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Slavoj Žižek on the antidote to communal despair and much more! $$PLAIN_TEXT_PREVIEW$$
MY FAVOURITE THINGS | Let’s Do It Again
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“The most fundamental reality at the present time is that the human species has overshot the capacity of the planet to sustain it. This is a very challenging situation and the first challenge it poses is really understanding and accepting it because unless we understand the extend to which we’ve already damaged the planet, the extent to which climate change is already irreversible, then whatever we do to cope with environmental issues will have no real longterm effect.” — JOHN GRAY
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I’ve been struggling to overcome certain realities of our present moment. Documentaries the world over declaring a state of emergency over climate change (David Attenborough’s A Life On Our Planet), the depletion of the earth’s minerals through monoculture (John Chester’s The Biggest Little Farm) or the expiration of vital sea life from commercial overfishing (Ali Tabrizi’s Seaspiracy). In the face of these alarming existential issues, our world leaders only seem intent on alleviating the short-term fears of swing voters. The global response to a global pandemic, while messy and haphazard, is a glimmer of hope that we still have the capacity to work together in times of trouble. With yet another dire climate report leaking last week I can only hope we act before it’s too late.
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Ever since I put Richard Powers The Overstory to bed I’ve been seeing the obvious everywhere I look. The rampant excesses of human invention that are successfully driving the natural order into extinction for the fleeting treasures and pleasures of comfort. This short film from Slavoj Žižek, offered up on the Children of Men DVD release back in the noughties, envisages the turmoil of our present moment with startling accuracy. I don’t know what I find more disturbing. The fact that these talking heads presaged the last decade of inaction or the comfort I get from having my worst fears confirmed. As Naomi Klein makes plain, our economic model functions like an addict, returning over and again to drink from the same poisoned well and refusing to learn from its mistakes to keep from facing the truth. “Hope is only where despair is. The magic is to turn a desperate situation into a new beginning.” — Slavoj Žižek
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This Broken Record episode with the surrogate father of ambient music left me breathing easier. Brian Eno’s dedication to exploring the depths of acoustic composition is astounding, infusing each new musical project with new scientific inquiry and ensuring his ‘sound’ never tramples familiar territory. While Eno has held my fascination since my teenage years, his prescriptive approach to creativity has become more influential through the years. He’s helped me to approach the creative process with a sense of calm coupled with a childlike curiousity. It is this unlikely marriage that keeps the ego in check and allows me to never stop searching out answers to the most elementary questions.
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My love for Terrence Malick and his unique stories extends far beyond his cultural cachet. Rather the Texan filmmaker is one of the only filmmakers whose body of work has consistently shed light the human condition and our capacity for good in a world consumed with hate. Almost half a century on from his debut masterpiece Badlands, this 2020 release offers a unique look at the dissenting voices within the Axis of Evil. He introduces us to a humble Austrian community toiling above the clouds before war comes calling. It is here that Malick pits the wonders of nature against the stubborn arrogance of man and the end result is both harrowing and uncomfortable. Seeing one man suffer the wrath of his community for holding on to his morality is why art matters.
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It wasn’t so long ago that a ripped CD playlist featuring a dozen tracks was the most cutting edge way to share your latest musical tastes. And while I’ve always harbored a certain nostalgia for the past, this technological milestone never made the cut. Spotify and its P2P predecessors Napster and Kazaa have successfully changed the way we interact with music. And while it saddens me that creative expression has become a slave to the technological revolution, it has nonetheless gifted music lovers with a database that rivals any publishing giant. I started this playlist on a whim, blending a range of genres and artists into a feel-good acoustic smoothie. As Dip & Weave tips over into its two-hundredth track I wanted to celebrate by spreading the love. Best enjoyed on shuffle.
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While I’ve always been awe-inspired by a metropolis like New York City, I’d never given a moment’s notice to the native ecosystems and hunting grounds that were all but annihilated in its very foundation. This fascinating NY Times article does such an incredible job of re-imagining the verdant wilderness of this once placid isle. It gives new texture to Rem Koolhaas’ acclaimed 1978 publication Delirious New York (discovered on the shelf of the uber-talented Daniel Boddam) which explores the birth of the skyscraper grid and the radical ideology behind its ‘culture of congestion’. While such atavistic thinking gave birth to the Big Apple we know and love, we’d do well to remember that such invention can never replace mother nature.
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Billie and I were lucky enough to stream this new historic drama on a return flight from Cairns last month. Shaka King’s follow-up feature is the latest in a string of revisionist tales that sets the record straight on a white-washed history. Nate Parker’s Birth Of A Nation, Kasi Lemmons Harriet and Ava DuVernay’s Selma have all contributed to the conversation around critical race theory and while I’ve long held a fascination with the counter-cultural legacy of the nineteen-sixties, Judas and the Black Messiah has helped me to accept that this implicit bias assured their eventual demise. I loved the casting of Daniel Kaluuya and Dominique Fishback in the leads and felt a debt of gratitude to producer Ryan Coogler (Creed, Black Panther) for shepherding King’s vision.
