neighboring sounds is my fav of his movies - has a nice level of conspiracy to it. i'm excited for his secret agent movie this year...
regarding creation lake/rachel kushner/the potential for a left breakthrough post 68 i spent 3 hrs last weekend watching chris marker's a grin without a cat, which also ends up with sort of an ambiguous, slightly pessimistic outlook but in a way that i was swept up enough to be fully bought in
I watch all of his stuff, even the terribly unnecessary Suspended Time from last year, but Wasp Network is just sitting there. Maybe its being a Netflix title means I know it'll always be there and I'll never feel like, "TONIGHT is Wasp Network night at last!"
lena is totally convinced travis is going to propose which i'm like...?? on live tv?? more likely we're getting a single reuters image of them frenching and a video clip of him saying "i love you baby" that swifties will retweet a million times with this 🥹 emoji. snooze!
right to me it is like the exact opposite of their whole media strategy so far - she's THERE at the games, but they seem to be making it less and less of a "thing." and I don't know that she's ever been into public stunts outside of, like, announcing a new album at the Grammys. anyway - go Birds!
ok libel!!!! i am not convinced of this, I only posited it once to wreak havoc in the conversation/watch the world burn...if anything, i do think that if chiefs win she will announce reputation (tv)
I *love* hearing other peoples migraine strategies. Solidarity! I love a heat pack on the neck/shoulders and an icepack over the eyes, meds, caffeine, gingerale. Manta eye masks got me in their instagram advertising and I sing their praises
The heat over my eyes and then on my neck while sleeping was really clutch this time. usually I have a heat/icepack combo but for whatever reason, the ice was doing nothing for me this time, if not making it worse. I am always getting spon for those Manta masks... maybe I should get one. do you take a prescription for the migraines? I had a bad time w sumatriptan years ago and now just do excedrin but I keep thinking about going back to the drawing board w the doc to find something better....
I do, I have a neurologist I really like and I’ve been through the wringer with different meds over the years. Right now I’m on one of the newer preventives that’s a monthly shot that works really well for me, and a different triptan for the rescue. I was using sumatriptan for years and then it finally stopped working and I had to try a bunch of different ones until I found another that worked - it sucks so much to experiment but great once you find the one that works. Every time I see a Nurtec commercial I curse the tv lol. I don’t use excedrine but sometimes I use Tylenol tension headache which is just tylenol + caffeine. Also recommend the Migraine Buddy app to help track headaches and triggers, especially if you’re thinking about seeing a doc soon
extremely helpful, thank you!! one upside to employer-sponsored healthcare is that I might be able to finally afford to work thru this with a specialist versus winging it on my own or with my (admittedly great but not her realm) PCP
hey fran! i am 100% with you on helicopters-seth and i have a running joke where every time we see one on screen or in person, we bring up the fatality statistics on helicopter crashes. lemme tell you: they’re high!! you’re not surviving that shit!! it’s a death machine!!
we saw love hurts, which everyone seems to be hating but we found incredibly charming. on letterboxd the consensus seems to be “yes he should be a leading man! no not like that!” and “cringe and lame and unfunny” but i think people are just not letting the movie be in on the joke. idk. we had a good time
I keep mixing up Love Hurts and Heart Eyes... I am sort of just holding my ground re: new releases til Paddington 3 which I am not even THAT excited for but it would be something to get out of the house for, if nothing else...
i’m vaguely disgusted with myself every time i remember i’ve only read two tana frenches, i enjoyed them so much that i really should have torn through her whole bibliography in one go. (in the woods: surely a seminal “my one friend is always mad at me” text.) soon…
my reading life currently consists of stalling out halfway through namwali serpell’s the old drift…also staring at my library copy of perdido street station
Perdido Street Station is great - I owe myself a reread of that one...
There's certainly some degree of diminishing returns w French but I find I'm never not "in the mood" for whatever she's cooking, even when it's not totally to my taste. I have two of the standalones sitting on a shelf, including her newest one.
i do remember finishing in the woods in physics class and just being physically exhausted by that ending…i found the narrator very relatable in some ways and watching his cowardice wreck his own life in every conceivable way was sort of dizzying to me. she’s kind of a shaky plotter but very good at twisting the natural appeal of her narrative voice, turning those chatty, determined narrators into something dangerous and remote.
