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Sharon Horgan can't help turning your frown upside down and much more! $$PLAIN_TEXT_PREVIEW$$
MY FAVOURITE THINGS
Love Really Hurts Without You
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“If you’re not the brightest or if you’re not great at sports, or if you’re not artistic, then you’ve got to find a way to make your mark; otherwise you’re just this tiny little insignificant dot. I didn’t want to be insignificant, so I made people laugh.” — SHARON HORGAN
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TGIF. Bring on the (long) weekend!!
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On the drive up to Newcastle this week I tuned into an old Adam Buxton episode featuring a conversation with Sharon Horgan, the Irish multi-hyphenate whose star continues to brighten by the day. I’m afraid to say Horgan was off my radar until happening across her show Catastrophe featuring American comic Rob Delaney. As I’ve previously confessed in this newsletter, the show left me giggling until my tummy ached and left me curious to know more about Horgan’s backstory. After reading this intimate profile by Willa Paskin I was amazed that the comic pair kindled their working relationship through a Twitter DM, a reality that speaks to the power of making social media work for you. Breaking into the industry with the BBC comedy Pulling, penned by herself and Dennis Kelly in 2006, Horgan was thirty-six years young when it first aired. She later confessed that the decision to create her own show was mostly due to the lack of interesting female characters on telly. Horgan has a knack for bringing the minutiae of real life to the screen, those darkly comical moments that leave you chewing your fingers until they bleed. The fact that Horgan continues to pave this unlikely road into middle age, most recently with Divorce, the HBO series featuring Sarah Jessica Parker and Thomas Haden Church, is so inspiring and encouraging to the next generation.
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It’s been a while since a space movie left me feeling like a rogue Augustus Gloop in Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory. Apocalypse Now meets The Tree of Life, the film is set in the near future and follows one Roy McBride (Brad Pitt) who accepts a mission to locate his estranged father (Tommy Lee Jones) a celebrated astronaut whose ship disappeared outside the rings of Neptune many moons ago and has since been presumed dead. What was especially exciting was that James Gray (The Lost City of Z) made sure to let his protagonist move the story forward, ensuring that we’re strapped in beside him, learning the truths as they come to pass. I loved all the little details that unravel through the narrative and while the plot is paper thin, the ensuing mission offers so many powerful moments to meditate on. Hell the scenes that take place on the Moon alone are enough to bring me back for seconds. After reading this incredible portrait in the New Yorker by Nathan Heller on the Bronx-born filmmaker, I came to understand these themes with greater clarity. While Gray is (sadly) bringing his next project back to planet Earth, it is my humble belief that Ad Astra will age like an Italian Nebbiolo, allowing new generations to marvel at this richly layered masterpiece.
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I tuned into a conversation with Thom Yorke on the BBC’s Desert Island Discs this week. The conversation was full of so many confessional tidbits on Yorke’s career and personal life that it left me gobsmacked, his frank confessions showing a tender vulnerability that he eschews on publicity tours. Yorke speaks to the healing and transcendent power of music through his life, confessing that the creation of any gestating idea allows him to grow a little closer to himself, reiterating the therapeutic power of music on the soul. Listening to Yorke’s seven music picks reminded me why the Radiohead frontman is my favourite contemporary artist, leading me to dive back into his solo releases with 2014’s Tomorrow’s Modern Boxes standing out as a timeless gem. After diving into Anima this week, Yorke’s latest solo offering released over the summer, I know I’m going to sincerely enjoy folding back its layers for many months to come. For my fellow Yorke stans be sure to check out this ambient playlist that he released a few years back featuring some of his favourite tracks from the genre. While I must admit to sleeping on Luca Guadagnino’s Suspiria last year, I’m excited to check it out for Yorke’s score alone.
