Rob Wickings's Blog, page 22
September 25, 2021
Change Of The Season
I last three minutes on the beach at Old Hunstanton before the boots come off. A day later, at Holkham, I’m barely out of the car before going barefoot. I dig my toes into cool soft sand, ridged with complex patterns from the tide. Whorls and loops like a god’s thumbprint pressed into the ground, stretching as far as the eye can see.
And you can see a long way on the coast around here.
The beaches of the North Norfolk coast have a special draw. More than many around the country, they are liminal spaces, neither land nor sea, border territories where you no longer have to allow the rules of the life behind you to cling to your shoulders so closely. I devolve into a ten-year-old boy or perhaps even a dog, plashing in and out of pools, scampering down to the foam at the water’s edge to let to let the tide nibble at me. My shoulders drop as the heavy grip of the word falls away.
Autumn is here. The equinox was with us at Holkham, although there was no feel of the season of mellow fruitfulness. It was bright and warm, with enough of a breeze to cut the heat to a glow. The car-park up past the dunes is full, but once out on that great expanse of beach it seems like there is hardly anyone around at all. It’s quiet too, apart from the chatter of gulls, or the rattle and roar or military transports or the occasional jet from RAF Marham. And the hush and hiss of the tide, of course.
There are horses on the sand—a couple of what looked like Suffolk Punches, wide and tall as tractors although far more nimble, and a Shetland with a small girl riding, proud and straight-backed in her sparkly crash-hat. Of course, there are many couples with dogs. It seems to be the rule. And, most bizarrely, emerging from the sea in front of us, nudists—two men and a woman, all Of A Certain Age, happily sunning their wobble and crevices, marching around looking very pleased with themselves. Like I say, the rules slip away in the liminal zones.
It’s been a trying year. A worrying year. A year where the resolution we hoped for simply didn’t arrive and we started to come to the dreadful realisation that The Situation isn’t going away. I still mask in shops and on buses. I still keep my distance. It’s the right thing to do, and you’ll never find a Facebook post to persuade me otherwise.
2021 has applied pressure to TLC and I. Pummelled by workload, we’re often too exhausted to just be people rather than employees. When the day job starts to eat into everything, you start to wonder how to find balance. Plans have been delayed while we try to figure out a way forward. And there is one, very definitely. We needed a place where we could see that more clearly. An opening of the horizon. a place to regain perspective.
As summer falls away over our shoulders we are facing forwards. There have been bright spots to the year (a very significant birthday, the completion of a novel, a reunion with very good friends) and we’re very aware how lucky we are. That doesn’t mean we don’t get to be sad or tired or to struggle with how the world is. That’s a common feeling, but it doesn’t have to be the only one.
Which puts me back on the beach at Holkham, trying not to think about the nudists. The sea laps round my ankles, cool and clean. The line between the water and the sky is razor-sharp, cobalt to Carolina blue. Behind me, TLC and the friends I lovingly call The Lions Of Lexham chat gently. I’ll join them again in a moment. Right now, I straighten my lightened shoulders and my uncricked neck, waggle my toes in the water and face the horizon with a smile.
See you next Saturday.
September 18, 2021
The Cut Season 2 Episode 38
Packing for a cottage getaway is an exercise in logistics above and beyond your average holiday prep. It’s an opportunity to clear the fridge and take the food which would otherwise collapse to mush—the likelihood of that happening in somebody else’s kitchen is one we don’t talk about. You need to pack clothes for every eventuality rain to shine, you often need to take your own bedding and towels, and maybe bring board games or a stack of books in case the weather closes in. In short, the Cut Carrier is so full of stuff we’re starting to worry whether we’ll fit the staff in. Going on holiday is haaard.
And yet we’ve still pulled together an episode of our usual foolishness while tucked in a corner by the suitcases. This week—all of the marvels! Pre-MTV music videos! And the honky-tonk nun of Ethiopia!
Now is the time. Here is the place. This is The Cut.
You know the directions in which our interests lie. We love food and writing and fantasy. Intersects between these will always twang our strings. Atlas Obscura trap us in the loops of a very specific Venn diagram with this bit on food in fantasy novels. It ain’t just Lembas bread…
https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/fantasy-books-food
Staying with the Food Desk, Vittles (you’re subscribed to Vittles, right? Why are you not subscribed to Vittles? Go subscribe to Vittles!) takes on Dorian Lynsky’schallenge to put more negativity back into the review-sphere with an epic tear-down of the worst-value food on offer in London. With contributions from a ton of cooks and writers on the front lines of the post-pandemic dining scene, it’s a splenetic joy. Cut Crush Jay Rayner nobly offers up his glorious evisceration of the Polo Lounge at The Dorchester which is worth the price of admission all by itself.
https://vittles.substack.com/p/the-worst-value-restaurants-in-london
One last despatch from the Food Desk. We’re delighted to again flag the return of Reading’s favourite misanthrope and shit-muddler, STiR, to the violent world of pub reviews. The latest drop is a celebration of Reading’s wildest booze dispensary. Forget your boring chain bars. Shun your Wetherspoon’s. You need to drink in a joint that channels off-season Ibiza with the sort of don’t-give-a-shit flair that can’t help but win you over.
