It’s not every college professor who can be seen helming a lecture and holding his own in the latest films by Paul Thomas Anderson and Josh Safdie on the same day. But Yale‘s Paul Grimstad is not your average humanities professor. Known to also dabble in experimental music and film scores, his first novel is out next year.
What’s something people get wrong about you?
They think I’m exactly like my character in Frownland and they aren’t happy about it.
What would you wear to meet your greatest enemy?
Giant red cape, black jeans, Zappa T-shirt, grey Nordica ski boots, Mets hat, and those fancy evening gloves that go all the way up the forearms.
What’s been the hardest part of your career so far?
Deciding to get a PhD instead of spending those years on the road playing music.
What question do you ask yourself most often while you’re making work?
Should I add something or take something away? Should I keep building the thing further out, or start cutting? And then an even bigger question: when to stop altogether.
When you were little, what were you known for?
Reciting Lewis Carroll’s “Jabberwocky” from memory while standing on an ottoman.
What do you want to see more of in your industry? Less of?
More wide-open experimentation, less calculating careerism. It seems more and more that people don’t even think there is an alternative to branding and doing art, as if it is only a business and not free expression for its own sake.
Name an influence of yours that might surprise people.
Eddie Van Halen.
What would you like the headline of your obituary to be?
“A Contradictory, Insatiable Person Has Died.”
What keeps you up at night?
When I can’t stop mentally revising songs/lyrics I am in the middle of writing. I get addicted to the process and it continues into the night, sometimes all night.
What are you looking forward to this year?
Going over proofs and working on the audiobook for my forthcoming novel Cold Fusion, going to the Netherlands to speak about Spinoza in the fall, releasing a bunch of new music, and doing more acting.
What’s one work of art that got you through an important moment in your life?
Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps) by David Bowie.
Where do you feel most at home?
Near my books and records.
To read more from the 2026 CULT100 honorees, see the full list here.
in your life?
