MEDIA DIET
By:
June 1, 2026
A weekly series exploring the media “input” of a group of people — HILOBROW’s friends and contributors — whose “output” we admire.
Judith has been a valued HILOBROW contributor since 2015. Her first post was on the topic of THE EXPLODING SUPERNOVAS. Her most recent contributions to this publication include: DIE GEDANKEN SIND FREI | SANTA BARBARA | RANDOM ACTS OF SENSELESS VIOLENCE.
Orlando…
My friend Dahlia recently asked me about a Chasidic parable I’ve always loved. It is said one should carry two small slips of paper, one that says “I am but dust and ashes” and one that says “For me the world was created” with the idea that you would use these to course correct when you are taking up too much space or not enough. The pendulum between intimate and infinite. All things go.
My media diet, of late and always, veers between precise atomic attention and vast overwhelm. My day job requires me to be curious about many things at once; current topics include gravitational waves, the possible fates of the universe, water politics in the American west, the elaborate subterfuges of war maneuvers, the mechanics of tessellation, and more. In my time away from work, a heap of other curiosities vie for my attention. Sometimes it’s exhausting.
HILOBROW: What music — genres, particular artists and songs — do you listen to during a typical day?
JUDITH ZISSMAN: I go for long stretches where I want to sit with a particular work over time, sometimes with variations. Right now I am deeply in love with Meredith Monk’s “Ellis Island”, which is a piece originally composed for two pianos to accompany her short film of the same name. It’s since been arranged for solo piano and various other orchestrations. The piece has distinct and beautiful wave patterns, as if you’re on a boat in a crowded river watching the wake behind you intersecting with other boat wakes and tides. Different musicians emphasize and elide these waves in different ways, each version subtly textured, swelling and receding. [Here are ten variations of the piece]
HILOBROW: Do you subscribe to any magazines or newsletters that you’d strongly recommend?
JUDITH ZISSMAN: In our vast overextended multichannel subscription universe, I am currently smitten with (& paying for) a single Substack newsletter, which I enthusiastically recommend: Moon Lists. Structured as a series of monthly prompts (“prompts for getting out of your head”, “prompts for deliberate buoyancy”, “prompts for willful delusion”) and attention inventories (perfectly curated lists of interesting people, objects & topics), these lists are like good rocks, the kind you find at the beach and keep on your windowsill for a long time.
HILOBROW: What’s the best TV series you’ve seen recently?
JUDITH ZISSMAN: Perhaps you, like me, have heard people insist that you watch Taskmaster, the British game show that pits five comedians against each other in a series of utterly ludicrous tasks from the diabolically specific (“make the plastic bag as heavy as possible” ) to the maddeningly vague (“place something somewhere surprising”), and perhaps, like me, you thought this might not be your thing, that it might be some sort of cringy America’s Funniest Home Videos type nonsense but with more compelling accents. You, like me, would be wrong.
The key, I think, is that Taskmaster has a deep undercurrent of affection, between the hosts, Greg Davies and Alex Horne, between the hosts and the contestants, who compete across a multi-episode series arc (there are 20 series to date, plus various spin-off episodes), and between the show and its extensive fan base. The absurdity is never cruel, and each task gets conquered in a tiny firework of triumph and delight. At the end of a long day, I have no appetite for complex narratives, parallel universes, shifting timelines or deciphering subtexts. Give me profound silliness and tiny fireworks, thanks.
HILOBROW: What else?
JUDITH ZISSMAN: Towards the scale of the infinite, I am somewhat overwhelmed by the gravitational pull of a new project by one of my favorite artists and humans, Micah Silver. Whiteflag is a viewer and prediction model for sovereignty — allowing us to explore and model the various axes on which entities of all kinds can govern themselves and acquire other entities, by whatever means possible. It’s dark, obviously, but it’s also revelatory in a deeply satisfying metapattern of seeing how all the forces are connected. It’s constructed entirely of real, public data, with a transparent framework that, more than anything else I’ve ever experienced, feels like you’re looking deep into the heart of the matrix. This is very much a work in progress and part of a larger project. Stay tuned.
MEDIA DIET series: MATTHEW BATTLES | ADRIENNE CREW | HOLLY INTERLANDI | CAROLYN KELLOGG | MARK KINGWELL | FLOURISH KLINK | ADAM McGOVERN | CHARLIE MITCHELL | TOM NEALON | ANNIE NOCENTI | GARY PANTER | LYNN PERIL | JONATHAN PINCHERA | HEATHER QUINLAN | NICHOLAS ROMBES | CARLO ROTELLA | LUCY SANTE | SETH | MIKE WATT | JUDITH ZISSMAN | & more to come! Visit the SERIES INDEX.