(Also a lot of fun—StiR’s new range of charity T-shirts, including a couple we’re extremely tempted by. Nice and fresh.)
https://shitandnotshitpubsinreading.com/2021/09/15/the-jolly-anglers/
Ninth Art time. Sorry. First up, an extraordinary piece by G.I. Joe writer Buzz Dixon who fears he may be in part to blame for the gung-ho nature of American imperialism post 9-11. This is thoughtful stuff which tells us just how powerful comics can be, and how we should take care in how we present to the intended audience.
https://buzzdixon.com/home/christianity/how-much-responsibility-do-i-bear
In a slightly happier place, writer Douglas Wolk has recently completed a seriously intimidating challenge—reading every Marvel comic published since the brand’s inception in 1963. That’s over 22 thousand comics over a 58 year period—the longest continuously linked fictional narrative ever created. It’s a big deal just reading them, but Wolk’s new book, All The Marvels, goes further. He teases out themes and extended storylines across the whole pantheon of the Merry Marvel Masses. Dense, meaty and very much our flavour.
https://allofthemarvels.tumblr.com/
https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/549063/all-of-the-marvels-by-douglas-wolk/
Speaking of epic achievements, Asif A. Saddiqi’s Beyond Earth chronicles every vehicle involved in deep space exploration from 1958 to now. We’ve thrown a lot of hardware up there, folks, and the Voyagers aside, we’ve still barely scratched trans-solar space…
Click to access beyond-earth-tagged.pdf
The trouble is, of course, that space is no place for humanity. It’s beauty is matched only by its hostility. Space has all sorts of nasty ways to part the brave and foolhardy explorer from their pulse. Take, for example, Alexei Leonov—artist, visionary and first man to spacewalk. What he saw in his time outside Voskhod-2 would spark a lifetime of remarkable paintings. But he very nearly never made it back to Earth—or even back into the ship.
The First Man To Walk In Space Reveals What Really Happened (1965)
Common knowledge states that the age of the music video began with the launch of MTV and Buggles’ ‘Video Killed The Radio Star’. This is, of course, bunkum. Films illustrating songs were a thing long before the big M. More importantly, they didn’t have to comply with broadcasting standards, which made for some very juicy clips indeed…
There’s an Alternate Universe of Pre-MTV Music Videos You’ve Never Seen
We’re always open to new musical experiences. Allow us, via the auspices of Ted Gioia, to introduce you to Emahoy Tsegué-Maryam Guèbrou, the honky-tonk nun of Ethiopia. New is a bit of a strange thing to say as she’s about to celebrate her 98th birthday. Let’s just say new to us. Emahoy’s music is a lyrical and nimble piano style which blurs across jazz, blues and African styles. We haven’t heard anything quite like it.
https://tedgioia.substack.com/p/the-honky-tonk-nun-of-ethiopia
And finally. Norm McDonald died. The most unreliable of unreliable narrators kept us guessing until the end, keeping a nine-year battle with leukaemia a secret until the inevitable draw. Another artist who you couldn’t really pigeonhole, his skill lay in constantly wrong-footing his audience, even if it bombed a gig. His memoir was mostly bald-faced lies. He was ferociously intelligent, elegantly playful and never, never boring. There are plenty of clips up on the tubes of his best moments—do yourself a solid and at least check out the moment where he doesn’t come out to Larry King.
The True Story of Norm Macdonald, Comedy’s Best Liar
Our Exit Music features one of Norm’s favourite artists, Outlaw mainstay Billy Joe Shaver. His song Live Forever (get the Oasis tune out of your head, this is nothing like that) has the same sense of observation and dry humour which he and Norm shared. Billy Joe drew with Covid this year, which makes this song a real kick in the feels.
See you next Saturday, music-lovers.
September 11, 2021
The Cut Season 2 Episode 37
This time next week we shall be on a scheduled team get-away, somewhere in the wilds of Norfolk. Don’t be surprised if episode 38 comprises of a postcard of Blakeney beach and a recipe for a decent crab sandwich. We badly need the break. Our brains are mush, our souls are weary. We need time by the sea and the solace of old friends.
But today we can still offer up some treats. Racing samurai, the biggest potato hotel in the world and the musical stylings of Brushy One-string await.
Now is the time. Here is the place. This is The Cut.
About those racing Samurai, then. This overview on Outlaw Vern on Bernard Rose’s Samurai Marathon does exactly what it should—it makes you want to see the dang movie! Rose has always been an eccentric voice, best known for his wildly original horror Candyman (the remake of which, out now is, shall we say, dividing opinion). Samurai Marathon, based apparently on a true incident, is an extremely tough movie to pigeonhole. Best to watch and get carried along.
Samurai Marathon
Ella Quittner’s piece for Food52 on the world’s biggest (ok, fine, only) potato hotel is not just hilarious. It speaks to how we’re trying to re-engage with the world after 18 months in a bubble, what that experience has done and is continuing to do to us. It’s a mood, is all we’re saying. A mood with a giant fiberglass potato in the middle of Idaho.
https://food52.com/blog/26539-the-biggest-potato-hotel-in-the-world
Don’t be fooled by the title of Jon Irwin’s article. It’s a delightfully meandering but beautifully directed bit on creativity and discovering how to use the tools which help you find your voice. The indie games sector is home to some remarkable feats of story-telling. Like our beloved Ninth Art, games can play tricks with narrative that are simply unattainable through any other means.
