Sal Randolph
@salrandolph.bsky.social
Artist & writer working between language & action. Art, attention, poetry, and Zen. My book is The Uses of Art. Co-founder of dispersed holdings, a publishing project. She/they.
https://salrandolph.substack.com/
https://linktr.ee/salrandolph
https://salrandolph.substack.com/
https://linktr.ee/salrandolph
My notebooks these days are filled with strange wanderings and shards of tales both short and long.
salrandolph.substack.com/p/sea-of-ice...
salrandolph.substack.com/p/sea-of-ice...
Sea of Ice & Other Portable Tales
Some strange wanderings.
salrandolph.substack.com
February 5, 2026 at 2:42 PM
My notebooks these days are filled with strange wanderings and shards of tales both short and long.
salrandolph.substack.com/p/sea-of-ice...
salrandolph.substack.com/p/sea-of-ice...
People are such a cornucopia!
Guy in the massive truck has a license plate that reads “his first name + TOY.” People are such a cornucopia.
February 5, 2026 at 12:57 AM
People are such a cornucopia!
The way he says “cab.”
February 3, 2026 at 9:28 PM
The way he says “cab.”
Reposted by Sal Randolph
“Artist refers to a person, willfully enmeshed in a dilemma of categories, who performs as if none of them existed.”
- Allan Kaprow
- Allan Kaprow
January 27, 2026 at 8:16 PM
“Artist refers to a person, willfully enmeshed in a dilemma of categories, who performs as if none of them existed.”
- Allan Kaprow
- Allan Kaprow
Reposted by Sal Randolph
I don’t want to hear anything from an elected official unless it’s a plan to defund the DHS and impeach Noem, Bovino, etc. No texts. No emails. No talk about the economy. Step up or step off.
January 24, 2026 at 7:23 PM
I don’t want to hear anything from an elected official unless it’s a plan to defund the DHS and impeach Noem, Bovino, etc. No texts. No emails. No talk about the economy. Step up or step off.
Free Words was a hot pink artists book I described as “a book that belonged to anyone who found it.” I placed it onto the shelves of bookstores and libraries to be discovered, and people who found it had to make a decision about whether they were truly free to carry it away.
Here’s the story.
Here’s the story.
More of The Free Words Story
How this newsletter got its name.
salrandolph.substack.com
January 22, 2026 at 4:25 PM
Free Words was a hot pink artists book I described as “a book that belonged to anyone who found it.” I placed it onto the shelves of bookstores and libraries to be discovered, and people who found it had to make a decision about whether they were truly free to carry it away.
Here’s the story.
Here’s the story.
Reposted by Sal Randolph
From the great David Wojnarowicz (thread):
"I wake up every morning in this killing machine called america & I’m carrying this rage like a blood filled egg & there’s a thin line between inside & the outside a thin line between thought & action & that line is simply made up of blood & muscle & bone"
"I wake up every morning in this killing machine called america & I’m carrying this rage like a blood filled egg & there’s a thin line between inside & the outside a thin line between thought & action & that line is simply made up of blood & muscle & bone"
January 19, 2026 at 2:33 PM
From the great David Wojnarowicz (thread):
"I wake up every morning in this killing machine called america & I’m carrying this rage like a blood filled egg & there’s a thin line between inside & the outside a thin line between thought & action & that line is simply made up of blood & muscle & bone"
"I wake up every morning in this killing machine called america & I’m carrying this rage like a blood filled egg & there’s a thin line between inside & the outside a thin line between thought & action & that line is simply made up of blood & muscle & bone"
The Empty Cup (from the School of Radical Attention) invited me to write a guest post on Zen and attention, so here is a brief report on my experiences during this winter’s silent retreat.
salrandolph.substack.com/p/where-are-...
salrandolph.substack.com/p/where-are-...
Where Are Your Horses?