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This incredible little write-up with Australian field recordist Tom Day caught my eye while perusing through the wonderful Byron Shire publication Paradiso. Sounds Of The Conservation Reserve features a collection of field recordings made by Day while on location in Western Australia. There is something special about slipping on a pair of headphones and immersing yourself within a natural landscape. The whole effect made more potent when squired away indoors. It’s something profound to unpack the sounds of nature through the same lens as any musical composition. To realize the unique layers and sounds embedded in the everyday sounds we take for granted. For those that have never stepped foot Down Under this album takes you deep into the Australian bush. An absolute gem.
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Love makes us do the damndest things. Such is the premise of this clever nine-part series which incidentally marks the first small-screen release from the Marvel universe. The decision to press on with Wandavision was instigated by my Popcorn Therapy co-host Kane Senes. While I did find myself bucking against certain sanitized characters and situations, I stayed the course for its innovative examination of the grieving process. I also found myself chuckling at the visual antics of the first half of the series as it explores the evolving visual tropes of television. Kevin Feige and his development team continue to weave such tightly-knit stories out of its ensemble cast of characters and I’m eager to see how they merge Destin Daniel Cretton’s Shang-Chi and Chloé Zhao’s Eternals into the universe.
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Adam McKay’s Death At The Wing was the unlikely inspiration to seek out Jonathan Alter’s biography on former POTUS Jimmy Carter. McKay unpacks the complicated history that led to our current discourse around mental health and notes that the suppression of all negative feelings was a given back in the seventies. Carter was one of the nation’s few leaders to address the feelings of the nation, a choice which was largely derided. While his inability to evoke a strong paternal persona would ultimately be his undoing, his hopeful vulnerability and emotional compassion paved the way for a more open and transparent society. Thanks to Alter’s revisionist tome, Carter’s presidential achievements are also being recognized and reappraised. “A society grows great when old men plant trees in whose shade they know they shall never sit.” - Ancient Proverb
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During a three-day conference for my PhD last month, I was lucky enough to catch a compelling conversation with television writer/director Vanessa Alexander. The American émigré was so open and forthcoming in sharing her failures on the road to success, from her marital problems to the difficulties of securing writers rooms with her six children. Yet it was her mention of Joan Scheckel, a friend and story development coach, that led me to this title (which she stars in). Arthur Hiller’s 1992 bio-pic of the original baseball titan Babe Ruth is by no means a perfect film. It’s just one of the earliest examples of John Goodman flaunting his wares from start to finish. I was ignorant to the Babe’s life story and found so much of it awe inspiring and ultimately tragic. Tune into our most recent episode of Popcorn Therapy to hear me talk Kane’s ear off about it. “If it wasn't for baseball, I'd be in either the penitentiary or the cemetery.” - Babe Ruth
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Sarah Gavron’s Suffragette was one of those period films that left me with so many questions. The final scrolling text helping me to understand that the English patriarchy weren’t half as bad as the Swiss (who only relented in 1971!!). Emmeline Pankhurst, whose name and fleeting likeness in Meryl Streep, is treated much like the second coming through the film. After reading up about her formative years I can well understand why. Pankhurst founded the Women’s Social and Political Union in 1903, an organization that would come to draw the ire of the establishment for its increasingly violent acts. Watching the film left me awe-struck at their militant vigilance and cunning (the 1913 bombing of PM Lloyd George’s summer residence was wild). While Pankhurst would live to see her dream partially enacted in 1918, she would perish months before full equal voting rights were realized a decade on.
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I’ve been tunneling into Mark Fisher’s Ghosts Of My Life, his third and final publication before prematurely taking his life soon after in 2014. Fisher presents a rather damning indictment of the present moment arguing that the precipitous rise of technology has led to a cultural dearth of sorts in the twenty-first century (you can read about it in my latest blog post here). Fisher cites the rise and stasis of Bristol-born solo artist Tricky (Massive Attack) as a curious case in point, noting that his failed ascent to the zeitgeist was collateral damage in the wake of a shifting time. This 1995 LP, named after the artist’s late mother, feels so fresh and vibrant and would help solidify trip-hop as a musical sub-genre. Many of the tracks feature the startlingly seductive vocals of Martina Topley-Bird, Tricky’s lover and soon to be wife, who was only twenty at the time of release. 'Listen: I know without doubt that I am the best artist in the world and have been for the last seven years. Not because my music is the best, but because there's never been any compromise. The only artists who've done that are old school: Bob Dylan, James Brown, Public Enemy and Gary Numan." — Tricky
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