Fran Magazine: Issue #108
Summertime housekeeping & a discussion post
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Housekeeping
I keep saying “I can’t believe it’s not June!” which it isn’t yet but it might as well be. School’s out, Titus Groan is done, we’re all moving along with our lives with these longer days and sticky nights. I had planned to take all of August off in a vaguely European fashion, but then I was lucky enough to get into a residency program for a few weeks in late June into early July (which is a less vaguely European time of year). All of that is to say that there will be two more weeks of me behind the curtain at Fran Magazine, and then I’ll be off in the mountains with very limited internet access.
Fran Magazine, however, will not cease in my absence! For those weeks, there will be a beautiful trifecta of guest posts from past and new contributors alike. Sunday Dispatches will take a near-month long hiatus which is fine because it’ll be a minor miracle if I figure out how to watch movies in an otherwise remote area.1 And then I’ll be back the second week of July and we’ll pick up everything like normal. My dream of “taking the whole month of August off in a vaguely European way” will have to wait until next year, maybe.
As I’ve started to do vague prep for the residency, I’m finding I field a lot of the same questions about the how/what/why of it all, most of which I am happy to talk about with full transparency.
What exactly does this mean?
An artists or writers residency is sort of like a working vacation: a somewhat isolated retreat in which the participant loosely agrees to not do any of their “real work” so they can have a few interrupted weeks, usually ranging from one to half a year, to do whatever creative work they want to do. Sometimes these are funded (they pay you to go); sometimes not (you pay to go). Sometimes you’re by yourself; sometimes you have a cohort.
Have you done this before?
Yes, I spent a month in Idaho back in 2021 working on a novel manuscript that eventually did not sell.
Where are you going this time?
The beautiful Adirondack mountains :)
Does the geographic location have anything to do with what you’re working on or is it random?
It’s mostly random. I apply to about two residencies once a month all across the country and I accept whatever comes my way so long as the price and timing feels right. In Idaho I did spent some time doing local research. That is less the focus in the Adirondacks — where mostly I am trying to be as “off-grid” as humanly possible while also being someone whose livelihood is dependent on email — though I’ll have access to a working farm which may play a part in some research I’m doing.
Can I ask what you’re working on or are you “not allowed to talk about that”?
I have a vague sense of why people like to protect what they work on, and I was one of those people for a long time, but I’ve by and large found that being transparent about projects is often useful in terms of a) getting good at explaining what it is you do to people so you don’t wind up at a party being like, “oh I sit on computer or whatever” (which I am guilty of doing — but I need to knock it off!!!) and b) having what can often be inspiring or motivating conversations with people about whatever project you’re working on. You never know who will have a book recommendation or a movie recommendation or a long magazine article recommendation.
That said, I haven’t totally decided what it is I’m going to work on there. I applied with the intention of working on a new novel project I started last summer which is about a shopping mall in Antarctica. I’ve since started working on a nonfiction project about classical music, and also doing some outlining of a new short story or novella about Sherman’s March to the Sea. It’s possible, also, that I’ll wind up spending 60% of my time reading. I’m hoping to really just lean into what feels most motivating when I get there.
What are you planning to read there?
That’s really my big question right now. The best advice I got for doing residencies came from Queen of Going on Residency
who suggested what feels like a very obvious note in retrospect which is to bring a mix of reading. It’s tempting to feel like you will be able to tackle the most immense, deliberate “literary” reading when otherwise off on your own, but it’s nice to have something normal and pulpy too — a detective novel or a romance book that doesn’t factor into research at all.I have a reading long list that looks something like this right now:
Otherlands, Thomas Halliday
The Romance of American Communism, Vivian Gornick
Capitalist Realism, Mark Fisher
On the Ice: An Intimate Portrait of Life at McMurdo Station, Antarctica, Gretchen Legler
Three Rocks: The Story of Ernie Bushmiller, Bill Griffith
The Best of Everything, Rona Jaffe (reread)
??? something Ferrante reread — I have fond memory of reading all the Neapolitans across three weeks in 2018, and part of me is like, well, what if I do that again? But I think that might be overextending myself. Or maybe I’ll do some of her nonfiction I haven’t read before.
