Simonini
Jan 1 2015
When Stephin Merritt arrived at my apartment, a three-story walk-up, he wheezed for several minutes, too breathless and speechless to introduce himself. He seemed nonplussed ...An Interview with Carroll Dunham
Ross Simonini
Sep 1 2014
The world of Carroll Dunham’s art is a faraway place, deep in the unconscious, where perennial myths and night terrors are born. His painted images go straight through the ...An Interview with Meredith Monk
Ross Simonini
Jul 1 2014
Meredith Monk is a fourth-generation singer, but the astonishing, otherworldly quality of her vocal music is a product of fifty years spent assiduously evading tradition. Her ...An Interview with Sarah Braman
Ross Simonini
Jun 1 2014
In 2011, Sarah Braman sectioned an old camper trailer and scattered its pieces throughout a gallery like flotsam. In some places, she added gentle accents of lavender spray ...The Process: Jemima Kirke
Ross Simonini
May 1 2014
Jemima Kirke is a painter and an actress, known for her role of Jessa on the HBO show Girls. She attended Rhode Island School of Design, where she made small, abstract works ...An Interview with Chris Martin
Ross Simonini
Nov 1 2013
In his studio, Chris Martin and his two assistants peruse a leaning stack of his finished, mural-sized paintings. The canvases are as tall as the ceiling and as wide as the ...The Process: Lizzi Bougatsos
Ross Simonini
Jul 1 2013
Lizzi Bougatsos is a pervasive figure in New York culture. As a musician, she is a member of Gang Gang Dance and I.U.D., two groundbreaking musical groups in which she ...An Interview with Mike Patton
Ross Simonini
Jan 1 2013
In an industry where artistic recognition hangs upon developing a specialized, signature style, Mike Patton has built a vehement listenership through a steadily unfocused ...An Interview with Joe Bradley
Ross Simonini
Nov 1 2012
For years, every time Joe Bradley made a show of new paintings, they appeared to be the work of a new artist. When he showed his stacks of colorful, modular panels, they ...An Interview with Mika Rottenberg
Ross Simonini
Oct 1 2012
In the wordless film Squeeze by Mika Rottenberg, a factory is abuzz with activity: workers spritz wiggling tongues with water, conduct electricity through meditation, harvest ...An Interview with Matt Mullican
Ross Simonini
Sep 1 2012
Before public performances, Matt Mullican is relaxed by a hypnotist, placed into a deep trance, and asked, “What would you like to do?” When he steps onto the stage—“a white ...An Interview with Brian Chippendale
Ross Simonini
Jul 1 2012
Brian Chippendale wears a green, lucha libre–looking mask when he drums. He sings and screams, too, but you can’t see it, since the microphone is strapped to the inside the ...The Process: Eddie Martinez
Ross Simonini
Jun 1 2012
The paintings of Eddie Martinez contain a grunting, primal urge for mark-making. With a slew of tools and techniques, he piles up canvases with chunky shapes and smears that ...An Interview with Jim Woodring
Ross Simonini
Feb 1 2012
“ONE OF THE BEST MEMORIES OF MY LIFE IS CONTEMPLATING THAT FIRST FINISHED DRAWING AND REALIZING I HAD CRACKED THE CODE, THAT I COULD MAKE DRAWINGS LIKE THIS WHENEVER I ...The Process: Brian Degraw
Ross Simonini
Feb 1 2012
Brian DeGraw mashes up culture. His artwork dances through a spate of forms and references, reflecting a city-dweller's uneasy relationship with pervasive mass media. His ...A Microinterview with Terence Koh
Ross Simonini
Nov 1 2011
This issue features a microinterview with Terence Koh, conducted by Ross Simonini. Koh’s work involves death, decay, silence, an abundance of white, and, quite often, his own ...The Process: Christian Holstad
Ross Simonini
Oct 1 2011
Christian Holstad’s practice is broad and includes ornate collages, artfully erased newspaper photographs, enigmatic installation works, and cloth assemblages. With materials ...An Interview with Jason Schwartzman
Ross Simonini
Sep 1 2011
In comedy, earnestness is a rare and potentially distracting quality. Too much smiling sincerity can soften the crunch of good humor. So it’s always nice to watch Jason ...An Interview with Trey Anastasio
Ross Simonini
Jul 1 2011
In a time when jazz is barely a smudge on the cultural radar, the marriage of improvisation and popular music continues nowhere more apparently than with the Vermont rock band ...An Interview with Bianca Casady
Ross Simonini
Jan 1 2011
In her work with the band CocoRosie, Bianca Casady cross-dresses, raps, plays coffee grinders, and inhabits a series of creative, costume-wearing personas, including one named ...An Interview with Keegan McHargue
Ross Simonini
Nov 1 2010
In their own playful way, the paintings of Keegan McHargue tug at the very nature of perception. If M.C. Escher created his optical illusions through hyper-dimensionality, ...An Interview with Harmony Korine
Ross Simonini
Mar 1 2010
After writing the screenplay for Kids at nineteen, Harmony Korine appeared on Late Night with David Letterman and talked about his father’s friendship with the legendary tap ...An Interview with Thom Yorke
Ross Simonini
Jul 1 2009
At the turn of the twenty-first century, when Radiohead became the new gleaming hope for innovation in rock and roll, the band began renovating the dismal state of the music ...The Clash of the Jamaican Deejays
Ross Simonini
Jul 1 2009
“Him Chuck Me First.” On Boxing Day—December 26, 2003—just as the sun was rising over the town of Portmore, Jamaica, the dancehall deejay known as Vybz Kartel (a.k.a. Adidja ...An Interview with Vladimir
Ross Simonini
Mar 1 2008
The artist who goes by the name Vladimir is one of the only known filmmakers working with View-Masters, which, if you remember, are those cheap-looking toy binoculars usually ...An Interview with David Gates
Ross Simonini
Jun 1 2007
David Gates started writing fiction when he was thirty-three, on a commuter train from Connecticut to New York. He wrote two long novels and some short stories, but wasn’t ...A Review of: Poste Restante by Derek White
Ross Simonini
Apr 1 2007
The Left Bank Gang
Ross Simonini
Jan 1 2007
The Wave Books Poetry Bus Tour
Ross Simonini
Sep 1 2006
Three New Picto-Novelettes
Ross Simonini
Aug 1 2006
A Review of: A Family Daughter by Maile Meloy
Ross Simonini
May 1 2006
An Interview With Gary Lutz
Ross Simonini
Feb 1 2006
Gary Lutz’s past is a bit vague, which is how he likes it. He grew up in Allentown, Pennsylvania, and has lived much of his life outside Pittsburgh, where he builds tight, ...
