In Case You Missed It #2
My monthly round-up of all the excellent things.
Hilma af Klint: Group IV, Nos. 3 and 4, Youth, The Ten Largest, 1907.
Hello and welcome to the opposite of doom scrolling :)
If you’re new here, welcome! Each month I send out an eclectic collection of some of the brilliant things I have chanced upon that I loved so much I think you might too! I keep the list concise and I give each featured item a little context so you can determine if it’s for you or not, links provided of course. I’d also never assume you didn’t get there before me, hence the In Case You Missed It of it all. I hope you enjoy this month’s curation of delights!
Briefly, ICYMI on here, we concluded our reading of The Little Prince, dipped into Rilke’s Letters to a Young Poet, shared some fond Fleabag memories which even got hand-picked by Substack Reads (wooop!) and we got real with the amazing Jill Gutowitz’s Girls Can Kiss Now — these readings along with the weekly poetry curation are still totally free for all subscribers so join the audio party here and check out the latest poetry posts here we’ve been exploring work from Ann Lauterbach, Seamus Heaney, Louise Androlia and the endlessly mysterious, Nayyirah Waheed!
The Cult Film Club had its first watch party and discussion group this Sunday just gone and it was JOYOUS I tell you — we discussed all the things, celebrated a community member’s birthday and started to gather suggestions for our next film pick, will you join us?? You can catch up and get involved in the continuing discussion here.
I also wrote about the incredible artist Hilma af Klint and the life altering experience of seeing her work in person. And I shared a piece on my creative process and the joy of the slow burn build: Experiments & Updates — learning how to show up with consistency and gentleness.
Lots going on and lots more to come. To keep abreast of all the latest happenings, sign up below…
Now, onto the main event…
*If you have any trouble reaching the end of this post as an email, click ‘view entire message’, apparently that should sort it :) or read it on Substack*
ON SUBSTACK
on AI demand already shrinking
More reasons to love Substack. Wow. Ted Gioia’s patch The Honest Broker is a largess of everything I love about journalism — you know those journalists that were actually born to do it and their pieces read like a tall glass of water? Thoroughly researched, beautifully, fluidly written, expertly articulate, fascinating pieces on everything from music to creative economics to this wonderful piece on the already declining numbers relating to AI. Could it be the Mini-Disk of our age? I could have shared any number of Ted’s posts honestly (ok because I can’t resist here’s one more of his I adored The Death of the Slow Dance (and Other Emerging Trends)) but I found the AI piece in particular wildly illuminating and enormously reassuring — Ted’s even got a graph to prove it.
on When you don’t want to talk about it
HARD relate. In this incredibly personal piece, Emma shares an experience she had during a recent interview for her book The Success Myth and though this will very obviously resonate with people that are in the business of promoting their creative wares (hi), it is ultimately a very powerful piece of writing about boundaries and learning to recognise, honour and tend to even the tiniest of signals that our body is (constantly) sending us.
on Plants that make magic (and The Joy of Pondering)
Wholesome garden/gardening content? Yes, please. Garden designer Jo Thompson’s Substack is a lush bounty of knowledge for gardeners of all levels and spaces (from windowsills to small holdings) but it’s also a really peaceful place to hang out. This recent piece on pondering or what I like to refer to as doing nothing, was absolutely gorgeous.
LIZ FREAKING GILBERT — LETTERS FROM LOVE
Ok computer.
If you’ve ever doubted that you are creative, it was Liz Gilbert who taught me that we are ALL creative because thought is creative.
*mic drop*
I joined Liz’s Substack as early as I joined Substack itself (last December) though at the time, she, like me, remained hidden in the shadows. Learning no doubt, and plotting. I stepped out into the light in February of course, but still nothing from Liz… until now. FINALLY, we all gasped in unison as if coming up for air and the Substack side of the internet, broke.
I consider Liz Gilbert a modern-day High Priestess, an embodiment of creative sacredness, her words a holy grail to live by - she of course, finally launched her Substack Letters from Love for reals and its mission, its purpose, its specificity and its soul-inspired beauty knocked me off my perch and into the soft heady snug of my heart. It feels a little like Substack itself could just become a Letters from Love platform and we’d be sorted. Humanity that it is.
Like most people I’ve begun a Letters from Love practise off the back of it and already experienced a profound exchange with something that is undeniably beyond myself. I don’t imagine there’s a single one of us who couldn’t do with more Love in our lives and this is a great place to start.
on Houses she can’t quite believe exist (that can even look like a pencil)
I scream-lolled reading this piece by the inimitable Sophie Heawood who reviews houses for sale - from the bizarre to the sublime (but frankly ridiculous prices). If you’ve ever spent hours trawling through house sale apps just for the hell of it you will adore these hilarious hot takes from Sophie. It’s such a genius idea. Occasionally there’s a property she really loves but I cannot stop thinking about the paranoid grey triangle house in Highgate which is what brought her Substack to my attention.
of on The Wonder of Reading
Trinity College Library, Dublin, Ireland.