(at least, this is my judgment from the two dublin murders books i read…)
I def used to be high frequency episodic in my early 20s though curbing drinking (& sugar consumption, broadly, though I am still addicted to sour patch kids) made a major difference. I tried triptans a few years back but the nausea was way worse - it'd cut the pain in half but I couldn't eat for like 36 hours after, and that just didn't feel worth it. Curious about other preventative measures rather than reactive ones but tbd...
Some day they're going to figure out something like a "cause" for migraines that isn't just "being slightly unhealthy in one of three dozen ways" and then we'll have this thing beat. Glad reducing sugar helps for you! I think lately it's been helping for me, along with different pillows, more sleep, slight caffeine reduction, better exercise and like 1000 other things that marginally help.
Yeah I think better sleep + hydrating also made a big difference too... it's the worst when I can't figure out the trigger, especially when I feel like I'm doing everything right-ish, but oh well. One day!!!!
Haha, this December was bad, and when my fiance was like "What do you think did it this week?" I was like "I have no ideas. 8 hours of sleep, tons of water, caffeine, exercise, no changes in barometric pressure, balanced healthy eating." One day indeed!!!!
I was going to do Creation Lake on audible but Kushner, for some damn reason, reads it herself. Instead of letting a professional read it (and there are many many good choices when your book is buzzy). Her gift is writing, not talking. A sample was enough to turn me off.
that's a shame; I agree for the most part that authors should not read their own audiobooks unless they're a pro. I like Kushner in interview (Criterion channel, etc.) and look forward to whatever's next from her.
Miranda July can do it because she's kind of a performer, among other things. And All Fours seems pretty semi-auto-bio. If you're just about anyone else, hire Marin Ireland or some other top reader!
even in the .0001% chance that Travis proposes to Taylor at the Super Bowl there is not a chance that would be the actual proposal… it would be something they do only because people are so obsessed with them having this "ending" to their "story." if they do get married taylor will drop the news like folklore imho.
anyway in theory i'm neutral on the superbowl but in practice i feel like the weird thinkpieces that will follow a chiefs loss on here may kill me. i wanted them not to make the superbowl at all to avoid this possibility. otoh if the chiefs win travis may be contractually obligated (?) to go to the White House and the pieces about that might kill me too. in a real lose / lose over here.…
Ppl were getting so mad about his statement about Trump going but I do feel for these guys (to the extent that I can feel for professional athletes who are 100 times richer than me) because it is, as you say, totally lose/lose in terms of what anyone says / does
yeah I think being disappointed in him for not going off script is understandable but the script just doesn't mean anything. Most things don't mean anything.
I do wonder if Trump is going to try to force an interaction with Taylor at the game. Obviously it's the kind of thing that _also_ doesn't really matter or mean anything (beyond Trump's need to humiliate people he resents) but I would also feel for our girl in that moment.
oh also tana french rules ofc. i'm probably in the mood for one too. i do find they benefit from being spaced out because if you read them too close together you begin to notice the way she isn't great at differentiating the narrative voices from one book to the next.
Because I am feeling Some Kind Of Way about the world, I’m reading a Christian theology book called How To Have An Enemy: Righteous Anger and the Work of Peace, and I’ve resolved to watch the Andrei Tarkovsky movies I haven’t seen yet. Watched The Sacrifice last night and kept thinking about the line in Cassavetes’ Faces where one half of the couple suggests going to an Ingmar Bergman retrospective at the movies and the other half responds with “I don’t feel like being depressed tonight,” except I very much felt like being depressed last night. I’m going to balance this all out with a Trigun bender, I think.
These seem like great projects during The Times in Which We Live™. I think some kind of movie or reading goal would be helpful in terms of focus and energy... maybe feasible now that I am back from Utah and adjusted to non-traveling life...
