Fran Magazine: Sunday Dispatch, Sept. 17-23

The start of NYFF, I went to not one but TWO concerts, the blackberry scones, my drawing class, Neon White, and more

This is the Fran Magazine Sunday Dispatch, a weekly culture diary by Fran Hoepfner, who is me. The Sunday Dispatch details what I’m watching, reading, playing, and listening to — topics that may otherwise go undiscussed in the Wednesday posts. The Sunday Dispatch is only for paid subscribers. Thank you for reading!

Festival season

There is a breathless energy to the start of New York Film Festival where I feel I have boundless patience for anything in front of me and within forty-eight hours things will start to itch and irritate. I think my relationship to and with “festival culture” and even movie-watching is starting to change and shift a little bit, and I woulds like to transpose my inclination towards film and literature to something that feels a little more lackadaisical and curious rather than relentless. Part of this is my own doing: it’s very hard to do something half-assed, even the stuff I’m bad at, like running. The other part is that the bills have to be paid.

I started taking a drawing class to help enrich my painting hobby. I’m bad at painting, to be clear, and I’m bad at drawing too. I’m not very visually-minded outside of make-up and putting on an outfit three out of seven days a week (the other four I look like shit). The drawing is frustrating. I would love to be like, it’s going awesome. It is going great and I’m happy to be doing it, but it does make me annoyed and tired. The movements don’t come naturally. Part of what I think is required to get good over time is giving up a bit of control and trusting your body has the muscle memory to execute a line or a curve. I always forget you’re supposed to grip the pencil further up than you want to, to allow less pressure, a softer focus.