Atlanta musician and writer Jeffrey Bützer’s 11 Good Things

Jeffrey Bützer is an Atlanta musician and writer. He writes music and/or plays guitar with Compartmentalizationalists, Club Silencio and Academy of Staring Daggers, whose album, Xionesco, is coming out this winter on Oblong Square Records. Academy of Staring Daggers will perform at Eyedrum on September 28, and Compartmentalizationalists will be at Boggs Social & Supply on October 2.

1. Skateboarding with my two sons. It is pretty much my favorite thing to do. I started skating in 1993. It is physical, meditative and creative, plus you get hurt a lot. What more could you want?

2. Art from Iran. From the films of Samira Makhmalbaf and Abbas Kiarostami to the poetry of Forugh Farrokhzad, their work is some of the most interesting, thoughtful and humane art I’ve encountered.

3. The Earl. They keep letting me come back and play, and the food is really good.

4. PushPush Arts. They also keep having me back. My first two plays were staged there.

5. My circle of friends. They mean the world to me. I am fortunate to be in bands with some of my best pals. The Atlanta arts community is pretty neato. There are a lot of cool people doing cool things all the time. Keep it up.

6. The music of Lean Year, Leonard Cohen, Julee Cruise, Tindersticks, Sunn O))), Nina Simone, Sibylle Baier, PJ Harvey, Blonde Redhead, Françoise Hardy, Alice Coltrane, Bonnie “Prince” Billy, Danzig and Sonny Sharrock. I am not a huge music fan, but I like these people a lot.

7. Films by Béla Tarr. The other day, my son asked me: if I could only watch one film for the rest of my life, what would it be? I am a pragmatist, so I chose Sátántangó because of its seven-plus-hour running time. We sadly lost Tarr this year. He left us a handful of monuments that will, and should, be studied until the sun goes out.

8. The comedy writing of Norm Macdonald, Chris Elliott, Jack Handey and John Swartzwelder. Do people read comedy? I wrote a book that is supposed to be funny (Artificial Islands, Western Pine Press, 2022), so I hope so. I don’t know where I would be without absurdists.

9. Videodrome. Look, don’t get me wrong. I like living like some sort of pharaoh from the future who tells a machine to play me a song or put on a movie, and then it appears. But in a few years, the internet is going to collapse from all the AI videos of cats performing Misfits songs, and we are still going to need films. Videodrome has the best ones, and the staff can actually help you find something.

10. The internet. I am going to say it since no one else will: the internet. There is a lot of cool stuff on there. You just have to look around.

11. Making things, I guess. I am at the end of the list, so: albums, plays, books, jokes. It keeps me busy.