How to Make It in the Games Industry
The dictionary definition of Schadenfreude states that it ‘is the experience of pleasure, joy, or self-satisfaction that comes from learning of or witnessing the troubles, failures, or humiliation of another.’ Much as we hate to indulge, this history of the spectacular failure of a libertarian free-town project brought on all those feelings. Especially when the bears show up…
https://newrepublic.com/article/159662/libertarian-walks-into-bear-book-review-free-town-project
The Music Desk was introduced to the stylings of Brushy One-String a couple of years ago. His tunes bring the connection between African music and the blues into clear view. It’s pretty cool what you can do with a resonant box, a single wire, a song to sing and a voice to sing it. Good vibes ahead!
Meet Brushy One String, the One String Guitar Player Who Will Blow Your Mind
There were episodes of squeelation reverberating out of the Film Desk this week as the first trailer for The Matrix: Resurrection dropped. It looks great, a smart rebuild of the story of Neo, Trinity and Morpheus and a further exploration of the nature of reality and perception. One for days like these, we think. A great feature of the trailer is the brilliant use of Jefferson Airplane’s White Rabbit. For Far Out Magazine, Grace Slick explains how she wrote this iconic soundtrack of the counter-culture.
How Grace Slick composed ‘White Rabbit’, the greatest drug anthem of all time
Another cause for excitement on the Music Desk (who really need to calm down a bit, their poor old bones can’t take the strain, you know) is the release of Low’s new album, Hey What. It takes their exploration of electronic textures and broken machine noises and marries the rattle and hum to impeccable song-craft and beautiful harmonies. It takes a little while to get used to but seriously, Hey What is worth the effort. For the Quietus, Alan Sparhawk and Mimi Parker talk about the record and how their music has changed since they were the quietest band on the grunge scene.
https://thequietus.com/articles/30467-low-interview
How do you start a story? The opening sentence can grab your attention, but the opening paragraph is the lure which draws you in. The mighty Raymond Chandler understood this very well. Crime Reads explores his skilful way with drawing back the curtain.
Raymond Chandler: The Art of Beginning a Crime Story
And finally. Dorian Lyndsky’s article on the dying art of the hatchet job has been gaining traction recently. It’s becoming more difficult for writers to express how they feel about a film or band or even game without that property’s fan base roaring out of the gates to rain opprobrium and insults down on them. We don’t necessarily agree with some of the criticism levelled at our beloved Ted Lasso this season, but we don’t feel the need to send out death threats either. Critics gotta criticise, people!
https://unherd.com/2021/09/the-dying-art-of-the-hatchet-job/
We return to Low for our Exit Music. Days Like These (there’s a title that resonates in the face of The Situation, huh?) sums up the album in one dose. Beautiful, thrilling and terrifying. It sums up the rage and fear we face as the world shifts constantly under our feet. And yes, it’s supposed to sound like that.
See you next Saturday, sonic explorers.
September 4, 2021
The Cut Season 2 Episode 36
We lost Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry. Texas turned into Gilead. The New York subway system turned into a sewer. Look at the world a certain way and you can feel it slipping out from under you. But then witness the triumphs of the Paralympics or the return of Abba and know there’s good news out there. You just have to see with the right eyes.
This week: how caffeine lit the spark to the fuse that blew up the future, the logical endpoint of the square meal and the Rainbow Connection between Miss Piggy and Yoda.
Now is the time. Here is the place. This is The Cut.
Look, we all know our homes can look really strange to outsiders. However, there’s strange and then there’s outright surrealist dystopian nightmare. No, we’re not talking about Texas, although the Lone Star State has rapidly spun out into the the weird lane. We’ve bounced this Vanity Fair piece on Donald Trump’s corner of Florida around the schedule for a few weeks, waiting for the right time to post it. To quote our catchphrase, now is the time. This almost reads like bugged-out satire that’s trying a little too hard. It isn’t. This is real.
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2021/08/the-fury-and-fantasy-of-donald-trumps-florida
Sweet, sweet caffeine, fueling our world and amping our creativity. At least until the mid-morning crash, which is why you find editor Rob doing his best work immediately post-sunrise (for the interested observer, this issue is being finalized at 7:07 on a Saturday morning and your esteemed writer is doing this in his jimjams before he’s had a celebratory shower). Caffeine may be the world’s favourite drug. Here’s how it kick-started The Enlightenment, the Industrial Revolution and therefore the world we live in now…
How Caffeine Fueled the Enlightenment, Industrial Revolution & the Modern World: An Introduction by Michael Pollan
Food fads are part of the landscape. There’s always some tech-bro claiming to have reinvented dinner. It’s not a new story, going back to canning and even freezing. Recent innovations have looked more SFnal, with nods to astronaut-style freeze-dried pouches and meal-replacement drinks (basically SlimFast in fancy new packaging). Then there’s SquarEat, which is… well, take a look and wonder what was going through the minds of the crew developing it. Apart from ‘square meal’, obviously…
Guardian writer Hadley Freeman freely admits she cried twice while putting together this profile on director and performer Frank Oz. We are not surprised and will also admit to feeling a bit misty as we read it. Frank has been a part of our lives since childhood. His wisdom and positivity shine through here. We also feel the need to rewatch Dirty Rotten Scoundrels…
This quick overview of the contents of prop houses needs to be much bigger and full of pictures. It’s piqued our interest, that’s for sure. Imagine spending a day wandering around one of these!