I just seconds ago finished The Emigrants, my last unread Sebald — I think I picked it up because Corbet has cited him as an influence on The Brutalist (🤐), but I had the same feeling I had after finishing the last two, which is “actually this one is my favorite”. For many reasons, I feel like spending more time reading about the early twentieth century and the World Wars these days. I liked seeing your beautiful shot of Chicago right after the montage of sorts that closes The Emigrants, where the photographs seem even more central to the work than usual. I would like to see Pictures of Ghosts too, in this vein.
the chances of Brady reading off his iPhone 16 at the Oscars are dropping day by day... is this a WIN or LOSS, we'll never really know... I hope they didn't make him get a bob for nothing :(
Everything I feel drawn to lately is doc/nonfic or some kind of hybrid of either; prefer seeing the world as it is thru someone's eyes than doing any kind of escapist exercise. to that end, maybe I should read, like, a Tina Brown lol...
Despite liking the Brutalist even less than Anora I feel Brutalist BP would be maybe the least annoying of the potential outcomes at this point, except for Complete Unknown (comedy option)
But what is All This, excluding the promo tour? Is Bob Dylan even a hard role??
He wasn't hot/adored by girls, he didn't freak out on drugs, he didn't get fat and he didn't die. Elvis ticked all 4 and do you see Austin Butler with an Oscar?
Bob Dylan just sang folk songs with a Bob Dylan voice.
neighboring sounds is my fav of his movies - has a nice level of conspiracy to it. i'm excited for his secret agent movie this year...
regarding creation lake/rachel kushner/the potential for a left breakthrough post 68 i spent 3 hrs last weekend watching chris marker's a grin without a cat, which also ends up with sort of an ambiguous, slightly pessimistic outlook but in a way that i was swept up enough to be fully bought in
I'm also excited for his secret agent one.. my biggest takeaway from Civil War was "Wagner Moura has the juice"
everyone else hated but i liked assayas' wasp network which he's in too
I need to see that
Hated or just didn't see?
I watch all of his stuff, even the terribly unnecessary Suspended Time from last year, but Wasp Network is just sitting there. Maybe its being a Netflix title means I know it'll always be there and I'll never feel like, "TONIGHT is Wasp Network night at last!"
lena is totally convinced travis is going to propose which i'm like...?? on live tv?? more likely we're getting a single reuters image of them frenching and a video clip of him saying "i love you baby" that swifties will retweet a million times with this 🥹 emoji. snooze!
right to me it is like the exact opposite of their whole media strategy so far - she's THERE at the games, but they seem to be making it less and less of a "thing." and I don't know that she's ever been into public stunts outside of, like, announcing a new album at the Grammys. anyway - go Birds!
ok libel!!!! i am not convinced of this, I only posited it once to wreak havoc in the conversation/watch the world burn...if anything, i do think that if chiefs win she will announce reputation (tv)
now THAT I would like to see!!!!
I *love* hearing other peoples migraine strategies. Solidarity! I love a heat pack on the neck/shoulders and an icepack over the eyes, meds, caffeine, gingerale. Manta eye masks got me in their instagram advertising and I sing their praises
The heat over my eyes and then on my neck while sleeping was really clutch this time. usually I have a heat/icepack combo but for whatever reason, the ice was doing nothing for me this time, if not making it worse. I am always getting spon for those Manta masks... maybe I should get one. do you take a prescription for the migraines? I had a bad time w sumatriptan years ago and now just do excedrin but I keep thinking about going back to the drawing board w the doc to find something better....
I do, I have a neurologist I really like and I’ve been through the wringer with different meds over the years. Right now I’m on one of the newer preventives that’s a monthly shot that works really well for me, and a different triptan for the rescue. I was using sumatriptan for years and then it finally stopped working and I had to try a bunch of different ones until I found another that worked - it sucks so much to experiment but great once you find the one that works. Every time I see a Nurtec commercial I curse the tv lol. I don’t use excedrine but sometimes I use Tylenol tension headache which is just tylenol + caffeine. Also recommend the Migraine Buddy app to help track headaches and triggers, especially if you’re thinking about seeing a doc soon
extremely helpful, thank you!! one upside to employer-sponsored healthcare is that I might be able to finally afford to work thru this with a specialist versus winging it on my own or with my (admittedly great but not her realm) PCP
Tana French is my version of a juice cleanse
this
I get Tana French and Ruth Ware mixed up. Derogatory? And to whom?