Notes on Attention and Zen for The Empty Cup.
salrandolph.substack.com
January 15, 2026 at 3:37 PM
The Empty Cup (from the School of Radical Attention) invited me to write a guest post on Zen and attention, so here is a brief report on my experiences during this winter’s silent retreat.
salrandolph.substack.com/p/where-are-...
salrandolph.substack.com/p/where-are-...
Reposted by Sal Randolph
The nation is broken, but hills and rivers remain.
Du Fu, trans. Arthur Sze
Du Fu, trans. Arthur Sze
January 12, 2026 at 3:05 AM
The nation is broken, but hills and rivers remain.
Du Fu, trans. Arthur Sze
Du Fu, trans. Arthur Sze
Reposted by Sal Randolph
the endless ground of your own deep pulse,
Rainer Maria Rilke, tr. David Young
Rainer Maria Rilke, tr. David Young
January 10, 2026 at 7:53 PM
the endless ground of your own deep pulse,
Rainer Maria Rilke, tr. David Young
Rainer Maria Rilke, tr. David Young
Happy New Year! May this coming year offer you liberation.
I’m thrilled to have two excerpts from a manuscript, You Must be an Image to Survive, You Must be a Text to Be Found, in the new issue of Works & Days from out now from Beautiful Days Press.
I’m thrilled to have two excerpts from a manuscript, You Must be an Image to Survive, You Must be a Text to Be Found, in the new issue of Works & Days from out now from Beautiful Days Press.
Works & Days
& I'll be reading at Sunview Acropolis NYC on January 15
open.substack.com
January 3, 2026 at 5:04 PM
Happy New Year! May this coming year offer you liberation.
I’m thrilled to have two excerpts from a manuscript, You Must be an Image to Survive, You Must be a Text to Be Found, in the new issue of Works & Days from out now from Beautiful Days Press.
I’m thrilled to have two excerpts from a manuscript, You Must be an Image to Survive, You Must be a Text to Be Found, in the new issue of Works & Days from out now from Beautiful Days Press.
Ways of Seeing: The Gift
Joy in the immaterial spirit of giving.
salrandolph.substack.com
December 25, 2025 at 3:56 PM
A Solstice song to celebrate or get you through.
It begins before it begins. It begins before it begins when the light is longest. It begins in triumph and jubilation. It begins in winning. It begins in the fat of the land and the plenty. Such light….
salrandolph.substack.com/p/the-endark...
It begins before it begins. It begins before it begins when the light is longest. It begins in triumph and jubilation. It begins in winning. It begins in the fat of the land and the plenty. Such light….
salrandolph.substack.com/p/the-endark...
The Endarkening
Words for the longest night
salrandolph.substack.com
December 20, 2025 at 2:56 PM
A Solstice song to celebrate or get you through.
It begins before it begins. It begins before it begins when the light is longest. It begins in triumph and jubilation. It begins in winning. It begins in the fat of the land and the plenty. Such light….
salrandolph.substack.com/p/the-endark...
It begins before it begins. It begins before it begins when the light is longest. It begins in triumph and jubilation. It begins in winning. It begins in the fat of the land and the plenty. Such light….
salrandolph.substack.com/p/the-endark...
Really, it would be so easy to be a better nation.
December 18, 2025 at 4:46 PM
Really, it would be so easy to be a better nation.
Reposted by Sal Randolph
December 15, 2025 at 1:56 PM
It’s been a little while since I’ve posted a Zen talk. Here’s one that I gave last week about becoming a Zen priest and also about the famous koan, “Joshu’s Wash Your Bowls.”
salrandolph.substack.com/p/a-bowl-of-...
salrandolph.substack.com/p/a-bowl-of-...
A Bowl of Clouds and Water
Becoming a novice priest, washing my bowls
salrandolph.substack.com
December 11, 2025 at 2:41 PM
It’s been a little while since I’ve posted a Zen talk. Here’s one that I gave last week about becoming a Zen priest and also about the famous koan, “Joshu’s Wash Your Bowls.”
salrandolph.substack.com/p/a-bowl-of-...
salrandolph.substack.com/p/a-bowl-of-...
