21 June 2019
“Summer gathered in the weather, the wind had the proper touch, the breathing of the world was long and warm and slow.”
This Week
Summer has stubbornly refused to grace Chicago with its presence, but I remain hopeful it’s on its way. Life continues to be busy for me, so no new writing or news this week. I hope the newsletters on Substack are working out for you. Did you know that you can “like” and reply to newsletter posts on Substack? I never pass up an opportunity to click a little heart somewhere. If you’re so inclined, check out the newsletters on the Substack website for those features. I’m also planning to try an open thread in the future, to get some discussion happening. In the meantime, feel free to add a comment.
Links
The Cuyahoga River fire, fifty years later.
How Anne of Green Gables was the best friend a queer brown boy could have.
Shannon Keating on the time she went on a lesbian cruise and it blew up her life.
The secret rebellion of Amelia Bedelia.
Inside the world of black market vintage Kool-Aid packet collectors.
“Huddled around a fire in a dark cave, our forebears must have thrilled to tales of light and dark, of good and evil, of life and death. Such things lie beyond the safe circle of the firelight. Who knows what dwells out there, in the dark?” Are crime thrillers our new folklore?
Why Nine Inch Nails’s Trent Reznor is having a pop moment.
“If you take the Green Line from downtown, look west just before you reach the Ashland stop. You can peer through the second-floor window of a brick building and see workers shaping columns of wood on a lathe. That’s the Lyon & Healy factory. They make harps there.” The Chicago harp that rules the world.
The American dreamsicle: the history of frozen treats.
For humans, “survival of the fittest” means being sympathetic.
Reading/Watching/Listening
Hey, let’s talk about Under the Silver Lake (limited release). This is not for the faint of heart, by which I mean for the filmgoer who likes things such as narrative transparency or timely resolution. It’s a lengthy, metaphor-laden love letter to/indictment of Hollywood and cinema that is also a love letter to/indictment of the generation who grew up with Nirvana and Nintendo. I found it at turns bewildering, boring and compelling. It never quite reached the sublime, although it got damn close—and I’m not certain that the near miss wasn’t entirely by design. (By the way, I hear this film will be on Amazon Prime on July 1.)
For bonus points, pair Under the Silver Lake with David Cronenberg’s 2014 Maps to the Stars, which recently hit Netflix. Fun for the whole family.
On the sweet and sincere front, the documentary Bathtubs Over Broadway (Netflix) traces the journey of Steve Young, a late night comedy writer, in his longtime obsession with collecting recordings of industrial musicals, mid-century corporate theater that promoted a company’s product and success but were never intended for public consumption. The initial attraction is the simple love of the offbeat—who wouldn’t appreciate a full-length musical based on bathroom fixtures—but the film grows into a deeper consideration of what it means to make art and to be able to make art in a material culture.
Black Mirror, Season 5 (Netflix). So this happened. It’s rather uneventful as a whole, but with some interesting moments.
There’s a new Springsteen album out. It’s a good one.
Screening
I’m enjoying Substack’s video embed feature, so I’ve decided to take advantage of it and highlight some worthwhile short films. This week: a footage compilation about the years of superficial, tedious, and demeaning questions endured by Debbie Harry: Deborah Harry Does Not Like Interviews. Directed by Meghan Fredrich.
Keep thinking summer thoughts.
Love,
Jen
Connections
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Today’s quote is from Ray Bradbury’s Dandelion Wine:
“It was a quiet morning, the town covered over with darkness and at ease in bed. Summer gathered in the weather, the wind had the proper touch, the breathing of the world was long and warm and slow. You had only to rise, lean from your window, and know that this indeed was the first real time of freedom and living, this was the first morning of summer.”