According to her ‘about page’, Maya C. Popa is a writer, editor and teacher (at NYU) but I know her as someone who creates deeply thoughtful posts on her love of words, and shares tons of incredible poetry on the daily. Her Substack might not be as prolifically known as those mentioned above but she has a mightily growing audience, one of whom is an avid me. This recent post on how the art-form of literature is “produced” by the very act of reading was a beautiful, brief but deeply meta (and artful) experience. LOVED.
ART
The View From Here by Tilda Swinton
I adored reconnecting with this gorgeous piece which I was reminded of whilst sharing the work of the poet Ann Lauterbach recently, with whom I think Tilda Swinton shares a face along with a number of other fine attributes, one of which is their relationship to art.
The View From Here is a miasma of delights. Originally written by Swinton for the British Film Institute’s Sight and Sound magazine’s April 2020 issue, this is a sort of long-form poem for anyone who loves film, words, beautiful things, or honestly, any kind of art. This went out in print so I’ve shared an image of it below.
If you’re enjoying reading this piece and regularly engage with my free offerings, consider becoming a paid subscriber to support my work on Substack and enable me to always keep some posts free. Subscriptions start from just over £1 a week when you take out an annual membership.
KATE at the Soho Theatre
Do you know this extraordinary woman’s work? She’s in a comedy duo with John Early and I could watch the pair of them wryly flirting with each other and the camera all day long but a live, in person, non-stop 70 minute show with Kate Herself? She makes me laugh so hard that pee comes out, I’ll see you there.
ELSEWHERE ON THE INTERNET
Harold Perrineau on Everything Romeo + Juliet
From L to R Leonardo DiCaprio (Romeo), Harold Perrineau (Mercutio), Dash Mihok (Benvolio), Jamie Kennedy (Sampson) and Zak Orth (Gregory).
The boys, the boys.
Just in case I haven’t made it clear in any number of my recent posts how much I love Baz Luhrmann’s Romeo + Juliet, here’s an interview with Harold Perrineau (Mercutio) I found from 2020 during a deep dive/ worm hole I fell into last week. He had time on his hands I guess, and we were all indulging our nostalgia that year more than most so you will find Perrineau generous to say the least with the inside scoop from the set of R+J and the partying outside of it. Put it this way, what happened in Mexico City… didn’t stay there. For mega fans who can’t get enough, I guarantee you Perrineau is spilling tea I don’t imagine many aside from those that were with him, were previously party to.
EXCELLENT LISTENS
Parks and Recollection Podcast
S4 Ep18 LUCKY — featuring Hadley Hall Meares
No surprise here, I love the Parks & Recreation podcast (Parks & Recollection) but that’s not why I wanted to share this particular episode which was an unbelievable left-field surprise. Hosts Jim O’Heir (Jerry Gurgich) and Greg Levine (script coordinator) interview Amy Poehler’s stand-in from the show, Hadley Hall Meares. A stand-in’s job is to literally stand in place of the actor whilst the camera is lining up so the actor doesn’t have to — I know. This awesome woman, went from the Parks set “second team” and her aspirations to be a historian and a journalist, and RAN. This is a super charismatic interview tracking her journey towards her dream job and is utterly joyful, compelling and inspiring, plus there’s a ton of behind the scenes info on how the Parks set was run that even as an insider I found really interesting. Hadley’s interview starts at minute 51:51.
NOPE Original Film Score
Daniel Kaluuya in NOPE, dir. Jordan Peele (2022).
Do you like film scores? I do. I listen to them, a lot. The drama! The emotion! The strings! The brass! The percussion! And as a John Williams obsessive, this is one of the best scores I’ve heard, ever. I loved the film NOPE but like any excellent score it served the movie’s story, the narrative propulsion of the film, so I didn’t fully engage with it at the time of watching. Then, when I was sharing some promotional posts on Instagram for our new Cult Film Club I typed in ‘NOPE movie’ to see what music they had, clicked on the song I’ve shared below and lost my mind. Since then I must have listened to the album about 300 times and still going strong… I should’ve known really, Michael Abels also did the score for one of my own films Chevalier, which too is stunning but the NOPE score? Oof, this isn’t just a modern masterpiece, it’s a straight up masterpiece.
Any of these pieces really speaking to you? Anything you’d love to recommend to the community? What’s caught your eye this month? I’d love to hear from you!
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Another delightful collection of suggestions, love all of these.
How fascinating to be a stand in, so many questions?!?
Also, Elizabeth Gilbert arrived exactly at the right time didn’t she ❤️🙏
If you get the chance to see Past Lives at the cinema I would highly recommend it, such a beautiful film. The cinematography alone was incredible but with everything else … wow.
In relation to film scores, The Royal Albert Hall are going to screen Jurassic Park in October over two nights (I think) with the Royal Philharmonic Concert Orchestra who are going to play the film score live alongside. I’ve been to one of these events before, it was amazing and I felt so immersed in the film. It was a magical experience so just wanted to share☺️🧡
So much greatness in this post it’s difficult to highlight. 1) THAT SOUNDTRACK! So good!
2) Perrineau. How fabulous is he? He’s so powerful in that role that I can never see him as anyone else, even with some seriously strong performances in the TV series LOST and OZ. He just embodies Mercutio and that Baz Luhrmann vibe. A great article that takes you back to some young and free days! Thanks Sian