Christian Esherick
Neurofeedback, LA's alt lit scene, Angelicism01, Biscoff cookie butter
Today’s guest is Christian Esherick, an LA-based writer and photographer.
Stat sheet
💼 Occupation: Writer and photographer
🏠 Neighborhood: Silver Lake (Los Angeles)
🌎 Origin: Silver Spring, MD
💪 Notable work: @christianesherick
🪜 Socials: Instagram, Twitter, Website
So how’d you end up here, doing this interview?
I know a guy ;)
Let’s check in with where your head is at right now. What tabs do you currently have open on your phone?
Total tabs: 419
A Google search for ‘Biscoff cookie butter near me.’ I don’t know what tastes better than this stuff. That’s not hyperbole. I really don’t.
‘Desmond Bane wingspan’ Google image search. He’s 6’6 but his wingspan can’t be more than 6’0. One of the strangest builds in NBA history.
Needed to make sure y’all see this Google search for ‘Drill buy.’ I needed to buy a drill…
‘Whether the angels have bodies naturally united to them?’ from the Summa. Some Thomist Angelicism01 homework.
Wikipedia article on Daedalus.
“Don’t fly too high your wings might melt you’re much too good to be true. I’m just bad for you. I’m just bad, bad, bad for you.”
Carolyn Drake’s Magnum photography profile
Goblin Market by Christian Rossetti. Poem rec from my friend Sean that I still need to read.
How about the Platonic form of Christian—what people, places, or activities make you feel most yourself?
Good (sometimes dumb, sometimes deep) conversation with friends, family dinners, laying in my bed for 3 hours straight at night trying to fall asleep, but coming up with 75% of my creative ideas. It’s masochistic but exhilarating.
What do you do in your spare time?
Walk, music, read, write, daydream. Probably a beer or coffee somewhere in between.
What makes you forget about checking your phone?
There’s a coffee shop on Sunset called the Muddy Paw that I will go to on Saturday mornings with no plan or schedule. I will listen to music, read a book, article, or essay, work on a short story or whatever current creative projects I’ve got. Whatever I’m feeling. Sometimes I’ll just space out for an hour. It’s therapeutic and has been ritual for over a year now.
Wind it back. What’s your favorite memory from the past year?
Driving a 26 foot U-Haul across the country back in June. The southern route.
Now fast forward. What are you most looking forward to in the next month?
A northeast Christmas
Time to get weird. What’s the weirdest thing you believe?
The internet is just a spiritual entity composed of angels and demons. Further context below.
Back to normie questions. What’s your dream job?
Herdsman.
What work of yours are you most proud of?
This photo I took of my mom. We were hanging out in our front yard and I had my camera and was just kinda sporadically taking pictures and at one point she turned and faced towards the sun and I caught this pic. The way the sun and the shadows hit make it look pretty touched up but it’s unedited. It was one of those rare moments you get lucky to catch something that feels very human yet subtly divine.
What are two goals, one personal and one professional, that you have for the next year? For your lifetime?
I have some opinions, experiences, and emotions that I would like to share that I think can only be expressed through a novel. So that would be a professional goal. A personal goal I am currently working on is dunking. I would also like to run a sub 4.5 40-yard dash. I ran in the high 4.5s in high school (hand-timed) but that physical state is, unfortunately, bygone and, most likely, unattainable. I’m gonna dunk though.
Last few questions, focused on mapping your socio-creative world. Who are your creative inspirations?
People: Bob Dylan, Mario Balotelli, Margery Kempe, Raf Simons, James Joyce, Kesha, Frank Ocean, Vincent Gallo (who I actually got to meet the other day and was way more kind and gracious than what he has been rumored to be).
Things: The visual language of Mario Kart Double Dash surmounts all aesthetic influences. Dreamworld.
How about among people you know or are friends with?
My boss (Cole Sternberg), my brother (Kevin Esherick), my friend (Jeremiah Yondah). Jeremiah co-founded the brand Adamaneven which was a decade ahead of its time. I met him back in 2019 when I was doing an internship in NYC for the summer. He introduced me to some really elevated art, photography, and fashion that strongly impacted my taste. I don’t think he knows this. Shoutout Jeremiah.
What creative scenes or movements are you most excited about right now?
The alt lit scene in LA. Factory Made, Car Crash Collective, there are some others. On some boomer shit, I think the Gen Z community in LA lacks some creative/intellectual fervor. It has some cool pockets, but there isn’t much of an avant-garde spirit. The alt lit scene seems to be bringing that.
Who’s the next big thing?
Barrett Avner is the most interesting yet under-recognized dude I can think of. He’s a podcaster/thinker (also a great musician) who is covering what really seems to be the most overlooked but important sociological, philosophical, and artistic issues and questions right now. He has this optimistic metamodernist attitude that I think the world really needs at the moment. He’s brilliant, but I think his brilliance sometimes stunts his intelligibility.
If you could have a sleepover with anyone in the world, who would it be?
Martin Shkreli could get weird.
Send the last pic in your camera roll, no context.
Wow! Okay, who should we have on next?
Christian’s List
Five recs for right now
🎬 I always rate movies on a 10 point scale after I watch them, just as a reference, and my number one movie (for the past two years now) is Portrait of a Lady on Fire at 9.6. There’s nearly no music in the movie. It’s so stylistically rich that it actually enhances it. It feels so grandiose yet so barren. I’ve never been more astounded by a film’s emotional sensibilities. It’s beautiful but devastating.
📚 Earth Angel by Madeline Cash. Funny, accessible, really smart compilation of short stories. They capture the messy, absurdist zeitgeist of Gen Z in a really unique way.
🎨 Julien Nguyen and Cole Sternberg are my favorite contemporary artists. Cole’s exhibition at Praz Delavallade in LA is really the best stuff out there right now. Julien Nguyen’s Ex Forti Dulcedo exhibition is one of the most beautiful shows I can recall, like ever.
💭 Angelicism01 is one of my favorite contemporary writers/thinkers. Some of your New York audience is probably familiar with him. He’s insane. He holds this theory that the internet is the final iteration of angels (as we come to, what he believes, is the end of the anthropocentric age). Essentially, angels are these immaterial spirits that are impartial messengers of information, and so the internet is the concluding iteration of angelic manifestation in the material world. The content itself mostly focuses on different online figures and internet phenomena (typically in New York). He’s a little schiz’d out but it’s fascinating stuff.
🧘 Neurofeedback therapy + Wim Hof breathing meditation cocktail. I have severely altered my brain chemistry and central nervous system (for the better) within the past year doing these things. If you don’t have access to neurofeedback therapy, do a mindfulness meditation exercise in concert with the Wim Hof breathing. 3 rounds. It won’t take more than 15 minutes. If you top it off with a cold shower, you will win the day. This is the closest thing we have to alchemy.
Want more? Go follow Christian at the links above. To collect Christian's trading card, find him IRL and ask to scan.