Reposted by Sal Randolph
posting about Edward Curtis's Hollywood era photographs veered into a chance to revisit the frenzied auction of Joan Didion's estate, including the $8960 sale of seashells and pebbles from her mantle, and also what relation pictures have to reality greg.org/archive/2022...
December 7, 2025 at 2:27 AM
posting about Edward Curtis's Hollywood era photographs veered into a chance to revisit the frenzied auction of Joan Didion's estate, including the $8960 sale of seashells and pebbles from her mantle, and also what relation pictures have to reality greg.org/archive/2022...
Reposted by Sal Randolph
The attacks on trans rights, which are basic human rights, are a terrible injustice and an attack on truth and fact as well. Everyone should be deeply alarmed and it should be disqualifying for a politician to support such discrimination.
December 4, 2025 at 6:09 PM
The attacks on trans rights, which are basic human rights, are a terrible injustice and an attack on truth and fact as well. Everyone should be deeply alarmed and it should be disqualifying for a politician to support such discrimination.
This is what happens when you succumb to the drug of someone else’s language (in this case, the unusual methods of László Krasznahorkai).
Perhaps a cautionary tale!
salrandolph.substack.com/p/this-i-can...
Perhaps a cautionary tale!
salrandolph.substack.com/p/this-i-can...
This I Cannot Say Here
On the methods of László Krasznahorkai
salrandolph.substack.com
December 4, 2025 at 2:56 PM
This is what happens when you succumb to the drug of someone else’s language (in this case, the unusual methods of László Krasznahorkai).
Perhaps a cautionary tale!
salrandolph.substack.com/p/this-i-can...
Perhaps a cautionary tale!
salrandolph.substack.com/p/this-i-can...
For fellow art-poetry nerds/lovers, Édouard Glissant’s art collection is coming to New York.
www.cara-nyc.org/program/exhi...
www.cara-nyc.org/program/exhi...
Center for Art, Research and Alliances / CARA
The Center for Art, Research and Alliances (CARA) is an emergent arts nonprofit, research center, and publisher that aims to expand public discourses and historical records to reflect art’s abundant p...
www.cara-nyc.org
December 4, 2025 at 12:34 AM
For fellow art-poetry nerds/lovers, Édouard Glissant’s art collection is coming to New York.
www.cara-nyc.org/program/exhi...
www.cara-nyc.org/program/exhi...
Reposted by Sal Randolph
Syllable-
mole, sea-
coloured, far out
into the unnavigated.
-Paul Celan
(tr. Michael Hamburger)
mole, sea-
coloured, far out
into the unnavigated.
-Paul Celan
(tr. Michael Hamburger)
December 1, 2025 at 1:15 PM
Syllable-
mole, sea-
coloured, far out
into the unnavigated.
-Paul Celan
(tr. Michael Hamburger)
mole, sea-
coloured, far out
into the unnavigated.
-Paul Celan
(tr. Michael Hamburger)
Reposted by Sal Randolph
Felix Gonzalez-Torres's "Untitled," 1991, originally appeared on a series of billboards throughout NYC. Gonzalez-Torres, a wildly inventive and influential artist, died of AIDS in 1996, age 38. #WorldAIDSDay
December 1, 2025 at 2:27 PM
Felix Gonzalez-Torres's "Untitled," 1991, originally appeared on a series of billboards throughout NYC. Gonzalez-Torres, a wildly inventive and influential artist, died of AIDS in 1996, age 38. #WorldAIDSDay
Reposted by Sal Randolph
Fairfield Porter (1907-1975), “The Cliffs of Isle Au Haut” (1974), oil on canvas, 182.9 x 157.5 cm.
November 30, 2025 at 6:59 PM
Fairfield Porter (1907-1975), “The Cliffs of Isle Au Haut” (1974), oil on canvas, 182.9 x 157.5 cm.