What is the point of doing this?
To get a lot of work done during a relatively short amount of time that hopefully doesn’t fuck with my cashflow too much and allows for space and distance from a lifestyle that requires a certain degree of “cultural awareness” often to my own pessimism or detriment. As much as I love teaching and blogging and running New York City’s most beloved Substack empire, these often get in the way of the work that is important for me to maintain in order to actually enjoy my life. It’s also nice to meet other working artists from across the country — make friends, cook meals, talk process, see the stars.
And?
I don’t know! Anyone can ask anything about this. I don’t think these programs are obscured or difficulty to apply to, but as much as I’m able to guide interested people into this world, I’m happy to do so.
I am still a bit burnt out from some writing and deadlines and #MervynMay and the four-day week, so the rest of this magazine will be a discussion post based on a conversation I had with friend of Fran Magazine Harris about oversights in our film viewing and how we’ve held out on some obvious classics because we want to see them in a perfect setting. Harris wrote to me: “There was a night in 2014… and I said Barry Lyndon or Paris, Texas. I did Barry Lyndon, and it became my favorite movie, and I am constantly chasing that dragon [for Paris, Texas].”
For me, personally, the answer to this question is Lawrence of Arabia, which I (no Ted Sarandos’s son) tried to watch on laptop like eight years ago and was like wait what the fuck and put it away. It screens on the big screen here sometimes but not as frequently as various Wong Kar-Wai or random Scorseses. I was annoyed to miss it at the Paris, which is probably the most optimal rep to see it at. The best place to see it is likely the Music Box, but I live in Brooklyn. I also have a few films that are the one remaining entry in a director’s filmography that I am holding out on for… no real reason (including QT’s Death Proof and Mann’s Ali). I love Lean and I feel like this is the one I need to not watch on someone’s television when petsitting or on computer resting on my stomach or even on my admittedly nice giant TV in the living room.
Discussions have proven fruitful and fun in the past, so not to like, QT discussion tweet “what’s a SCENE from MOVIE” type post, but: I’d love to hear from folks what they’ve been holding out on, why they’ve waited, what the optimal viewing situation might be. I have full faith that everyone here will see what they want to see how they want to see it — it just may take some time.
I keep thinking about whether or not it’d be worth downloading a few movies to watch without the internet and whether that’s worth my time while writing, or if I should just pour myself into reading. It seems nice, in theory, to have a viewing project to come back to every night, but I haven’t been able to land on anything that feels right.
I was 14 in 2015, meaning Fury Road in a theater was just out of reach for me despite really wanting to see it, so for nine years now I held out saying “I want to watch this in the right context.” it had such power over so many people that I didn’t just want to throw it on any old day or watch it on a laptop. Turns out the right context was Monday night, the day before I saw Furiosa on Tuesday. Hopes for a theatrical re-release futile, I watched it on my busted old tiny TV, but I did so with a friend who I have watched all the MM movies over the past week. Wept through the whole thing, naturally.
I used to be a lot more precious about this stuff, but circumstances of my life and my increasing voraciousness for movies has kind of put a stop to it. For example, Lawrence of Arabia was a big "I'll wait for a rep screening" movie for me, and then they put it on Criterion Channel some weekend when I was trying to chase away the Sunday scaries on a too-open afternoon. I've got a TV that is good, not great. And I have to say, I really don't regret watching it at home. I will see it again in theaters some day, and I look forward to that day! But the thing about it is, it still felt immense to me.
That said, I think a lot of slow cinema is the kind of thing I know I'll fall asleep to at home, but when I'm in the theater I'll have an easier time appreciating Tsai Ming-Liang, or Weerasethakul, or Tarkovsky. I've never seen any Bresson and I might wait until I can catch a screening of Pickpocket or something.