The Monday Media Diet with Dylan Neuhaus

On Brooklyn Vegan, the Wire, and Nathan Kensinger

Dylan Neuhaus (DN) works with our friend Kendra at Schaaf. We’re happy to have him with us this week. -Colin (CJN)

Tell us about yourself.

I am a (south) Brooklyn based human, who is Partner at Schaaf, a creative consultancy that connects brands with their people. We are currently working with a large span of brands and organizations from Chobani to The Nature Conservancy, solving a range of really hard, really fun problems. My background is in retail and hospitality, I ended up working in creative agencies by accident and never looked back. Shoutout Anomaly NY for hiring me out of a coffee shop.

Describe your media diet.

80% tofu, 20% cheetos. In all seriousness…balance is important to me. I like things high and low and I'm especially interested in the melding of the two. So from a media standpoint I read the New York Post just as often as I do the New Yorker. I like local news, and read a ton of Gothamist, Hell Gate, Brooklyn Vegan, and the Ditmas Park Facebook group. I also love friend of WITI, Feed Me (but who doesn't). If i'm in my car, its nothing but 1010 WINS, and WNYC. When I am working I keep NPR on in the background.

What’s the last great book you read?

The Lincoln Highway by Amor Towles. I will admit, I slept on this one. I generally stick to non-fiction, but the owner of my local bookstore pressed me on reading this for like 6 months. It's incredible. I wish there were 1000 more pages.

What are you reading now?

All the Pieces Matter: The Inside Story of The Wire. I know a lot of people share this belief, but to me, The Wire is the best television series ever made. A bunch of friends and I watch it every winter, and my friend Doug lended me a copy of this last week. As a culture we are extremely obsessed with the finished product. For me, I am much more interested in-depth stories on the making of things, vs. the output. And its incredibly fascinating to hear first hand from actors, show-runners, etc. the painstaking, seemingly small creative decisions that collectively made the show what it is. For example: The infamous orange couch from The Pit was originally found in a dumpster by the set crew and used in the Pilot. A month later when the show was picked up, they spent $5,000 building a new couch from scratch because someone threw out the old one.

What’s your reading strategy when you pick up a print copy of your favorite publication?

This is a bit of an off format response to this question, but instead of picking up my favorites in print, I prefer to use print to learn about things I haven't thought about or considered before. So I try to go for a random barrage when it comes to printed materials. My current stack is: Smithsonian, Country Music People, Hagerty. I refresh monthly at my local newsstand.

Who should everyone be reading that they’re not?

One of my favorite niche outlets at the moment is Pedestrian — “a monthly-ish walking newsletter led by artist Alex Wolfe, surveying the people, infrastructure, objects, and forgotten histories filling the cracks of elsewhere”. Alex has a really curious approach to learning about places and people, and destills it into a really thoughtful and easy read that I look forward to every month.

What is the best non-famous app you love on your phone?

This is probably famous, but not that nyc metro area famous, but, AllTrails is probably the most useful app on my phone. Bandsintown also changed my life. DICE is making buying concert tickets actually enjoyable.

Plane or train?

For distance, train. Everytime. Unless Boeing starts making trains. For exploring somewhere new, or commuting, I will always choose a bicycle.

What is one place everyone should visit?

Not so much a specific place, but when you end up in a new place, I think the one place that's a mandatory visit is the local grocery store.

Tell us the story of a rabbit hole you fell deep into.

Can a person be a rabbit hole? If so: Nathan Kensinger (Photographer, filmmaker, artist, and journalist documenting hidden landscapes, post-industrial ecologies, climate change and sea level rise on NYC's waterfront) is one of my favorite brains on the earth. I often fall deep into his work anytime he publishes something new. I just finished reading his 97-page paper about "Offshore Wind In New York City.” (DN)