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Richard Powers brings mother nature up close and personal and much more! $$PLAIN_TEXT_PREVIEW$$
MY FAVOURITE THINGS | Just A Dream (On My Mind)
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“In every walk with nature one receives far more than he seeks.”— JOHN MUIR
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I was in an existential funk ahead of watching Jack Ladder and the Dreamlanders celebrate the tenth anniversary of their Hurtsville LP. I couldn’t see the forest from the trees, consumed by a sense of worthlessness. It was only while staring up at the Aussie quintet that I began to see the light. Watching each and every member stroll down memory lane and lose themselves in the music helped to remind me that our unique passions are our greatest gift. Inspiring genuine purpose in an otherwise meaningless universe. Finding our reason for living — be that raising a family, opening a restaurant or recording an album — and letting it devour us is the most selflessly selfish thing we can ever do.
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There is nothing quite like getting lost in a good book. The kind that won’t let you set it down against your better judgment. The gift that Richard Powers has imparted with this sizable tome is subtle and yet infused through each character and sub-plot. Individuals of varied backgrounds and interests that inadvertently find themselves defending mother nature from their own species. Through the practice of meditation, I have found that my own journey with the natural world has radically shifted. Increasingly I find myself gazing up at many points in a day to take in a tree or variety of plant. The simple process imparts a sense of calm and wonder that I never thought possible. In these desperately complicated times, when existential dread seems to be on an exponential rise, such practice is medicine for the soul and helps to alleviate the most biting anxiety.
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In the age of tentpole franchises and zeitgeist Netflix originals, it’s small wonder when true-to-life tales like this 2020 release captivate to the closing credits. Eliza Hittman has made a specialty out of the mundane, evoking the cinematic out of everyday moments that slip between the cracks. Hittman’s tale of a teenage woman’s journey to aborting an unwanted pregnancy offers little in the way of visual titillation. Instead she forces us to reckon with our own dormant adolescence as this naive child reckons with responsibility. Watching the film left me chewing over the real life teens who weren’t as fortunate or tenacious as the film’s protagonist and abandoned the daunting process out of fear and peer-pressure. This coming-of-ager is a potent reminder that films are more than mindless entertainment. They can shed light on the road less travelled.
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I had a hankering for some Dave Chapelle in my life and found myself searching out YouTube videos on a lunch break. This recent Jimmy Fallon interview with the D.C. native on his surprise podcast got me to finally bite the bullet and subscribe to a free trial of Luminary. The show features the A-list talents of Talib Kweli, Yasiin Bey (aka Mos Def) and Chappelle riffing on an eclectic mix of hard-hitting and irreverent topics. The whole production has a late night jam session with an acoustic mix that entices and repels at various intervals. My favourite part of the show is Chappelle’s honest reflections about being a successful black man in twenty-first America, a fact that feels all the more palpable in the presence of his successful black friends. Such creative gifts, a byproduct of COVID-19 and a surprise tornado, are the unexpected blessings a global pandemic.
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The unique beauty of this new Netflix series lies in its depiction of the creative process. Seeing this self-made fashion mogul languish on the road to infamy is made all the more tantalizing through the portrayal of his unique struggles. Daniel Minahan, the show’s sole director, beautifully unveils this rags-to-riches tale and manages to put a refreshing spin on the ‘drugs are bad’ narrative. Roy Halston Frowick’s endless ambition and insatiable appetites shine bright under the spell-binding allure of Ewan McGregor whose talents I could watch ad finitum. That Halston’s embodiment of the American dream would go the way of the Hindenburg is reason enough to indulge in this limited series. “You are as good as the people you dress.” — Halston
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Robert Altman’s golden years in Hollywood gave him unparalleled access to the cream of the crop. The nineteen-nineties was a golden time in Tinseltown when VHS rentals and the financial backing of foreign conglomerates allowed the studios to be a little more daring in their annual offerings. This 1992 tongue-in-cheek dramatic satire can be enjoyed on so many meta levels. Every scene is littered with a who’s who of Hollywood insiders that gleefully lampoons industry insiders who once turned them down. Tim Robbins is a hoot playing a high-powered executive with little concern for anyone or anything but his own job security. When mounting death threats from a spurned writer leads to a bruised ego, it prompts a morbid series of events that kept me chuckling to the closing credits.
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I’ve held a life-long fascination with the Irish Republican Army and its relentless quest for independent statehood. Papa Pillion was born and raised in the working class suburbs of Dublin and while he was never an active participant in the troubles, his allegiance to his homeland’s right to independence was always a given. Patrick Radden Keefe’s phenomenal New Yorker piece from 2015 brought to mind so many of my favourite films. Jim Sheridan’s In The Name of The Father (an absolute ripper with Daniel Day-Lewis) and Neil Jordan’s Michael Collins (Liam Neeson before he became a psychopathic action hero). Through a complex web of portraits, Keefe unpacks the constructed identity of Sinn Fein’s Gerry Adams and provides first-hand evidence that the past always has the last laugh. “You had no respect for the law because all’s you seen is brutality. That’s what put the seed in a lot of kids heads to join the I.R.A. I don’t think the British had much of a clue about what they were starting.” — Michael McConville
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After a listen to Adam McKay on the Longform podcast I found myself searching out my first sports podcast. Death At The Wing is more than a deep cuts look at the cultural deification of the National Basketball Association. It seeks to examine the personal ramifications of Reaganomics — advancing tax cuts for the rich and slashing welfare reforms on the poor — on a handful of rising black talents. Drug abuse, race politics and gun control are at the heart of this thought-provoking series, issues that feel just as relevant today as they did forty years ago. The Hollywood comic mogul has re-branded himself with the politically-satirical hits The Big Short and Vice. The co-founder of Funny or Die turning his focus to Hyperobject, a production company advancing climate-crisis awareness and social justice. To think an NBA rookie’s death from a cocaine overdose would help pass the Anti-Drug Abuse Law of 1986 - better known as the Len Bias law - and quadruple the incarceration rate of young black men is reason enough to tune in.
