16/11/23: Best of September/October 2023

The deep nihilism that comes with impending climate catastrophe cannot help but project itself onto the weather. Autumn was tokenistic this year, plunging into an indecisive and stormy pre-winter. Those reactionary tidings of hotter summers (to free coastal Andalusia of the expats!) has proven incorrect — a swampy island, with shades of swampy for every season. Even our colds feel muggy, humidity freezes in mid-air and latches onto the skin of our nostrils before the dew has even had time to blossom. One has to hope, even if it is a hope of inaction, that this intensifying tedium is just a collective projection born of national politics — whose similarly intense tedium no longer needs satire. Yet transcend this nihilism we must! Self-pity and apathy are good friends. We’re all guilty of it, there’s no real shame here. So long as we have our sincerity, I think we’ll be okay.

Casting Blossoms to the Sky (dir. Nobuhiko Obayashi, 2012): one of its many great images.

Films:

• Waitress (dir. Adrienne Shelly, 2007)
• Radio On (dir. Christopher Petit, 1979)
• Hedwig and the Angry Inch (dir. John Cameron Mitchell, 2001)
• Cemetery of Splendour (dir. Apichatpong Weerasethakul, 2015)
• Crippled Avengers (dir. Chang Cheh, 1978)
• The Swan (dir. Wes Anderson, 2023)
• Man on Fire (dir. Tony Scott, 2004)
• Casting Blossoms to the Sky (dir. Nobuhiko Obayashi, 2012)
• 6 to Midnight (dir. Peter Roberts, 1974)
• Killers of the Flower Moon (dir. Martin Scorsese, 2023)
• Bone Tomahawk (dir. S Craig Zahler, 2015)
• How to Blow Up a Pipeline (dir. Daniel Goldhaber, 2022)
• School in the Crosshairs (dir. Nobuhiko Obayashi, 1981)
• Pickup on South Street (dir. Samuel Fuller, 1953)
• High School (dir. Frederick Wiseman, 1968)

Academic Papers and Articles:

• ‘Still Standing: An Interview with James Benning about Allensworth’: Reverse Shot (Sam Bodrojan, 2023)

Music/Sound:

• ‘Rhythm Pum Te Dum’: A Drum is a Woman (Duke Ellington and His Orchestra, 1957)
• Histoire de Melody Nelson (Serge Gainsbourg, 1971)
• ‘Happiness is Me and You’: A Stranger in My Own Back Yard (Gilbert O’Sullivan, 1974)
• ‘Time’: Time b/w Walk On By (Otis the 3rd, 1971)
• ‘92: Resolve Collective’: Scaffold [podcast] (The Architecture Foundation, 2 Nov 2023)
• ‘Martin Heidegger’s “Being and Time”’ series: Theory & Philosophy [podcast] (David Guignion, 7 Oct 2023-present)

Food & Drink:

• Cuttlefish croquettes cooked in its ink with garlic sauce (A Mar, Jerez de la Frontera, Spain)
• Flatbread with mushrooms/truffle/aioli/pesto (York Food Festival, York, UK)
  > I can’t remember the name of the stall that I got this from. Real shame.
• Maple tofu focaccia sandwich (Sheffield Train Station, Sheffield, UK)
  > I (again) can’t remember the name of the place, and I can’t seem to find any evidence of its existence online, but it came from a bakery stall by the south entrance to the station. I’ve visited the place a few times — they also do fantastic cardamom buns — so can verify that it does indeed exist!
• Duck confit rice with ceps (Perro Viejo, Sevilla, Spain)
  > Also had my first ever oysters (Marennes-Oleron). Fantastic!
• Those olives! (El Anexo, Chipiona, Sevilla)
• Corvina (Casa Manolo la Bodeguita, Chipiona, Sevilla)
• Charred mackerel, leek kimchi, gochujang mayo (Dobson and Parnell, Newcastle, UK)
• Bacon ciabatta with tomato relish (Hatch Luncheonette, Darlington, UK)
• Lamb bhuna (Cafe Spice, Darlington, UK)
• Pork dumplings (China Dragon, Darlington, UK)
  > I swear by this institution.

Misc:

• Brand designs for the Japan Energy Corporation (Toshihiro Yamaguchi, Saul Bass, and Hiroyuki Kita, 1993)
• ‘Universal Archive (Twelve Coffee Pots )’ (William Kentridge, 2012)
• Theatrical release poster for Bubble (dir. Steven Soderbergh, 2005)
• Harry Winks goal (‘80), QPR 1–2 Leicester City (EFL Championship, 28 October 2023)
• Canary Cottage, Knarr Farm, Peterborough, UK
• ‘Six Studies of Pillows’ (The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Albrecht Durer, c. 1493)
• That video of two away fans getting wound up by a kid at a Leicester game. [can’t source :( ]
• Japanese B2 poster for The Searchers (dir. John Ford, 1956)
• ‘Rock Scene Goes Shopping with David Byrne’ (magazine unknown, photography by ‘Anya’, unknown date)
• Cover artwork for Yuan (The Guo Brothers, 1990)
• Cover artwork for Sailboat Galiola Nuria’s Unfinished Logbook Pt. 1 (Arsenije Jovanovic, 2023)
• Manchester Utd 1–0 FC Copenhagen (2023–24 UEFA Champions League Group Stage, 24 October 2023)