Answer, in case anyone cares: Derogatory to French. Ruth Ware has an entertaining book or two, maybe just one, but she's mostly a hack.
hey fran! i am 100% with you on helicopters-seth and i have a running joke where every time we see one on screen or in person, we bring up the fatality statistics on helicopter crashes. lemme tell you: they’re high!! you’re not surviving that shit!! it’s a death machine!!
we saw love hurts, which everyone seems to be hating but we found incredibly charming. on letterboxd the consensus seems to be “yes he should be a leading man! no not like that!” and “cringe and lame and unfunny” but i think people are just not letting the movie be in on the joke. idk. we had a good time
I keep mixing up Love Hurts and Heart Eyes... I am sort of just holding my ground re: new releases til Paddington 3 which I am not even THAT excited for but it would be something to get out of the house for, if nothing else...
i’m vaguely disgusted with myself every time i remember i’ve only read two tana frenches, i enjoyed them so much that i really should have torn through her whole bibliography in one go. (in the woods: surely a seminal “my one friend is always mad at me” text.) soon…
my reading life currently consists of stalling out halfway through namwali serpell’s the old drift…also staring at my library copy of perdido street station
Perdido Street Station is great - I owe myself a reread of that one...
There's certainly some degree of diminishing returns w French but I find I'm never not "in the mood" for whatever she's cooking, even when it's not totally to my taste. I have two of the standalones sitting on a shelf, including her newest one.
i do remember finishing in the woods in physics class and just being physically exhausted by that ending…i found the narrator very relatable in some ways and watching his cowardice wreck his own life in every conceivable way was sort of dizzying to me. she’s kind of a shaky plotter but very good at twisting the natural appeal of her narrative voice, turning those chatty, determined narrators into something dangerous and remote.
(at least, this is my judgment from the two dublin murders books i read…)
Sounds like you and I have the same migraine presentation ("low" frequency episodic) with a lot of similar symptoms. They got you on triptans?
I def used to be high frequency episodic in my early 20s though curbing drinking (& sugar consumption, broadly, though I am still addicted to sour patch kids) made a major difference. I tried triptans a few years back but the nausea was way worse - it'd cut the pain in half but I couldn't eat for like 36 hours after, and that just didn't feel worth it. Curious about other preventative measures rather than reactive ones but tbd...
Some day they're going to figure out something like a "cause" for migraines that isn't just "being slightly unhealthy in one of three dozen ways" and then we'll have this thing beat. Glad reducing sugar helps for you! I think lately it's been helping for me, along with different pillows, more sleep, slight caffeine reduction, better exercise and like 1000 other things that marginally help.
Yeah I think better sleep + hydrating also made a big difference too... it's the worst when I can't figure out the trigger, especially when I feel like I'm doing everything right-ish, but oh well. One day!!!!
Haha, this December was bad, and when my fiance was like "What do you think did it this week?" I was like "I have no ideas. 8 hours of sleep, tons of water, caffeine, exercise, no changes in barometric pressure, balanced healthy eating." One day indeed!!!!
There was that moment in Predators where Skeet Hansen says, "I'm Skeet Hansen and you've just been skeeted," and I was like GET ME OFF THIS PLANET.
Fromtheyardtothearthouse.substack.com
I was going to do Creation Lake on audible but Kushner, for some damn reason, reads it herself. Instead of letting a professional read it (and there are many many good choices when your book is buzzy). Her gift is writing, not talking. A sample was enough to turn me off.
that's a shame; I agree for the most part that authors should not read their own audiobooks unless they're a pro. I like Kushner in interview (Criterion channel, etc.) and look forward to whatever's next from her.
