I love a good list.
So I’m bringing this back, as a semi-regular part of this newsletter.
Here’s is my Top 8:
1
I recently introduced a screening of the concert film Ultrapop: Live At The Masonic at RMIT University, here in Melbourne. It was a wild time. Seeing it on the big screen really heightened the experience: giant hulking men, serrated vocals, sound flying every which way, all captured in a beautiful masonic lodge.
2
One of the things I love about the movie Moneyball (2011) is that I don’t entirely understand my own desire to watch it. On the surface, the story has low-key neoliberal vibes (metrics will save us!), but under the hood, I guess it’s a movie about misfits finding their place in the world. Sorkin’s script is admirably understated, by his usual standards.
3
I listened to a lot of the Guided By Voices’ album Bee Thousand in April because I wrote an academic paper about the band. I was specifically studying how Bob Pollard incorporated collage practice into his songwriting, arguing something all self-publishers know by heart: prolificacy is the mother of success.
4
I wrote a piece for the Broken River/Agitator crew’s Substack about cracking the big time. It’s really just a collection of other people’s ideas (smart people, specifically), but I’m happy with how it turned out. Maybe this will help?
5
I’m currently reading Everybody Knows by Jordan Harper, Ma’am Darling: 99 Glimpses of Princess Margaret by Craig Brown, and Bad Behaviour by Mary Gaitskill. I’ll no doubt write about some or all of these in an upcoming newsletter. I’m reading the Princess Margaret thing purely because Craig Brown wrote it; his Beatles book for 2020 is incredible.
6
Despite having sold over 800 million copies of her books, novelist Danielle Steele is still a workaholic. Pretty grim.
7
Hunter S. Thompson is even better dressed than I ever remembered. These are deeply aspirational outfits.
8
If you enjoyed my stoner-noir novel The Student, you’ll probably enjoy this incredible faux Bunnings video. These ads are everywhere in Australia.
END
That’s all.
That’s my Top 8.
— IAIN
PS: Read my public-facing thoughts Twitter and see how I live my life on Instagram.
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