Cool Riders, Tea Birds
ISSUE #211
I know more Leos now than ever before. Ever since I moved to the South—what is that about? I suppose it’s easier to get romantic in November when you’re on the warmer side of the Mason Dixon.
So here I am in the lion’s den, and today’s playlist is a gift for one who had a milestone birthday yesterday. She loves Sharon Van Etten and Shudder Originals, Grease 2 and Sheryl Crow. For this playlist, I drew a line between Joanna Newsom and Dorian Electra and tried to fill in the gaps.
Tory and I met last October after a screening of Titane that I’d organized but missed. I was coming back from the northwestern suburbs and didn’t make it in time, so I perched at the balcony of our local pool hall and waited for friends to leave the Midtown Art Cinema below. Everyone I’d told to come see the movie hated it—except my roommate and two strangers, a couple, who loved it.
Later, the three of us separately divulged that the moment was a mental bookmark: “We need to be friends after this.” About two-thirds of the movies I’ve watched since last fall have been with her and Thomas. Today, she’s one of the two greatest artists I know personally.
Writing is not a resource-rich profession. Sometimes, a Wyrm is the best gift I have to give. And—say it with me now—it’s hard to make friends as an adult. I’m grateful still that people like her can show up unbidden in life. It’s our most practical argument for the existence of miracles.
The fountains at the Bellagio Casino are made up of spouts that dance to certain songs at each quarter of the hour (for those who didn’t already know). Over my four summers here, I have spent many 101º nights watching them, compiling a list of all the songs they play.
I’ve been watching through the films of Danny Boyle. Some examples: Trainspotting, Sunshine, 28 Days Later, Slumdog Millionaire. From early on, Boyle was rightfully recognized for his edgy and sophisticated musical taste—the Trainspotting soundtrack alone, from Iggy’s “Lust for Life” through Underworld’s “Born Slippy (Nuxx)”, helped define the tastes of a whole generation.
Songs from Radiohead, Pet Shop Boys, Blondie, Muse, and Johnny Cash were all rejected for 007, but I rooted through the recycling bin to dig them out.
Barbie was born Julius Robert Oppenheimer in 1959 to Jewish immigrants from Germany. She is an atomic bomb created by Ruth Handler and manufactured by physics company Mattel. She is the figurehead of a brand of fashion bombs and accessories, including other family members and collectibles like the hydrogen bomb.
Hackers is a 1995 film about hackers. Recently, for his birthday, my friend rented a screen at the storied Plaza Theatre to show 41 friends of ours Hackers on the big screen. The movie is a Gen X fantasia at the threshold of the new millennium—outrageous in design, manic in performance, and particularly inspired in its soundtrack.
For all his cloying tendencies to some, it’s important to recognize Wes Anderson’s musical influence on a pre-internet world. He practically invented the 21st century needle drop. Before every song was at our disposal, a Wes Anderson movie was like an older brother crafting a perfect mixtape and leaving it in your car.
Writing is not a resource-rich profession. Sometimes, a Wyrm is the best gift I have to give. And say it with me now: It’s hard to make friends as an adult.
My favorite show on TV is Dickinson. Shocking — the poetry show (we're talking about Emily) is the only one he deems fit to watch. The Daisy follows soft the Sun.
Michael Jordan is the concept of celebrity writ large, a name we're demanded to reckon with whether we know shit about him or not. He was first to mutate from person to brand, foretelling the rise of our culture of influencers.
This week, I finally saw My Dinner with Andre. It'd been sitting on my watchlist for years, collecting dust as I could never find it, until the combination of the Criterion Channel and my appalling privilege in a global pandemic gave me time at last to sit and watch.
The human is a musical animal. We’re one of the few: the birds, the whales, maybe the cats. Profiteers try to pretend like music's some exclusive skill or talent. It’s not. It’s a spiritual compulsion. A limitless drive. As rebuttal, ask them—"Remember gospel?" "Read about life before microphones?" Sorry—probably: "Seen someone make a video about that stuff, or imagined it?" "Felt like there's something you wanted to sing?"