Jasper Fry captures the surreal world of London’s prop houses
John Cusack. Never a big star, but an actor and writer whose presence guarantees a certain level of quality. His masterpiece was of course Gross Pointe Blank (worth watching as part of an unofficial trilogy starting with Say Anything and closing out with War Inc as a potential ‘The Fast Life And Hard Times of Lloyd Dobler’ epic) but, as this cracking piece on NeoTextCorp makes plain, he brings his A Game to every film in which he makes an appearance. In our opinion, he’s the MBV of Con-Air.
He Had It Coming: The Subtle Versatility of John Cusack
We guarantee once you start messing around with Rave.DJ wou will find it hard to stop. It’s not just that it’s astonishingly good at what it does. It’s the unexpected ways in which it does the job which makes the whole process so engaging. Mashups just got interesting again…
Artificially-intelligent song mashups
Charlie Jane Anders is a Nebula-winning, Hugo-nominated writer whose work is part of the new wave of female, non-binary and trans writers bringing fresh perspectives to modern science fiction. Here, Anders talks about her role in the writers room of the TV adaptation of X: The Last Man and how she was part of the effort to make sure all voices were heard and amplified…
https://buttondown.email/charliejane/archive/everything-i-learned-from-working-on-season-one/
It’s forty years since another seismic shift in the SF scene was published—William Gibson’s Johnny Mnemonic. The Walrus explains why this short story is so important and how it continues to inform and enliven the genre today. Some of the details may have aged oddly but boy howdy, the big picture is disturbingly prescient…
Why William Gibson Is a Literary Genius
And finally. The Marvel Cinematic Universe enters Phase Four with the release of Shang-Chi and The Legend Of The Ten Rings this weekend. We’re excited to see it but are choosing instead to focus on the subjects of the next film in the cycle—the Eternals. Chloe Zhao’s take on the most Technicolor-widescreen of Jack Kirby’s creations is eagerly anticipated by many. But great work on the characters is also being done in the pages of the funny papers. We’ve left it to last, but here’s our weekly dose of comics nerdery…
Solving the Eternals Problem
The socials went bonkers this week as Abba announced new music and a slightly bizarre virtual concert session in London’s Olympic Park, featuring the band as Abbatars (come on, that’s good) on a holographic stage. It’s endearingly odd but at this stage in proceedings, we’ll take any shard of positivity we can get. In celebration, we present a video of Dancing Queen played on a 1914 fairground organ. Open Culture brings us a little context and includes a clip of the original if you fancy a wee spin round the front room.
Listen to ABBA’s “Dancing Queen” Played on a 1914 Fairground Organ
See you next Saturday, voyagers.
August 28, 2021
The Cut Season 2 Episode 35
A tough month for rock ‘n’roll, with the passing of both Dusty Hill and Charlie Watts. Both guys knew how to get the funk and grind into their music, and both understood the essential ridiculousness of the life. Charlie in particular offered up a ‘don’t give a fuck’ attitude that was no affectation. For the most part, he knew there were better things to be doing. We could all use a little more of that perspective on the life/work balance.
Anyhoo. Join us this week as we thumb through cookbooks, consider the most influential band ever and yes alright talk a bit more about Ted Lasso.
Now is the time. Here is the place. This is The Cut.
Both the Book and Food Desk here at The Cut have an obsession with cookbooks. There are piles of the things cluttering up the limited space we have available, to the despair of our office manager. They can be beautiful objects in their own right, but the best ones don’t just offer aspirational recipes that take up a whole weekend to create. No, a really good cookbook will offer a view on life which is as much philosophical as culinary. Alicia Kennedy (you subscribe to her newsletter, right?) talks about some of her favourites. We are pleased to see some connections with our list.
https://www.aliciakennedy.news/p/on-cookbooks
We’ve all put on some lockdown poundage. Stuck at home, box sets hosed, internet finished, it seems like there’s nothing left to do but eat. Usefully, the Japanese have a term for this phenomenon, which also helps explain why we do it in the first place…
https://kokumura.medium.com/the-best-thing-you-can-do-after-you-eat-too-much-d0db6265609
Big fans of Laurie Penny here at the Cut. Her latest piece on how society deals with the uncomfortable reminders of an unequal society is clear-eyed, merciless and compassionate in all the right places. You may not agree with her but she will make you think.
