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Bill Bryson brings the universe into focus and much more! $$PLAIN_TEXT_PREVIEW$$
MY FAVOURITE THINGS
Here Comes The Sun
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“We have been chosen, by fate or providence or whatever you wish to call it. As far as we can tell, we are the best there is. We may be all there is. It's an unnerving thought that we may be the living universe's supreme achievement and its worst nightmare simultaneously.”— BILL BRYSON
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A thought came to me in the shower the other day, a crystal clear vision that told me to seek out a second-hand kayak. I’ve always had an irrational fear of open water (especially what lies beneath it) and I’ve been working to change that one step at a time. Having found a cute one-seater from a retiree on Gumtree (the sweet old feller invited me in for coffee and a chat afterwards), I’m excited to hit the harbour this weekend.
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If you’re like me, rudimentary scientific truths about this big blue planet of ours sails right over your head. For one thing, the size and scale of Earth and its relation to the Solar System and beyond is just too much to swallow, making us look as relevant as a speck of dust mite. When my ex-roomie handed me Bill Bryson’s 2003 compendium to the world as we know it, I decided to silence my qualms and give it a red hot go. Already a half dozen chapters deep, I must confess that this book’s truths are sinking in (for once!) and have helped me enjoy a much more wholesome understanding of all the little things we take for granted. For as Bryson outlines in the opening paragraph, the very fact that we’re here at all is a revelation in and of itself. I’ve been known to fall into a funk at international headlines, everyday folk disputing the most mundane notions from climate science to the shape of our planet. But when I put these truths under the microscope I find myself empathizing with their intransigence. For when we come to accept the facts as they stand we realize that there is no master plan, no greater purpose for our presence on this magnificent planet. To the best of our knowledge, we are all there is, so why can’t we just get along?
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Three and a half hours after entering our local theater with a stomach full of butterflies, I’m happy to report that Martin Scorsese’s latest crime saga is some kind of wonderful. It’s more than fair to say that they just don’t make movies like this anymore, at least under Tinseltown skies. Written for the screen by Steven Zaillian from Charles Brandt’s 2004 book I Heard You Paint Houses, it documents the life of one Frank Sheeran, a blue-collar Irishman who has a particular knack for carrying out some hair-raising orders. By Brandt’s accounts, as shared by a geriatic Sheeran, he was witness (and in some cases the catalyst) for some of the Twentieth Century’s meteoric revelations. A man with a hand in John F. Kennedy’s rise to power, the Bay of Pigs invasion and the murder of (his best friend) James Riddle Hoffa. That the movie, and in turn the book, has been accused by experts and authorities of being a pack of tall tales was always going to come to pass. I for one found many of its arguments plausible, its narrative running strangely concurrent with James Ellroy’s Underworld Trilogy, a collection of immersive works of fiction that dive deep into the real truth behind power in the mid-twentieth century. As Anthony Lane’s unabridged review in the New Yorker attests, the septuagenarian filmmaker has become obsessed with the passage of time and in doing so has sought to capture a life lived in one sitting. More than anything, Scorsese’s sorrowful tale serves as a conscious reminder that we never escape our sins, at least until we meet our maker.
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I found myself doing a little jig when I discovered that Taylor Sheridan’s modern cowboy series had (finally) made its way Down Under. When I first came upon the news that the Texan native had received the green light to bring his unique voice to a long-form narrative I was ecstatic. Sheridan is the visionary scribe behind Sicario, (Denis Villeneuve) Hell or High Water (David McKenzie) and most recently Wind River which he also helmed in 2017. Yellowstone is set within the breathtaking ranges of Montana and follows the trials and tribulations of a celebrated cattle-rancher (Kevin Costner) whose uncontested power is wearing thin in a brave new world. To put it simply, there’s too many hungry wolves in the prairie and not enough tucker to go around. While I’m a sucker for a good feuding dynastic drama, it’s especially exciting to see its heroes and villains decked out in ten gallon hats and cowboy boots. It’s easy to see why this is one of America’s most binge-watched shows. Sheridan has infused the series with a sense of the operatic, each character representing an archetype that helps us to lionize (or castigate) them based on our own biases. In other words it’s like that box of chocolates you throw into your trolley on a whim — a guilty pleasure that leaves you feeling wicked in the best way possible.
