Daily Maddie Williams Daily Maddie Williams

April 9, 2026

Oops

Eyes:

An Archival Impulse, Hal Foster

A Language to Come: Japanese Photography After the Event, Charles Merewether


Ears:

“Survival Song”, AJJ

“Walk Like Thunder”, Kimya Dawson and Aesop Rock

“Friday I’m in Love” - Live from Glastonbury, Olivia Rodrigo and Robert Smith

“It Wasn’t God Who Made Honky Tonk Angels”, Dolly Parton, Tammy Wynette, Loretta Lynn

“My Mom”, Kimya Dawson

Mouth:

Iced caramel madeleine latte from Coffee Lab and Roasters (tastes like a liquid cookie, I dream about it)

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Daily Maddie Williams Daily Maddie Williams

March 29, 2026

Eyes:

Heart the Lover, Lily King

Imperfect Archiving, Archiving as Practice: For a Love of Softness, Be Oakley

Mother, We All Have Been Lonely and Lovely Places, Lara Konrad

Ears:

“9/10”, Jeff Rosenstock

“I Wanna Be Sedated”, Ramones

“I’ve Wasted So Much Time”, Enjoy

“Sing About Me, I’m Dying of Thirst”, Kendrick Lamar

“Coal Miner’s Daughter”, Loretta Lynn

Mouth:

Banana Bread Latte from Cafe Carranza

McDonalds Hashbrown

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Daily Maddie Williams Daily Maddie Williams

March 23, 2026

Took a break from my laptop over spring break, spent some time in DC and Richmond, some memorable consumption… mainly food:

Eyes:

Hamnet, Chloé Zhao (LOVED)

Wuthering Heights, Emerald Fennell (did not love)

The Virginia Museum of Fine Arts

Mouth:

Stella’s in Richmond- 100000/10- We got the hummus and pita, Yia Yia’s veggie skillet, and the No. 5 Pasta and I haven’t stopped thinking about it

Chewy’s Bagel in Richmond- one of the best breakfast sandwiches I have ever had in my life

Table side carbonara at Botanya in Richmond

Elizabeth’s in DC- very very very fancy vegan dining, first vegan cheese I’ve ever had that was bearable

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Daily Maddie Williams Daily Maddie Williams

March 6, 2026

Eyes:

“A Short History of Photography”, Walter Benjamin

The Novelist, Jordan Castro

Ears:

“David”, Lorde

“Citibike”, Blaketheman1000

“Mis”, Alex G <3 <3 <3

Mouth:

Genuinely one of the best meals I’ve ever had in my entire life at il Porcellino. Speechless. Pictures below. Garlic bread loaf, ravioli al forno, and fusilli pesto genovese

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Daily Maddie Williams Daily Maddie Williams

March 2, 2026

Sick day

Mouth:

Granada and lemon refresher from Q’bo Latin Cafe

Sudafed

Zinc tablets

Eyes: (I have also decided to start sharing some really great and interesting quotes that I find influential when I feel like it)

“Blindness and Deafness as Metaphors: An Anthological Essay”, Joseph Grigley

This essay is a collection of quotations from contemporary texts in which the words “blindness” and “deafness” are used as metaphors and arranged into a narrative that functions both as an anthology and a critique. It explores how cultural values are embedded in everyday metaphors, while also examining how this type of language, commonly circulating through publications such as The New York Times, reveals broader attitudes toward disability in Western society and the ease with which these metaphors are used and normalized.

  • “I think that one of the saddest aspects of our time is the total destruction in people's awareness of all that goes with a conscious sense of the beautiful. Modern mass culture, aimed at the 'consumer', the civilisation of prosthetics, is crippling people's souls, setting up barriers between man and the crucial questions of his existence, his consciousness of himself as a spiritual being. But the artist cannot be deaf to the call of truth; it alone defines his creative will and organizes it, thus enabling him to pass on his faith to others. An artist who has no faith is like a painter who was born blind.” Andrey Turkovsky

  • “By getting people to accept the nature we find around us - the everyday ant, the familiar butterfly - as the same 'nature' we are told we should protect and revere, we can turn appreciation into action.” Adelle Caracanos, The New York Times

  • “'Becoming depressed is like going blind, the darkness at first gradual, then encompassing: it is like going deaf, hearing less and less until a terrible silence is all around you.'“ The Noonday Demon: An Atlas of Depression, Andrew Solomon, 2001