It Was That or Starve
Right, less seriousness for a mo. Let’s have a little dance. This independent project seeks nothing less than a major overview of the dance music scene. It seems pretty comprehensive to us, but we don’t pretend to be experts. If your heart beats four-to-the-floor, then be prepared to get lost down a rabbit hole…
https://www.dancemusicarchive.com/
Big fans of Jeff Noon here at The Cut. Ever since his first acid-spiked dispatches from the underground sent rainbow-ringed ripples through the SF world in the early 90s, he has been an author unafraid of experimentation and the joy of randomness. For his latest book, he has chosen to allow the plot to be guided by tarot. Sounds like a fun idea to try on our next long-form project…
https://whatever.scalzi.com/2021/05/11/the-big-idea-jeff-noon/
They were the first manufactured band designed for TV. They sold millions of records and their show won two Emmys for its first season. They starred in a movie written by Jack Nicholson who used the money from it to kickstart the American New Wave of cinema. They have influenced hundreds of bands and pioneered music video. You know more of their songs than you think they do. Hey hey…
https://www.vanityfair.com/style/2021/08/the-most-influential-pop-rock-band-ever-the-monkees
If you live on the socials you have probably come across the work of Cold War Steve. He’s a British satirical collagist whose art mashes up influences as diverse as Hogarth, Bosch and the Mitchell brothers from Eastenders. He works digitally, but has come up with an epic wheeze for what he calls his International Exhibition Of The People. If you have a space available for people to come and check out the work (for free of course) Steve gives permission for you to print out and exhibit a selection of his pieces. We are proud to note that the first show is currently taking place in Reading at Tutu’s Ethiopian Kitchen. Feel free to follow her good example!
YOU, ME & COLD WAR STEVE – THE INTERNATIONAL EXHIBITION OF THE PEOPLE 2021!
Vauhini Vara couldn’t find a way into writing about her sister’s tragic death. In a move that would have been purely SFnal even a decade ago, she pointed an AI network at the task. The results were as odd as you’d expect, yet also strangely moving…
Ghosts
The long read this week looks at Jesse Armstrong, writer and show-runner for Succession. The show is currently in post for its third season. Reports are it’s as sharp and vicious as ever. This New Yorker profile digs deep into the art and craft of writing a show like Succession, and the particular challenges around shooting during a global pandemic.
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/08/30/the-real-ceo-of-succession
And finally, still on the subject of writing for TV, LA Times talks to Brett Goldstein and Juno Temple, the power couple of Ted Lasso. Lots of fascinating insight here on the intersection between writer and actor. Goldstein is of course both, scripting and delivering a great performance as AFC Richmond hard-man Roy Kent. But it’s Juno Temple who shows us how her performance has informed the arc of her character, Keeley. Great stuff. Have we mentioned how much we love this show recently?
Back to Charlie Watts, whose passing was a big part of the news cycle this week. As with Dusty Hill his death was unexpected, coming quickly after having to drop out of a tour due to illness. Watts was no battering ram—he had a delicate touch and knew how to swing. He was the gentleman who held the Stones groove in place and he will be missed.
See you next Saturday folks, a moonlight mile down the road.
August 21, 2021
The Cut Season 2 Episode 34
The year continues to flap around in unexpected and bewildering ways like an uninvited squid in the bathtub. The Great Game in Afghanistan moves into a new, ugly phase. A beloved comedian dies, leaving us in fits of giggles at his legacy while calling for the revival of his long-forgotten sitcom. The nation realises just how dire the supply chain problem is as the unthinkable happens and Nando’s runs out of chicken. Boy howdy, it’s been a week.
We’re here to offer some respite, with more base level comics instruction, an admiration of The Madonna With The Long Neck and a chat to the guy who brings the good vibes to the ball game.
Now is the time. Here is the place. This is The Cut.
Time. It’s been on our minds a lot over the past eighteen months, heavy on our shoulders, running at rates that seem both unbearably slow and intolerably fast. Which is sort of the point. Time, much as we would like it to be so, is not a constant. There are sixty seconds to a minute, or indeed terms like hours and days only because we have decided it is so. Our perception of time is a construct, a map we’ve drawn to make sense of our passage through it.
The Tyranny Of Time
More chats with the cast of the Suicide Squad. This may be David Dastmalchian’s year. He’s one of those performers who can both disappear into a role and bring a particular and individual flair to it. He’s been around for longer than you think and in more films than you realise. He’s also a funny, humble and extremely entertaining interviewee.
Right, the Ninth Art Desk demands your attention. We’re trying to keep things a little more entry-level for you, oh Readership. We don’t wish to spook you off with the intensity of our enthusiasm. The final trailer was released this week for Marvel’s Eternals, which seems like the perfect time to introduce you to the work of possibly the most influential of all western comics creators—the King, Jack Kirby. The Eternals are just one of his many graphic delights. You will very definitely recognise the look and the names of others.
https://www.avclub.com/a-beginner-s-guide-to-the-king-of-comics-jack-kirby-1798241329
Say we have inspired you to the point where you want to try and make a comic. How do you start? What tools do you need? What are the rules for formatting a script? Neighbours, you’re in luck. Writer Gail Simone, who has become a fast favourite of the Ninth Art Desk over the past year, has put together a free comics school from an extended series of Twitter threads, ready and waiting for you. It’s approachable and empathetic. Gail knows the pitfalls and is ready to guide you past them. Why not give it a go?
