Melanie Challenger on How to Be Animal and much moreΝβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ 
James Pillion
 

MY FAVOURITE THINGS | Everybody’s Got To Learn Sometime

β€œThe human brain is a complex organ with the wonderful power of enabling man to find reasons for continuing to believe whatever it is that he wants to believe.”

β€” VOLTAIRE
 

It was while deep in the depths of a body flu, my second for the month, that I reluctantly swallowed a bitter pill of truth. I’m pretty bloody good at living life in the fast lane, pedal to the metal, but ask me to hit the brakes for any length of time and I fall to pieces. Ross Gay’s enlightening conversation on the power of joy helped me rise above a doom loop of self-pity. It’s not a stretch to say that we were built for one speed in the West. Hyperdrive. But in being over-productive, and consummately consumptive, day in day out, we never have time to delight in the radical art of doing nothing.

Don’t miss my July playlist for all the hits you never knew you needed 🧊

 

How to Be Animal πŸ“š

The burden of human exceptionalism stands trial in Melanie Challenger’s highly charged book and with it our inability to embrace the animal in us. As we’re forever reminded these days, the very survival of the natural order is increasingly dependent on the whims and needs of the human race. In making room for Challenger’s uncomfortable truths, I’ve been embracing my animal side, learning to observe rather than react, to remind myself that I am so much more than my thoughts. And by learning to live in harmony with the world around me, I’m helping to resist E.O. Wilson’s startling observation that we’re sentient creatures β€˜drowning in information, while starving for wisdom’.

β€œBut humans have a social psychology that quivers between being defensive and supportive, collaborative and self-protective. The rub is that the very same spark that drives us into each other’s arms and minds can bring out the worst in us.” β€” Melanie Challenger
 

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind πŸŽ₯

Happiness is a tragicomic love story. At least that’s how it seemed to me after leaving Cinemateca Portuguesa last week. I must have seen this film six or seven times but Charlie Kaufman’s bittersweet screenplay hit a new nerve this time round, helping me accept a vital principle about life. Namely, that we are nothing without experience and there’s nothing like harrowing heartbreak to open our eyes to certain realities, cracks in the facade that remind us of our (many) imperfections. We may chide ourselves for making mistakes in love but Michel Gondry reminds that to erase the hurt is to lose ourselves altogether.

 

Stax: Soulsville USA πŸ“Ή

I love how this four-part series anchors the storied Memphis label like a good drama, raw promise and passion tainted by unforeseen tragedy (the premature death of Otis Redding and the Bar Kays) and eventual betrayal (Atlantic Records take-no-prisoners contracts) leading to a phoenix rising from the ashes. It was the family affair behind Soulsville USA that kept me bingeing, the loving sacrifice that seeped into the soul of its musical output. While endemic racism drove the company to insolvency, Al Bell’s singular vision would nurture the creative aspirations of talent like Isaac Hayes, transforming their singular sound into a generational movement.

 

Walnut & Me πŸ—ž

With every passing year, my love for animals grows a little deeper and with it a burning desire to know how they think and feel. Sam Anderson comes across as nutty as yours truly as the host of Animal. While I can take or leave his New York Times podcast series, I can’t shake the compellingly touching pilot. A domestic incident involving Anderson’s domestic pets; a missing golden hamster called Mango and a purebred, longhaired miniature dachshund called Walnut. When Mango’s sudden disappearance stirs Walnut from his eternal slumber to solve the riddle, Anderson is moved beyond words. Our favourite animals know just how to keep us on our toes, loving reminders to leave the door open to the unknown.
 
 

Jeanne Du Barry πŸŽ₯

MaΓ―wenn’s visual eye candy of a film hit me between the eyes with a startling discovery. It was the French, not the Yanks, that put forth the proposition that bigger is better, celebrating the opulence of impracticality in all facets of life. While Sofia Coppola’s Marie Antoinette treats Versailles as a veritable pleasure palace, MaΓ―wenn skewers its patriarchal absurdities to spotlight Jeanne Du Barry, an indelibly freewheelin’ spirit ripe for the silver screen. Johnny Depp shines as Louis XIV, a taciturn man whose inner child awakens in the company of his favourite mistress. This one got under the skin.
 

Rome πŸ“Ί 

Gratuitous sex and a touch of the ultra violence were my primary motivations in seeking out this lush HBO drama out as a teenager. Re-watching the series has been a warm blanket of vicarious pleasure ahead of a trip to Italy. While I’m a sucker for the lush costume and set design, it’s the well drawn characters that linger longest. A curious cross-section or high and low born souls doing their darnedest to stay alive. The noughties period spectacle reminds that a good blend of superstition, bloodlust and orgiastic carnality were once requisite ingredients to a virtuous life.
 

Donald Sutherland πŸ‘€

Reading Donald Sutherland’s obituary got me to reflecting on how little I knew the man behind the mask. I was first introduced to the Canadian actor through films like JFK, Outbreak and A Time to Kill. Only later did I wind back the clock, getting lost in his breakout classics, films like M*A*S*H, Klute and Don’t Look Now. Sutherland escaped the confines of Central Casting from the get go, filling the shoes of lotharios, insubordinate combat surgeons and cold-blooded con men. His undying love for Federico Fellini’s Casanova (a critical and commercial flop) is what sets his generation apart from today’s crop of talent.

β€œWorking for Fellini was the best experience of my life. For an actor, there is no one like him. More than anyone else in the world, you submit to Fellini. He is the master, and you go to serve.” β€” Donald Sutherland
 

DREAMER 🎢

Blame it on the drugs but the cover of Nabihah Iqbal’s DREAMER has the quality of coming alive at any given moment. It’s beautiful to enjoy an album that floats across musical genres, traces of shoe gaze (The World Couldn’t See Us), Madchester rave (Sunflower) and feel-good electronica (Sky River) scattered throughout. The 2023 LP brings to mind Quincy Jones’ maxim on how there’s only ever been two types of music. Good (and bad). Just as the title promises, the album is loaded with possibility, the perfect accompaniment to work to or else do positively nothing. Her recent two-hour NTS show is a royal good time.

 

Thanks for reading. To show your support, forward it to someone who’d like it or treat yourself to one of my books.

If you’re seeing this newsletter for the first time, you can read previous issues and subscribe here.
 

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