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My lady turned me onto this new podcast from Oliver and Kate Hudson, a brother and sister duo who seek to explore the pros and cons of being raised in the limelight. The Hudson’s stem from Hollywood royalty, the offspring of Goldie Hawn and Bill Hudson, and it’s striking to realize that both have devoted themselves to a life in front of the cameras (along with Wyatt Russell — their baby step brother). While it’s easy to write off this podcast before dipping a toe — who wants to hear about the struggles of two siblings from the right side of the tracks — I would urge you to reconsider. For one, it offers a curious look into the interior world of these public personalities and more importantly reveals their true feelings for having a silver spoon to begin with. I especially love how open and forthcoming they are — Kate especially — on evaluating how their glamorous childhood affected their adult life and by virtue their current endeavours. While I myself don’t come from royal blood lines, I was very lucky to grow up in considerable comfort, my parents toiling to give us the world they never had. Perhaps it’s for this reason that I found myself empathizing with the Hudson’s, acknowledging their desire to seek validation beyond their familial ties.
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As I await the fifth episode of this Apple TV+ series to drop this weekend, I have to admit that the show’s underlying themes have gotten under my skin. While there is a glossy veneer to the whole production, from its artificial sets right down to its garrulous characters, there is a much deeper notion at play. Here is a show that accurately sums up our current moment, following a group of women — Reese Witherspoon packs a punch — fighting for the right to have their voices validated in a man’s world. The best part of the show is that its lead, Jennifer Aniston, is a veteran news anchor who has devoted herself to embodying America’s sweetheart. Here is a woman that has towed the line for a good chunk of her adult life and by that measure alone has earned the right to be a vital part of the conversation. As we quickly come to discover, her very presence serves as nothing more than a nuisance to the boardroom of suits. The show’s underlying themes began to leap out at me while tucking into the penultimate essay in Jia Tolentino’s Trick Mirror on The Cult of the Difficult Woman. Tolentino dives deep into the struggles celebrated women have faced in rewriting a history dictated by men. In doing so, she helps paint a sombre picture of the backlash faced when these brave souls succeed in changing the syntax of a mere sentence in the voluminous tome of world history. As the show confirms, the only way men can learn to accept a woman’s opinion as truth is when they adopt it as their own.
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After skimming this Pitchfork article on what Lisa Hanawalt — an animator and fellow producer of Bojack Horseman (the final season is a bittersweet ride!) and the creator of Tuca & Bertie (it’s absolutely bonkers) — is currently listening to I found myself diving into one of her all time favourites. As Hanawalt tells it, she could listen to Donna Summer’s Sunset People on repeat for an entire day. The track, which features on Summer’s Greatest Hits LP from 1979, sucked me down a rabbit hole. Summer, born LaDonna Adrian Gaines, has one of the most unique life stories I’ve come across in recent memory. Born in Boston, Summer found herself attracted to the theatrical and wound up dropping out of high school to audition for the musical Hair in NYC. She landed the role, agreeing to move to Germany when the show went on the road to Munich. Summer would remain in Europe for much of the next decade, marrying an Austrian actor and eventually finding her way into the music industry after a fortuitous introduction to Giorgio Moroder. Moroder, the Italian producer who would come to be dubbed “The Father of Disco”, would come to have a lasting impact on Summer’s indelible sound. Listening to her greatest hits with this in mind, it helps me understand why Summer’s intonation always stood alone from her peers, how its pulsing rhythm remains as relevant as ever.
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Call me a ding-dong but I had no idea that Harrison Ford had so many marriages under his belt, including his second to the celebrated screenwriter Melissa Mathison who passed away from neuroendocrine cancer at the tender age of sixty-five in 2015. I came across Mathison while indulging in Easy Riders, Raging Bulls last week and was blown away to discover that the California native got her start in the business babysitting the kids of Francis Ford Coppola as a teen. In later years, Mathison would quit college to come assist on The Godfather II and would go on to adapt the childhood classic The Black Stallion for Coppola’s Zoetrope in the late seventies. Her adaptation found favour with Steven Spielberg who loved it so much he hired the newcomer to adapt his story for E.T. The Extraterrestrial. It was here that Ford met Mathison, while visiting the set of Raiders of the Lost Ark. After coming across this sweet little video of Mathison and Spielberg goofing around from the early eighties, I got the sense that Mathison was one of those rare creatures, exuding a childish innocence and lust for life that was simply infectious. She would go on to pen Kundun, Martin Scorsese’s biographical drama on the Dalai Lama in the nineties, an experience that forged a life-long friendship with the Tibetan leader.
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