I’ve just returned from back-to-back vacations and while I had an undoubtedly lovely time, I feel like my habits changed so significantly even for just a month that I have no recollection of how to return to the habits that I felt were serving me well before, like, August. In some ways, this is a good thing. Ridding myself of potentially bad habits or routines, or things that were not serving me as well as I’d like, becomes easier. I generally become looser on trips, and I think that’s common. “It’s a good thing to let loose on vacation a little bit, that’s kind of the point,” a friend said to me the first time I saw him when I got back. It struck me as mildly profound at the time, not the most obvious thing in the fucking world, as it actually is. It meant more, because this friend is someone I look up to when it comes to adhering to routines that are good for oneself.
But one thing I’d like to at least try, when it comes to Building Back Better Habits, is to track what I’m consuming in the old media on a week-to-week basis. I already sort of do this, but rarely do I think twice about what I read on a daily basis. The hope is that it makes it easier to recall, rather than feel like I’m smart for letting my eyes glaze over an Atlantic feature before coming away unmoved, which I feel is happening more and more frequently.
So!
reading:
"Someone has quote-unquote privilege, but they're being fucked over too. My intention is to say, 'Hey, see yourself in this. Because then you're fighting for yourself and not just out of pity for others." From the Astra Taylor interview in The New Yorker…really good, kind of my ideal interview of a progressive intellectual. I personally am extremely in favor like Taylor, who are unabashedly and often (as she herself admits) aggressively progressive but are also increasingly fed up with the narcissism of the internet left.
“wtf is limerence?” I ask myself reading this essay on Galerie by Matt Wolf about Birth, the 2004 Jonathan Glazer movie starring Nicole Kidman…I am very, very excited for Glazer’s new film, The Zone of Interest
Jonathan Franzen on nature writing, again for The New Yorker. I finished The Corrections the day before my trip started, but I might have liked this piece more. The way Franzen connects nature to attitude in storytelling was more persuasive than most of the stuff in The Corrections, which I found immensely readable but not necessarily profound.
currently reading Annihilation and Stay True. I like Stay True more, but there’s something I respect about how impenetrable Annihilation is, especially considering how much I like that movie.
watching:
started season 4 of Barry when I got back. That’s a show that hits different when you’ve been to LA.
rewatched Se7en and The Game in order to be fresh for the corresponding Blank Check episodes. Se7en is a full-blown masterpiece, probably the best American noir made after like 1950, and I liked The Game more on a rewatch. frankly, I’ll always make time for Fincher even when fall movie chaos reigns.
Telemarketers. I have one episode left. I like it, probably the most out of any of the big docuseries that have popped post-Tiger King, which I never watched.
Earlier this week, my housemate texted me about a movie called The Long Good Friday, which I’d been dying to watch for years but never had a reason to. Holy shit. It’s so good, has a killer Bob Hoskins performance, features a great ending and one of the coolest scores across all of the 1980s. Listening to the main title theme right now; both my housemate and I are obsessed with the sax.
Showgirls was better than I expected, and also much more watchable. It’s hard to watch at times, either out of cringe or out of violence, but it moves at a good clip and I did not ever want to look away. Gina Gershon one of the absolute best to ever do it.
listening:
The Phoenix by Fall Out Boy is my favorite song right now.
Patrick Radden Keefe on How Long Gone, which is not usually a podcast I listen to but a guest I will always make time for. Keefe is one of the coolest smart guys alive.
as for the podcasts I do listen to regularly: I don’t really care to share? because saying I listened to the new Big Picture or Watch or Blank Checks every week would get boring fast.
cheers!
Michael