Big Lyttle Lies

ISSUE #58

Another long-standing commission, this time from the designer of my beautiful logo, and technically also my g.f. She's wanted me to do this since maybe Issue #1, and I kept putting it off because it's like what am I, HBO sponcon?! (This is where we laugh). Now's perfect timing, though, with Season 2 up on Sunday.

I mainly remember the show from being the thing I watched before Twin Peaks: The Return my first summer in Atlanta, when I was poor enough that I couldn't afford anything but canned tuna. My roommate found a bag of Strawberry Fanta syrup at work, the kind that's supposed to go straight into the soda machine. I would splash a bit of that in vodka and return to the sea-foam haze of Monterey every week. That was my bachelor life. It wasn't a show I loved with my whole heart, but it was a perfect respite from my musty basement apartment on a trash-strewn freeway. Just seeing rooms that big was nice, even on TV. Later, loving someone who loved it, it grew fondly in my memory, like a patch of salt-sprayed moss.

The soundtrack was one of the show's big selling points. Playing picnic table slow jams over a domestic thriller made the whole thing hum with mystery. The songs are like a white noise machine, but instead of rain it's the sound of a summer under the fairy lights. It's a nice vibe to return to on long drives or lonely nights. This playlist has my own version of things; some songs that I think are synonyms. Consider it my thesaurus for the soundtrack.

Come to my place Sunday, we'll put it on the big screen!