Jackson Pollock, Untitled D11
Hello and welcome to the opposite of doom scrolling :)
We’ve had a wonderful influx of new subscribers on here in the last few days — welcome! And not a moment too soon as I have a new offering for you campers!
It has come to my attention that I am a vehement recommender. If I love something I shout about it from the rooftops. There are countless independent brands and think pieces that I stumble upon every week not to mention things that I watch, listen to, or even visit, where I think ‘I wish everyone knew about this!’. So once a month I am going to send you an eclectic collection of everything I’ve discovered that I love so much I think you might too, could be: books, movies, podcasts, exhibitions, articles, places of interest, things to buy. It may seem random but it will be intentional and joyously specific and of course, I’d never assume you didn’t get there before me, hence the In Case You Missed It of it all.
I don’t want to overwhelm anyone with content either, god knows we’ve got plenty of that in our lives already so the list will be concise and I’ll give each item featured a little context so you can see if it’s your thing before exploring further. Think of it as my version of Time Out’s Top Picks. Side note: I will still be sending out my long-form Cultural Digests monthly too, but these will focus on something in much more detail that has particularly stood out for me or provoked an internal discussion that I feel I need to express or else explode! For regular readers, a small schedule change for these (the last one, I promise), they will now go out on Tuesdays.
Incidentally, ICYMI on Still Space, this month we’re finishing up our first series of readings with the concluding part of The Little Prince incoming this Sunday. I also offered up my own hot take on the Barbenheimer saga and its potentially life-saving benefits to the film industry. And there was a surprise highlight from our weekly poetry curation Wear Sunscreen which brought a whole raft of new people on over here and has inspired an idea for another offering which I’ll be sending more details out about soon. Subscribe below to make sure you don’t miss out on any updates.
That’s enough about me for now though, off we go!
ON SUBSTACK
Farrah Storr on The Collapse of Supermodelmania
Oh my god THIS PIECE. I’ve spoken about Farrah on here before but she’s my favourite writer on Substack and this piece is the perfect example of why. She is speaking as a former insider of the magazine and fashion industries (she was the editor of Elle and Cosmopolitan amongst others) and the adroitness and hilarity with which she interrogates cultural hysteria is utterly sublime. This post examining this particularly historic moment for Vogue and supermodels themselves is no different: thoughtful, insightful and surprisingly moving.
Jessica DeFino on There being no ethical way to sell products that target anti-aging
Oof! Jessica DeFino writes THE UNPUBLISHABLE: What the beauty industry won’t tell you, from a reporter on a mission to reform it and she is my go-to person for the most thought-provoking content on Substack for the sheer bare faced honesty (pun intended) with which she writes. It’s truly exhilarating. Expect to see lots more pieces from her recommended on here but this first piece is actually a transcript of a podcast interview with her that she was unknowingly coerced into by a celebrity skincare brand that remains anonymous. This piece is life-affirming, hilariously damning of the beauty industry and the fearsome intellect with which she backs up her theories, particularly when it comes to the recent pivot to rebrand products as ‘pro-aging’ is more refreshing than shoving your face into an ice water plunge.
Emma Gannon on How she makes six figures on Substack
Don’t be misled by the title of this piece, this is no ‘get rich quick’ post, I believe there’s some irony intended here by my very clever friend Emma. This is an incredibly informative piece on how she has grown her audience on Substack but it’s also a wonderful exploration of Substack itself and why it seems to be working so well for her as a platform. Whether or not you’re new to Substack, if you’re a writer and you want to establish your presence more on here, this post offers up some really astute insights from someone who is experiencing great success with it, on her own terms.
Thought-provoking articles from elsewhere on the World Wide Web
To be Frank.
I loved this brief piece exploring the lifelong friendship between David Baddiel and Frank Skinner despite their wildly opposing spiritual world views. It was in a print edition of The Tablet so I have included an image of it below.
Amy Key on Being the only single one among her friends
I’m yet to read Amy Key’s novel on living without romantic love Arrangements in Blue but I am one hundred percent going to order it on the back of this piece which she has written through the lens of an episode of And Just Like That for Vogue. This is a phenomenal piece of writing on female friendship, expectations and exclusions, and the defiant freedom as well as the sometimes deathly loneliness of single-life.
How can romantic pairs create enough space in their love so that friends aren’t relegated to being an afterthought? Amy Key
TELEVISION
The Great North
The Great North was recommended to me on July 7th and I am currently on my third watch of all three seasons (a fourth is due in September!). It is now a fundamental part of my feel-good show playlist which also includes Friends, Parks & Recreation and Schitt’s Creek which I basically watch on a loop. It was created by the makers of Bob’s Burgers, you may recognise the animation style but The Great North is set in the much less urban, fictional town of Lone Moose and centres around the Tobin family. It is hilarious, wonderfully bizarre, full of love and community and SONGS, with the most incredible collection of American comics voicing the characters. I find it enormously comforting to watch. Oh, and Alanis Morissette plays someone’s imaginary friend superbly.
LATE TO THE PARTY
The Office (US)
Let’s end on a big one. I finally went over to the dark side chaps. It took a LOT of convincing - and more episodes than I’d like to get onboard with it - but I am nearing the end of the US version of The Office and I started it a few weeks east of The Great North so even binge feels like a bit of an understatement, it has been my constant companion for the past couple of weeks. I am so horribly invested in the characters and their lives that I rather fear for myself that those narratives are about to come to an end. In fact I really need to get back to the final four episodes pretty much as soon as this post is published so this is just to say to any Brits on the fence about watching it:
it is totally it’s own thing, a completely different show (there really is no comparison to the UK original)
it is inherently American - in a good way in my opinion (they eventually shave the edge off the cringe and replace it with more heart)
you will need to keep going towards at least the middle/ end of Season 2 (maybe S2 Ep 9 at a push) to know if it’s worth watching
it is (almost annoyingly so) definitely worth watching
It is also a rather lovely thing to watch something right now that not everyone else is glued to.
*Update: I just finished the finale episode and SOBBED and cannot not share this quote with you from near the end because it really demonstrates the perfect blend of the ordinary and the extraordinary that this show captures.*
It’d be great if someone saw this documentary and learned from my mistakes. It would just -- just make my heart soar if someone out there saw this and she said to herself, “Be strong. Trust yourself, love yourself. Conquer your fears. Just go after what you want. And act fast because life just isn’t that long.”
I thought it was weird when you picked us to make a documentary. But all in all… I think an ordinary paper company like Dunder Mifflin was a great subject for a documentary. There’s a lot of beauty in ordinary things.
Pam Beesly, The Office
Let me know what you thought - any of these pieces really speaking to you? Anything you’d love to recommend to the community? What’s caught your eye this month?
Kristen Wiig?? SOLD. 🥳🥳
Love a recommendation, you never know what you might find or see. It may be something you may never of thought of watching or reading before.
Abbott Elementary is excellent if you haven’t seen it :) Also something completely out there but a lot of fun is the movie Barb and Star Go to Vista Del Mar...
Definitely going to order the Amy Key book.