As foreign travel won’t be a viable option any time soon, The Arts Desk is pleased to note you no longer have to jump on the Eurostar to get your fix of The Louvre’s treasures. They are all now online in hi-res for you to enjoy, with none of the expense and scrums round the Mona Lisa. We got lost in an arty rabbit hole this week. It’s a lovely place to hide out for a while.
https://collections.louvre.fr/en/
Art of a different kind, but no less immersive and delightful. Tom Chantrell’s film posters have a lurid, explosive energy that blasts off the paper. They are very much products of the time in which they were made. For film fans of a certain age (the hairy monsters of The Film Desk included) these images were a portal to a wild place and a ticket to a life less ordinary.
https://reprobatepress.com/2018/11/10/the-cult-film-posters-of-tom-chantrell/
Art is of course in the eye of the beholder, and subject to trends and fashion like all else. We really liked this New York Times exploration into Parmigianinos’s Madonna Of The Long Neck, which looks into concepts of beauty and truth in the presentation in the human form. The piece itself is really well done. Quite comicesque, wouldn’t you say…?
We loved this piece on Transdiffusion remembering the shutdown of pirate radio in 1967. For a generation of British youth, these anarchic seaborne stations were the only way to hear good pop and rock music. The language and presentation the stations used would become the grammar of Radio One—and every music station thereafter.
https://www.transdiffusion.org/2021/08/14/the-day-the-music-died
British sport has no real equivalent for the game day organist who soundtracks a day at the ball game in the USA. Boston.com chats to Josh Kantor, a man with a knack for keeping the crowds entertained. Lord knows, baseball isn’t going to do the job…
Rhythm of the game: How Fenway Park organist Josh Kantor plays fan requests on the fly
And finally. Bon Appetit seems to have come through a very bumpy patch and out the other side with a newly humble, thoughtful approach to food writing. This bit from Dani Shapiro on a meal between two strangers ticks all our boxes. It’s about food and comfort and family and connections and the strange way time passes.
https://www.bonappetit.com/story/dani-shapiro-comfort-food
Yeah, time is on our mind, if not on our side. Your Exit Music is another cut written by the Chambers Brothers who we featured a couple of weeks ago. We know this track from the cover version Steve Earle drove through the fences some years back, featured here in a scorching performance on Letterman alongside Sheryl Crow. Tick tock, this rocks.
See you next Saturday, clock-watchers.
August 14, 2021
The Cut Season 2 Episode 33
This week was, to be frank, a struggle. The demands of the day gig were more intense than ever, pushing up against the other parts of our lives with increasing insistence. We had trouble getting links for the issue in the face of an stream of negativity and all-round ugliness.
And yet. On Wednesday a joint meetup between the staff of The Cut and our pals at Reading Writers, the first face-to-face gathering in eighteen months, was a balm and a boozy joy. At the last minute, we found our quota of linkertainment… with a little help from our friends. And here we are, early on a Saturday morning, glue and scissors in hand, patching together the issue you’re reading now. Life may get in the way, but it will also find a way.
A comics-heavy episode this week. Suck it up, it’s good for you.
Now is the time. Here is the place. This is The Cut.
This little slice of reportage from the working day of a 1970s private detective feels like a despatch from a distant, near-forgotten place. Who remembers faxes, or CB radios, or the days when phone booths were not homes to community libraries or defibrillators? Man, it must have been tough on the streets back then!
What Life Was Really Like for a Private Detective in the 1970s
The Ninth Art Desk is open! We are aware that our wibbling about the minutiae and politics of the comics world is tangential to the central pleasure of the medium—reading the darn things! Where do you start if you want to get into comics and don’t have a clue what to pick up first? Luckily, we Brits have a Comics Laureate who’s job is to advocate for funny books. Stephen L. Holland, the latest appointee to the role, has come up with a useful list and set of reviews to get you on the right path. We are happy to see a lot of our personal favourites made the grade. Go on, dig in!
http://www.comicartfestival.com/comics-laureate-recommended-reading-list
This interview with Daniela Melchior, one of the breakout stars of James Gunn’s The Suicide Squad (polarising opinion across the board but highly praised by comics professionals as a decent cover version of the books) gave us the smiles. She seems like the sort of girl that would thrive in the surreal environment of the wildest comic book movie to date, and just a lot of fun to hang out with.
https://www.wmagazine.com/culture/daniela-melchior-suicide-squad-interview
OK, let’s have some more wibbling about the minutiae and politics of the comics world. We have talked quite a bit lately about the poor levels of recompense comics creators get from the big publishers—a problem which is leading to a second wave of indie and solo imprints sprouting up. An interesting sidebar is the move by some high-profile names to Substack, the newsletter platform. This isn’t just a subscription deal—many of these big noises have been paid by Substack to join.
