Keep one eye on the horizon, you best not blink.
They're coming fin by fin until the whole boat sinks.
There’s a scene towards the end of ‘Fleishman Is In Trouble’ (the show, not the book) where the narrator Libby Epstein (played memorably by Lizzy Caplan) resolves her character arc:
“And what were you going to do with the fact that time was going to march on anyway? What were you going to do with the fact that you couldn’t win this fight?
That was the problem.
You were not ever going to be young again. You were only at risk for remembering that this was as good as it would get in every single moment.
That you are right now as young as you will ever be again.
And now. And now. And now…”
And she keeps repeating that phrase ‘and now’ over and over again as a montage of all her memories flood back - from playing Uno in bed with the kids, to angry silent family car trips, to flashbacks of overseas exchange as a student, to brief moments of laughter in friendship… I found the whole thing so affecting.
The Roches - ‘Hammond Song (Live)’
If you’re in your late thirties, and doing the impossible professional couple ambition juggle with kids you want to be with all the time, and occasionally have brief fantasies about burying your phone under a tree in the forest… then you might find moments of yourself in this one.
Iam Tongi Makes The Judges Cry With His Emotional Story And Song - American Idol 2023
I have always loved trance. I’m not saying it’s my defining musical genre. But in the puzzle of my music taste, it’s worthy of a few pieces.
Robert Miles ‘Children’, Tiesto ‘Adagio for Strings’, Faithless ‘Insomnia’, Chicane ‘Don’t Give Up’, that key hook in ATB ‘9PM (Till I Come)… .
The Story of Sandstorm by Darude
I think the borderline eurotrashycheesiness has put people off for most of the last 20 years. But that’s changing. Via one of my favourite Substacks - First Floor - I discovered Montreal-based TDJ who is at the vanguard of a trance resurgence.
“When I started TDJ, the world was so dark, I felt like everybody needed some light. Trance is the perfect music to just project yourself and dream for a minute, to let yourself go.”
As Pitchfork itself noted recently, Trance Is Back—and It’s No Joke.
SPF INFINI 2: TDJ GOES TO TULUM
Recommended Reading
Navigating the unpredictability of everything
Speak to yourself the way you would speak to a friend.
How to Be 18 Years Old Again for Only $2 Million a Year
Saying Yes More Slowly Will Allow You to Say No More Often
People Started Buying Crocs During The Pandemic. They Can’t Stop.
Missy Higgins - Shark Fin Blues
“I didn’t realize the real power I had was that I had no obligations. . . . I can’t believe how briefly I held it, and how quickly I gave it away.”
- Libby Epstein, Fleishman Is In Trouble
Super Bowl LVII: Chris Stapleton gives a moving rendition of the 'National Anthem
My favourite recent longform discovery was this article from The Pudding (article doesn’t really do it justice). In a world where websites are basically dead, The Pudding pushes the boundaries of what a browser can do.
In this case, they break down Ali Wong’s Netflix special ‘Baby Cobra’ line by line, and section by section, to make visible its structural genius. The whole transcript is gripping reading.
“The last time I was at home in San Francisco, I was trying to help her get rid of shit. Don’t ever do that with your mom. It was like the worst experience of my life. It was so emotional. We were screaming and fighting and yelling and it all came to a climax when she refused to let go of a Texas Instruments TI-82… manual. The manual. She don’t even know… where the calculator is.
Those of you under 25 probably don’t know what that calculator is. It was this calculator that bamboozled my generation. We were all required to buy it when we were in eight grade. It cost like $200. And everybody thought it was like this Judy Jetson’s laptop from the future. All because what? It could graph. It was like the Tesla of my time. And my mom got so emotional about the manual and she was like, “You never know when you might need this.” And I was like, “But… I do know… that I’m gonna have to clean all this shit up when you die.” “And I’m not trying to be a procrastinator anymore. Because according to Deepak-Oprah, that’s not the way for me to achieve my optimum level of success.”
Recommended Reading Pt. 2
The Fugee, the Fugitive and the FBI
The Best Debut Albums Ever, Ranked
My 8 Best Techniques for Evaluating Character
My Criticism Is the Highest Compliment I Can Pay You
The Intertwining History of the ‘Avatar’ Papyrus Font and the ‘SNL’ Sketch That Spoofed It
Undergrad Gets Roasted For 6 Minutes Straight | Stavros Halkias
“I listen to music pretty much all the time, and when I stop listening to music, I know I’m going through something. I’m not a musician, but tunes have always connected me to feelings of possibility and joy.
I’ve come to recognize that when I stop listening to my little playlists and albums, a part of me is shutting down. The stoppage usually follows a period of weeks, or sometimes months, when I haven’t listened to anything new. My usual old standbys sound tinny and hollow and elicit none of the reliable rushes of feeling that they used to. The drug stops working.”
- What Is a Family Home Without Music? By Kathryn Jezer-Morton
MATTY HEALY (The 1975) | CHICKEN SHOP DATE
I love breaking down interview techniques. The balance of deference and curiosity. The subtleties of body positiong, and word choice, and sentence phrasing … all of which combines to elicit some authentic, unfound response from the subject.
There’s a new interview genre I’m obsessed with that I’m going to call targeted awkwardness that somehow finds the unfound in its subjects.
The best proponent is Amelia Dimoldenberg in her series ‘Chicken Shop Date’.
Ziwe, and Caleb Pressley’s Sundae Conversation are also fun, although not always for the guests.
outcomes, consequences, faults,
forties, when the hourglassis beeping and bleak and people
like us have memories like thisand wonder if the beauty that’s left
is really still beautiful, if it was.
The Avalanches - We Will Always Love You (feat. Blood Orange)
Fin by fin
Fin by fin by fin by fin
Fin by fin
Fin by fin by fin by fin.
And now. And now. And now. And now.