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If you’re looking for an all action, all adventure flick to lose yourself in then look no further. Directed by Alan Taylor, this 2015 installment is littered with enough explosions to rival Nixon’s secret Cambodian bombing campaign during the Vietnam War. Renting off Apple TV last weekend, I was surprised to find myself getting lost in the story as much as the gripping cat and mouse scenes. Credit for its emotional pull goes to its scribes, Laeta Kalogridis & Patrick Lussier, who interlaced the non-stop action with a storyline that anchors the narrative to the power and legacy of family. While Emilia Clarke and Jai Courtney seemed ill-cast and lacking in organic chemistry onscreen, Jason Clarke shines as bright as ever and brings genuine cut-through to his antagonist. Arnold Schwarzenegger kicks some serious bacon, reprising his role as the Terminator we came to fear in the 1984 original (and love in subsequent sequels). Say what you will about the former California Governator but the septuagenarian is still the king of the Hollywood jungle. I’m gonna be taking myself to the pictures for Dark Fate, the latest installment of the franchise arriving next month. With a two-hundred million dollar budget under its belt the film promises at the very least to get the old ticker working overtime.
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I mentioned this seminal book a few weeks back when writing on the life of Albert Hofmann and as I close in on its final chapters I felt compelled to share my feelings once again. Pollan has done the near impossible, offering up a sober and effective treatise on the power of psychoactive chemicals to cure addiction, trauma and offer genuine comfort and solace to the dying. I recently finished a section where Pollan reflects on his experience smoking The Toad, a powerful psychoactive dust taken from the venom of the Sonoran Desert Toad. As he recounts the nightmarish experience — like riding the outside of a rocket launching into orbit at G-force speeds — he describes a profound realization around his own behavioural patterns, acknowledging his life-long dismissal of being (taking time to simple be present) in favour of doing. For those of you living under a rock (me until not so long ago) Pollan is a renowned food writer that has contributed to the dangers of our fast food times and the importance of investing time (and money) in real produce. For those curious to know more be sure to check out this interview on the Joe Rogan Experience from last year. It’s the perfect way to get a tase of Pollan’s medicine. “You go deep enough or far out enough in consciousness and you will bump into the sacred.” — Bill Richards
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It’s D-day for Angel Olsen’s latest album and boy is it a stunner. I was lucky enough to have a sneak-peek of the record after being gifted a dropbox link from Olsen herself a few months back. Having known the singer-songwriter for a few years, introduced through mutual friends while stationed in Portugal, I’ve been excited to see her continual evolution with her most recent single for Mark Ronson’s Late Night Feelings. For my money All Mirrors is the most complex statement Olsen has put into the ether. With its incredible string arrangements and beautiful compositions the whole thing feels so grown up. Laced with such aching sorrow and nostalgia, Olsen still manages to let the sunshine in, offering so much promise for the future. One listen to the album’s final track Chance will tell you everything you ever need to know about the Missouri native. A true revelation that grows more resonant with every listen. For my fellow bookworms be sure to check out Alexandra Kleeman’s incredible NYT magazine portrait of the artist and her tireless work ethic.
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I got curious around the life and times of Zelda Fitzgerald after diving into this amazing profile by Allison Davis which follows Angel Olsen around her hometown of Asheville. Olsen grimly describes Fitzgerald’s final years, a desperate woman living in and out of institutions until she was consumed by a hospital fire close to where Olsen lives now. Fitzgerald, born Zelda Sayre, came into the world at the turn of the twentieth century, the youngest of six children with a penchant for following her curiousities. Fitzgerald’s life and achievements would always be overshadowed by her husband, the celebrated novelist F. Scott Fitzgerald, whom she met in 1918 shortly after he volunteered for the army. Fitzgerald would become more than her husband’s muse with her personal diaries inspiring his future work and female characters. The pair were celebrated within the literary community of the nineteen-twenties and were heralded as a cyclone of youth and exuberance, a reality that was fueled by excessive amounts of hooch. As happens with most couples living in the fast lane, things began to fall apart, prompting Fitzgerald’s mental decline before being diagnosed with schizophrenia in 1930. It was around this time that Fitzgerald had a sudden burst of creativity, writing Save Me The Waltz, a confessional novel with semi-autobiographical undertones. The fact that it was poorly received by critics and disparaged by her abusive husband would only exacerbate her emotional woes into her final days.
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Thanks for tuning in. If you like this newsletter and want to support it, forward it to someone who’d like it. Until next time. Xo
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