Something New (This Week) vol 25
A playlist, some movies, some posts.
I’ve decided to take a turn towards volume in my music recommendations and collecting. For my personal use, I have long leaned in to Spotify’s “Liked Songs” function – which weirdly changes its name every ten months – which lets me simply record that I enjoyed a song, and add it to a bucket of enjoyable songs. It’s the largest, shallowest umbrella. It gives me a wacky and fun list to play through randomly when I don’t have any listening homework I want to do, and more importantly it gives me a chronological record of finding good songs, since the “Liked Songs” playlist will tell me when I added a song to it. I know when I discover a song, and I can easily build a playlist out of things that I have discovered recently. So, that’s what I’ll do. Whenever I write a “This Week” entry, I’ll collect the stuff I’ve been listening to recently, and just hand it to you. If something sparks a particular joy, I can always dive deeper into it. I’ll do a little playlisting, and little curation. Otherwise, here’s some volume:
Desperation AM - Wussy
Who Knows Where Time Goes - Fairport Convention
Black Coffee - Peggy Lee
I So Liked Spring - Linda Smith
Babydoll - Sofie Royer
I Don’t Want to See the World on Fire - The Ink Spots
#19 - Aphex Twin
Find Love - Clem Snide, Eef Barz…
Birdland - Quincy Jones
For Nenette - Jaden Evans, Bill Evans
Hot Sun - Wilco
Sure as the Sun - Wussy
Ya Ready - Freak Slug
Going Home - Alice Coltrane
When things get scary, and the future dims, I turn to movies – to escape, to learn, to remind, to enjoy. Since The Bad Night a couple weeks ago, three standouts in my movie-viewing – 1940’s They Drive By Night, 1994’s The Hudsucker Proxy, and again 1940’s His Girl Friday – have felt like real standouts in my recent media diet.
They Drive by Night was the first movie I picked from The Criterion Collection’s long and varied selections for this year’s “Noirvember”, which is just a cute name and idea that the great writer Marya E. Gates started in 2010 for watching film noir in November. The film has rattled around in my head for years, and I finally hit play. The movie does not play like a noir at all, which was all the more thrilling when Ida Lupino took her character from a jealous lover to something much darker, acting in extreme contrast to the rest of the everyman drama that the movie sets out to be. Lupino’s was one of the most exciting performances I have seen in ages; she completely dominates the climactic portion of the film. I wrote a little more about it on Letterboxd.
The Hudsucker Proxy is one of the few remaining Coen brother’s films that I am watching for the first time, in my very drawn-out chronological viewing of their films. I’ve always enjoyed their work, but this project is really cementing them as maybe my favorite American filmmakers. The experience of watching this, their fifth feature film, paired with all of their previous films, it’s barely believable that two people came up with and were able to execute on so many different things. A crime movie, a (bizarre) class comedy, a gangster movie, a (bizarre) Hollywood commentary movie, and now a (bizarre) rags-to-riches/corruption comedy à la Frank Capra? And they’re about to make Fargo and The Big Lebowski? This is all old news, of course, but living the truth for yourself is different than being told the truth. I hope you spend some time with these truths some day soon.
His Girl Friday is one of the most celebrated classics we have in this country, and rightfully so. It’s playful, funny, smart, sharp, dramatic, and features brilliant performances. Experiencing the story of a corrupt and morally bankrupt New York mayor who will pay anyone to do anything that helps him get re-elected, amid the threat of an invading political ideology that demands everyone knows where everyone else stands, days after our last election? That was quite something. This movie is great, and artists from all eras still have plenty to teach us about ourselves, even now. Seek them out, and listen to them.
Another change in my life the past two weeks has been the amount of reading I’ve done, mostly from independent voices in newsletters and on the world’s hottest new app – that is actually three years old – Bluesky. Jim from the Office is our hottest man, Hawk Tuah and the Zynternet, SCABS on World, Lib Joe Rogan, “Is the red heart emoji MAGA? ❤️”; god, there’s so much happening so fast, turning us into cretins, and then being forgotten immediately. I’ve made this recommendation before, but I have been even more reliant and thankful for the work of Ryan Broderick on the Garbage Day newsletter, which explains what the hell is happening on the internet, tells you what it means, and lets you know what you don’t need to pay attention to. It took me a couple of issues to catch up to his speed, but his insight and his curiosity have been wonderful for me. You can subscribe right here. I think you should give it a shot, if you want to be informed about the internet part of the world. God bless you if you have the strength to remain ignorant and blissful.
Finally, a good post — linked below — about how you can change the world, and change yourself. You don’t have to be rich, or the president, or have three degrees from prestigious universities. You can simply connect people, use your time on individual projects, hype people up, or something else attainable.
“…I think of them as the partygoers who are committed to having a good time, no matter how good the party itself is. Yes, sometimes the music is too loud, the food is bad, the beer is warm, and the whole thing is run by billionaires who are trying to turn your attention into money. You could stand in the corner complaining about how bad and stupid and unfair it all is. Or you could join the handful of people hanging out on the couch and cracking each other up. If enough people do that, eventually the whole party is that couch.”
I’ll see you soon, with more things new.
b
living the truth for yourself is different than being told the truth ⚡️💯