  • “Whites sometimes ask why we continue find it necessary to invoke the past. They do not want to be blamed for the sins of their fathers, and they exhort us to move on. But this is a story that has not ended. Cultural exclusion continues today - and in some ways it is getting worse. Our entire society is paying a price for this cultural blindness.” Peggy Cooper Cafritz

  • “All of a sudden we may find ourself wondering what it is that links us to a particular set of objects, or an environment, or a project, and, in response, altering the way we used to look at all the others.” Nicolas Bourriaud

“Working Through Objects”, Susan Hiller

Essay on collections and archives, both personal acting and what gives them value, what gives them meaning at all. Argues that objects carry personal and collective memories, acting as tools to process unconscious thoughts and experiences. So, engaging with them by collecting, arranging, and reflecting becomes a way to explore identity, memory, and emotion.

  • “The only value these things have is that I have assigned some kind of value to them.”

  • “I am trying to seek immortality and meaning through objects.”

  • “So by putting the remnants that I collect into these boxes, I'm using the box as a frame to draw attention to something placed within it.”

  • “Of course I didn’t know what the resonance was. I just knew that I was somehow stuck with these things and I never wanted to throw them out. So, I started to look into what the resonance of each thing might be for me, and then each got its place in a box and eventually I added appropriate contextualizing material, a title, an annotation and date like a real collector would, and that is my collection”

“Survival: Ruminations on Archival Lacunae”, Renee Green

This essay examines the silences in archives, what is missing, overlooked, or excluded, and how these shape our broader understanding of history and culture. She speaks about how archival silences reveal power dynamics and the fragility of memory.

  • “The compulsive activities demonstrate the lack of definitiveness…. yet allude to the fascinating possibilities for further searching which following these ordering systems can generate.”

Ears:

“Plea from a Cat Named Virtue”, The Weakerthans

“Right Ahead, You Sailor!”, Right Away, Great Captain!

“doing all the things i used to do with people, part 2 (acoustic/ rooftop version)”, teen suicide

“Orange County (feat. Bizarrap, Kara Jackson, and Anoushka Shankar)”, Gorillaz (NEW ALBUM!)

“I Know The End”, Phoebe Bridgers

“Banshee Beat”, Animal Collective

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Daily Maddie Williams Daily Maddie Williams

Feb 26, 2026

Eyes:

The Hull House Museum and Archives

The Traitors Season Finale

Summer internship application hell

Doomscrolling Facebook Marketplace

Ears:

Big Cloud, Radiator Hospital

Blue Hair, TV Girl

The Love Club, Lorde

hangar, 8485

God Only Knows, The Langley Schools Music Project

Beginner’s Mind, Bright Eyes

Mouth:

$3 slices and vodka sodas at Big Gay Sal’s Pizza

Cheesy scrambled eggs on sourdough toast with a drizzle of honey!?

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Daily Maddie Williams Daily Maddie Williams

Feb 23, 2026

Eyes:

On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous, Oscar Vuong (ik im late)

In Defense of the Poor Image, Hito Steyerl

Ears:

Down By The Water, PJ Harvey

Nothing Came Out, The Moldy Peaches

uuu, Field Medic

Missing Out, Maya Hawke

At The Beach, In Every Life, Gigi Perez

Mouth:

Iced salted jagger caramel latte and breakfast sandwich from Swadesi Cafe (the hashbrown in it is like a samosa YUM)

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Daily Maddie Williams Daily Maddie Williams

Feb 22, 2026

Eyes:

Funny Weather, Olivia Laing

The Heuretics of Deconstruction, Gregory L. Ulmer

^“I've never been sure about the need for literary criticism. If a work is immediate enough, alive enough, the proper response isn't to be academic, to write about it, but to use it, to go on. By using each other's texts, we keep· on living, imagining, making, fucking, and we fight this society of death.” Kathy Acker

Mouth:

A homemade, perfectly proportioned iced caramel latte (photo attached)…. Update TWO lattes

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Daily Maddie Williams Daily Maddie Williams

Feb 18, 2026

Eyes:

The Philosophy of Andy Warhol (From A to B and Back Again), Andy Warhol

The Man Who Never Threw Anything Away, llya Kabakov

The America’s Next Top Model Documentary

Ears:

Dying for You, Charli xcx

White Feather Hawk Tail Deer Hunter, Lana Del Rey

California, Joni Mitchell

Mouth:

Chocolate covered angel food cake muffin from Beatrix (what makes a muffin count as a muffin?)

Hands:

That one stubble of hair growing back on my chin I can’t stop trying to pluck with my fingers

Nose:

Salt and vinegar potato chips somewhere

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