https://www.vice.com/en/article/5db4k8/superstar-batman-comics-writers-flee-to-substack
Now, we’ve mentioned Substack before as well, and how it’s first tranche of paid writers skewed not just to the right but anti-LGBTI. The question at the time—is it ever acceptable to take the dollar on offer when you’re sharing a stage with homophobes—isn’t going away. Interesting to note the case of Chip Zdarsky, writer on big titles like Daredevil, who says he’s using the platform to get away from Twitter and regain a level of control. He also states he’ll be donating his subscription fees to an LGBTI charity. Some voices remain unimpressed by that stance. Our view? The Cut tried Substack for a little while, but find we’d rather stick with the WordPress model, which remains completely neutral. Also, we’re not in it for the money—at least not when our model is rehashing other people’s content in a slightly different format. Anyway, here’s a slice of context to help you make up your own mind.
https://gen.medium.com/substack-is-not-a-neutral-platform-8fc5bdf8e5f2
One last hit of geekery and then we’ll throw in some fun stuff. An improvement in simple technology which could really help in terms of the climate crisis and helping people in poverty is the humble stove. Tweaking the design for improved efficiency is, it turns out, a wildly complex undertaking in which every element plays an essential part.
To Build a (Better) Fire
A link from our Leading Man, Clive Ashenden. Nestflix is a database for fictional movies—the sort of show which pops up in trailers or excerpts in the middle of real films. There’s a lot here to check out and it’s a highly agreeable time sink. Thanks, Clivey!
A couple from one of my favourite newsletters right now— The Bluestocking from Journalist Helen Lewis, to which I urge you all to snag a subscription)*. First up, the late lamented Jeremy Hardy does Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah in the style of George Formby. You’ll never hear it any other way again.
Secondly, this bit from writer and comedian Chris Addison takes on every aspect of the art and presentation of a creative object and does it in a beautiful, elegant and above all hilarious way. We’re horribly jealous of how good this is.
https://mrchrisaddison.tumblr.com/post/177058836226/two-ways-into-a-theatreHow much fun are we having right now? Is this week’s Cut a bit of a bumpy ride? Well, it turns out you can absolutely quantify fun. There’s a scale and everything!
The Fun Scale
And finally. As Marvel crank up their new animated series What If…? (an unalloyed joy and a great sample of how to cram a lot of story into a short space of time—much like the best comics, of course) we celebrate another comic-book cartoon which has hit 40 this year. Heavy Metal, loosely based on the seminal anthology series, is a wild-eyed, bare-knuckle ride. Some parts have really not aged well, but it’s still a movie both the Film and Music Desk view fondly. Hell, we still have the record in our collection!
One Way Ticket to Midnight: Celebrating 40 Years of the Heavy Metal Movie
The choice for Exit Music is pretty simple, then. Here’s Sammy Hagar’s title cut from the movie soundtrack, featuring shots from the final segment of the film, Taarna. We offer up a warning for cartoon gore and unfeasibly skimpy leather armour. This is the most eighties thing you’ll see all week.
See you next Saturday, warriors.
*Yes, The Bluestocking is a Substack newsletter. Just goes to show it it’s possible to gracefully navigate the choppy contextual waters and come up with something worthwhile. There’s always more than one opinion, and a binary right/wrong argument never shows the whole story.
August 7, 2021
The Cut Season 2 Episode 32
Wait, it’s August? When the heck did that happen? Wasn’t it, like, Easter two weeks ago? I guess as we haven’t really had a summer as such it’s easy to lose track of time. One event you can depend upon is the Saturday drop of your favourite internet compendium. It may come down to the wire sometimes (our editor is putting this issue to bed less than ninety minutes before hitting the go button) but we strive to be there for you. A little structure in wobbly times.
In this week’s ep, we start and end with comics, take in some bread and rice and consider the lightning.
Now is the time. Here is the place. This is The Cut.
The Phoenix carries on the great British tradition of smartly written strip comics for kids. The staff know their market and understand the best way to get and keep the attention of their audience is not to talk down to them. The Phoenix hit issue 500 this week, a significant achievement and a milestone too few British titles have reached. In celebration, they’re offering that issue for free, so you can all see what the fuss is about!
https://downthetubes.net/?p=129262
We are, it’s commonly perceived, in a golden age of telly. So much to choose from, such high-quality offerings! Of course, the hungry maw of production has to get its raw material from somewhere, and the literary world has benefitted from the slew of adaptations. From Game Of Thrones to The Queen’s Gambit, the net is cast ever wider in the hunt to snag the next big fish. The question is, are modern books being written in a way which makes them more attractive to the TV execs?
https://www.theatlantic.com/culture/archive/2021/07/tv-adaptations-fiction/619442/
It’s never too late to start something. We’ve always been inspired by the artists, musicians and writers who have chosen a path late in life and strode down it proudly. It’s also never too late to start something again, as this lovely New York Times piece shows.
