Bijan Shahvali (Intramural Shop)

Intramural Shop's Bijan Shahvali on Frankies 457's Cookbook, Andre Agassi's Autobiography, Plastikman's Sheet One, and more.

April 13, 2021

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Today we’re going full circle baby! Bijan (aka Intramural Shop) is the first guest to go from friend & reader, to getting rec’d (via Chris Black), to finally closing the loop as a Perfectly Imperfect guest. Intramural’s ephemera & oddities have been making waves for the last few months & for good reason. In March he teamed up with Frank of YOBS Sport to form Leisure Centre, a brick and mortar shop at 48 Hester St (NYC) where you’ll find a killer selection of vintage clothing, mugs, books, Herman Miller branded koozies, and all sorts of other interesting objects. Bijan has a great eye for cool things, and lucky for us, he’s here to tell us what he’s been into.Without further ado

🎨

Carl Craig: Party/After-Party (running at Dia:Beacon until Summer 2021)

Dia commissioned Detroit techno legend Carl Craig to put together a sound installation in the basement at Dia:Beacon. As you walk down the stairs to the basement, all you hear and feel is the thumping bass coming from the installation and you are instantly filled with that feeling of anticipation/excitement of entering a party that you’ve been looking forward to all week. When you open the door to see where the music is coming from you enter a massive, empty basement that is illuminated sparsely with just a few vertically oriented neon lights. The installation hits a bit differently from when it first opened and now as a result of covid and it is hard to describe the feeling when you are inside. The best I can do is say that the experience is equal parts zen and melancholy in the most beautiful way possible.

📀

Plastikman - Sheet One (1993)

I have been listening to this album a good amount recently when I want to get in the zone and get some work done. Makes me feel like I am Cereal from the movie Hackers typing away on my MacBook Air. Not only is it full of slow-build-slappers (eg Plasticine), there is also a cool legend around the album - Sam from Ghostly actually told me about it. The original layout for the album artwork was perforated to look like a sheet of LSD tabs and it was so realistic looking that, and I cannot confirm or deny this, supposedly a man in Texas was arrested during a traffic stop because he had a copy of Sheet One on the passenger seat.

🎶

Insides - Euphoria (1993)

My buddy Zack just put me on this album because ur boi loves him some 1990s ambient/dream pop type beats and this certainly scratched the itch. Fave tracks: Skin Divers, Distractions, Darling Effect. I love the artwork as well - it is by The Senate who did a lot of artwork for Everything But The Girl (who is always in heavy rotation at Intramural HQ) in the early 90s.

🔪

The Frankies Spuntino Kitchen Companion & Cooking Manual (2010)

Frankies 457 Spuntino is my absolute favorite restaurant in New York. Over the last 5 years, this has been where Bae-Z and I have gone to celebrate almost every birthday and significant life/career event. The vibes are cozy af, the food is comforting af and most importantly it is consistent af. This cookbook delivers too - it has all the greatest hits from the restaurant and the recipes are easy and straightforward enough that anyone can do them. If my kitchen is on fire, this is the cookbook I am grabbing. My favorite dishes are the Fennel, Celery Root, Parsley & Red Onion Salad, Cavatelli with Sausage & Browned Sage Butter and the Pork Braciola Marinara.

📚

Open: An Autobiography by Andre Agassi (2009)

Last summer, I caught some major tennis fever after listening to the How Long Gone interview with Caitlin Thompson, publisher of Racquet Magazine. My girlfriend Zoe and I always gift each other books during the holidays and she really *aced* her gift last year with Open. It’s a wild read that is written with the vulnerability that only a tennis prodigy with an extremely demanding father from Iran (no shots at Dadvali) could possess.

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Bijan Shahvali (Intramural Shop)

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