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This curious little thought piece captured my attention while uploading a film to a client via WeTransfer. Pandora Sykes, one half of my partner’s guilty-pleasure podcast The High Low, is a highly prodigious creative. She is a podcaster, freelancing writer and mother of two who lives to optimize her daily existence. While I personally find her approach to the creative process a little too clinical I’ve always enjoyed her perspective on the world at large. Much like the London native, routine is integral in allowing me the freedom to spin so many creative plates. What struck me most about this confessional article was how much it resonated with some of the recent changes in my freelance lifestyle and left me reflecting on Jill Lepore’s fascinating piece on the exponential rise of burnout. Upending a workday with a quick swim, a solo lunch outing or the chance to read in the garden has the ability to reset the most action-packed week and can certainly reap the greatest rewards. “I’m still saying yes to projects I know I don’t have the time for, I’m still taking pointless creative detours, I’m still turning my phone off for extended periods of time, but the difference is that I’m not logging exactly what gets done and when.” — Pandora Sykes
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Staring up at Peter Bogdanovich’s classic comedy of errors on the silver screen last month left me chewing over the uncredited talents of his first wife. Polly Platt, the unsung visionary behind Bogdanovich’s trifecta of studio hits, was an instrumental part in their underlying success. She had an eye for detail, a tenacious ability to find the inherent conflict in a given scene and no bullshit policy. After listening to Karina Longworth’s exceptional ten-part series on Platt, I could feel her restless soul within Tatum O’Neal’s precocious character. The nine-year old actress stars across from her hapless movie-star father Ryan O’Neal and delivers one of the all-time performances. Its depression-era setting imbuing every scene with visual easter eggs for the more discerning. Listen in to our latest episode of Popcorn Therapy to hear us debate why this 1973 classic will always stand the test of time.
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I don’t go in for conspiracy theories. It’s not that I can’t believe in them. I just feel that our colourful imaginations can’t (and won’t) swallow the most obvious solutions to any given riddle. Gideon Lewis-Kraus’ startling article in last month’s New Yorker was enough to test my resolve and allow some childhood reflections to enter my reveries. I grew up on extra-terrestrial stories from Steven Spielberg’s Close Encounters Of The Third Kind and Robert Zemeckis’ Contact to weekly airings of The X-Files. Yet my belief in the presence of intelligible life, especially a life force that humanity can comprehend, soon evaporated in my teens. While I can certainly understand the public’s desire for some confirmation of alien life — wouldn’t it give life a greater purpose? — it’s harder to explain away the interests of governmental agencies. And while I like the idea of these advanced creatures being nothing more than our future selves communicating with us (a la the plot of Christopher Nolan’s Interstellar) I just don’t know anymore.
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Chappelle’s Show was one of those rarefied sketch shows from the noughties, a fantastical amalgamation of various ‘bits’ that were irreverent and culturally damning. Paul Mooney, a groundbreaking comedian and creator, was a key ingredient to the show’s schtick (this YouTube skit of Mooney reviewing Gone With The Wind with two blonde bimbos left my howling) but more importantly its underlying flavour. As Dave Chappelle has made plain, the Louisiana native’s fiercely proud nature was foundational to his nascent comedy career. Mooney was a comedian’s comedian whose early collaborations with a young Richard Pryor in the nineteen-sixties would launch them into the spotlight. While Mooney’s stubborn pride would ultimately be his undoing, his talents and unflappable will would inspire a new generation. Comedic titans like Eddie Murphy and Keenen Ivory Wayans (later dubbed the ‘Black Pack’) would have Mooney open for the celebrated Raw tour and write on In Living Color respectively. “Paul didn’t care to be loved. He wanted to speak his mind. He taught a generation of comedians to be fearless.” — Robert Townsend
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Tucking into Tim Ewbank and Stafford Hildred’s shamelessly fawning biography on the one and only Rod Stewart has been a rare treat. The London native was a consummate hustler, jumping ship from half a dozen musical groups before setting up shop as a solo extraordinaire. Yet Stewart’s unrequited passion for the blues, shared by so many of his contemporaries, was ignited through the sounds of Muddy Waters. I was chuckled pink to learn that this phenomenal live album was once rare as hen’s teeth in nineteen-sixties London with Long John Baldry’s copy shared back and forth between Mick Jagger, Keith Relf and Stewart himself. The whole performance has an energy that defies its age and resonates with every re-listen. The master bluesman at his zenith.
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