Miranda July can do it because she's kind of a performer, among other things. And All Fours seems pretty semi-auto-bio. If you're just about anyone else, hire Marin Ireland or some other top reader!
even in the .0001% chance that Travis proposes to Taylor at the Super Bowl there is not a chance that would be the actual proposal… it would be something they do only because people are so obsessed with them having this "ending" to their "story." if they do get married taylor will drop the news like folklore imho.
anyway in theory i'm neutral on the superbowl but in practice i feel like the weird thinkpieces that will follow a chiefs loss on here may kill me. i wanted them not to make the superbowl at all to avoid this possibility. otoh if the chiefs win travis may be contractually obligated (?) to go to the White House and the pieces about that might kill me too. in a real lose / lose over here.…
Ppl were getting so mad about his statement about Trump going but I do feel for these guys (to the extent that I can feel for professional athletes who are 100 times richer than me) because it is, as you say, totally lose/lose in terms of what anyone says / does
yeah I think being disappointed in him for not going off script is understandable but the script just doesn't mean anything. Most things don't mean anything.
I do wonder if Trump is going to try to force an interaction with Taylor at the game. Obviously it's the kind of thing that _also_ doesn't really matter or mean anything (beyond Trump's need to humiliate people he resents) but I would also feel for our girl in that moment.
same :(
oh also tana french rules ofc. i'm probably in the mood for one too. i do find they benefit from being spaced out because if you read them too close together you begin to notice the way she isn't great at differentiating the narrative voices from one book to the next.
Yep, the best part of Creation Lake was definitely the cover. Even the book seemed to lose interest in itself by the end.
it is a GREAT cover!!
Because I am feeling Some Kind Of Way about the world, I’m reading a Christian theology book called How To Have An Enemy: Righteous Anger and the Work of Peace, and I’ve resolved to watch the Andrei Tarkovsky movies I haven’t seen yet. Watched The Sacrifice last night and kept thinking about the line in Cassavetes’ Faces where one half of the couple suggests going to an Ingmar Bergman retrospective at the movies and the other half responds with “I don’t feel like being depressed tonight,” except I very much felt like being depressed last night. I’m going to balance this all out with a Trigun bender, I think.
These seem like great projects during The Times in Which We Live™. I think some kind of movie or reading goal would be helpful in terms of focus and energy... maybe feasible now that I am back from Utah and adjusted to non-traveling life...
Tom Sandoval and Efron brother can be so healing
men are so yay
I just seconds ago finished The Emigrants, my last unread Sebald — I think I picked it up because Corbet has cited him as an influence on The Brutalist (🤐), but I had the same feeling I had after finishing the last two, which is “actually this one is my favorite”. For many reasons, I feel like spending more time reading about the early twentieth century and the World Wars these days. I liked seeing your beautiful shot of Chicago right after the montage of sorts that closes The Emigrants, where the photographs seem even more central to the work than usual. I would like to see Pictures of Ghosts too, in this vein.
the chances of Brady reading off his iPhone 16 at the Oscars are dropping day by day... is this a WIN or LOSS, we'll never really know... I hope they didn't make him get a bob for nothing :(
Everything I feel drawn to lately is doc/nonfic or some kind of hybrid of either; prefer seeing the world as it is thru someone's eyes than doing any kind of escapist exercise. to that end, maybe I should read, like, a Tina Brown lol...
Despite liking the Brutalist even less than Anora I feel Brutalist BP would be maybe the least annoying of the potential outcomes at this point, except for Complete Unknown (comedy option)
it will be funny if Tim did All This for nothing
(which I think will be the case, but who knows)
But what is All This, excluding the promo tour? Is Bob Dylan even a hard role??
He wasn't hot/adored by girls, he didn't freak out on drugs, he didn't get fat and he didn't die. Elvis ticked all 4 and do you see Austin Butler with an Oscar?
Bob Dylan just sang folk songs with a Bob Dylan voice.
I mean the promo tour
you Substance review for LAROB rocked btw
THIS
hey, thanks for reading Jack!