We hate to worry you, but the old tale about how rare it is to get struck by lightning isn’t quite as true as you’d like. OK, you’re still more likely to get run over by a car but a bolt from the blue is not the one in a billion event everyone thinks it is…
Danny Whitty was diagnosed with autism and apraxia at an early age. Unable to communicate in the usual way, he has turned to food as a way to show how much he cares for his family and community. Honestly, this is the one piece we urge you to read this week.
https://www.bonappetit.com/story/communicate-through-food
We’ve given up on sourdough bread. The bakers in the Cut Kitchen have returned to regular service after struggling through most of lockdown with stubborn starters that refused to play nice and delivered mouth-puckering results. We are not alone, and were charmed to see writer Robin Sloan’s paean to the stuff this week. He’s even included a playlist for your starter! His novel Sourdough is a fabulous flight of fancy on baking as a balm for a weary soul. We recommend most highly.
https://www.mcdbooks.com/features/sourdough-a-confession-a-recipe-and-a-playlist
The Food Desk is stirring back to life after months of inactivity. Three whole articles for you this week! A veritable cornucopia! We loved this cautionary tale about a San Francisco restaurant whose chef put an over-priced super-complex item on the menu as a joke. They expected no-one would go for it. Boy, were they wrong…
We are very big fans of Simon Hattenstone, feature writer for The Guardian. His big interviews seem to go deeper than most, transcending the usual celebrity puff pieces to get to a truer place. This long profile of musician and author Baxter Dury is a good case in point. It’s a long read, but worth taking your time to enjoy.
There are some shelves in the Cut’s Reading Room filled with the works of a single author who is no longer with us. Terry Pratchett is one. Iain Banks is another. His accomplishments in fictions both literary and science are remarkable. It’s a real sadness he was removed to a higher plane so soon. Here’s a piece from 1999 which gives a great sense of the man and the places in which he grounded his writing.
https://www.theguardian.com/books/1999/aug/07/fiction.iainbanks
And finally. James Gunn’s big loud gory adaptation of The Suicide Squad drops in America this weekend after a week in UK cinemas. We are yet to see it but plan to very soon. It’s good to see James given the opportunity to properly cut loose in true Slither-style fashion. He’s been very open about how closely the script sticks to the core texts—the comics series written by John Ostrander. Here’s a history of how the strip came to be.
https://www.gamesradar.com/the-oral-history-of-dcs-original-suicide-squad/
We took a trip to Reading’s excellent new art hub The Biscuit Factory this week. It’s just what our town needs and we wish it every success. We caught the brilliant documentary Summer Of Soul, a history lesson in every sense of the world. The pill is sweetened with a heaping double handful of amazing music. We could have chosen any of the featured tracks from the film for our Exit Music, but have plumped for the same tune director Questlove chose to roll out on—‘Have A Little Faith’ by The Chambers Brothers.
See you next Saturday, brothers and sisters.
July 31, 2021
The Cut Season 2 Episode 31
It’s been a strange and unsettling week. We have been to the cinema and eaten out. Three times! We have been to Ikea to sort out bits and bobs for a badly-overdue refurb of Cut Central. We even went to the launch night of a swinging new arts hub in the middle of Reading. Sitting on the first floor terrace, enjoying the views of Crispy Dosa and the Oxford Road Travelodge while sipping a glass of wine we thought to ourselves ‘Is this how it used to be? Is this what normal feels like?’ It’s been so long. Kinda nice to crack open the airlock. But, yes, strange.
This week we go lowbrow with the comics coverage, extremely geeky with the music bit and go wild in a famous bathhouse.
Now is the time. Here is the place. This is The Cut.
We very much dug this profile of the man who invented, or at very least developed one of the defining sounds of ska. Ernest Ranglin is one of those musicians who had a new form of music in his head, a way of playing which would bring fresh joy to the dancehalls. Half the work came from persuading his fellow musicians of its worth. We owe the guy a debt of thanks. Pro tip—check out the YouTube embeds in the piece. Some great music to be had.
https://www.guitarworld.com/features/life-and-times-of-ernest-ranglin
Meanwhile, we’re still on the subject of musical deepfakes. The concern for many artists is they could be faked into singing material which is not to their style or liking. If you have the knowledge, or the cash to pay someone who has the knowledge to do it for you, there’s a way to keep control while jumping on the bandwagon. Is Paul McCartney leading the way again…?
https://gizmodo.com/paul-mccartney-deepfakes-himself-without-the-consent-of-1847352769
One more from the Music Desk. We hesitated about putting this long, involved piece about The Gaslight Anthem in. It’s incredibly geeky and at its low point a big flurry of band names you probably won’t have heard of (maybe you will, Readership—after all you are a very erudite and cultured bunch). But stick with it. The whole thing turns a corner in the last two paragraphs and speaks strongly to the reasons we love the Anthem in the first place.
https://abundant-living.ghost.io/backwards-and-forwards-in-time-with-gaslight-anthem/
We are, as ever, locked to the Olympics this summer. So much drama and excitement. So many sports we’d never heard of! That’s part of the joy of the event, of course. The sheer variety of what’s on offer. Reuters offers up a highly entertaining infographic on those sports which have fallen, for whatever reason, out of the running order. We’re starting a petition to get tug-o-war back on the roster!
https://graphics.reuters.com/OLYMPICS-2020/HISTORY/oakpedqbgvr/
It’s fair to say our Ninth Arts coverage can be a bit—selective in its appeal. We get it, really, we do. Sometimes we just can’t help ourselves. So we’ve made the effort to broaden the appeal this week. First up, a long appreciation on a subject close to many comic reader’s hearts. OK, there’s an element of exploration into the male gaze and who exactly comics are for. But for the most part this is about one perfect spandex-clad item.
We’ve always been big fans of the crude and irreverent Viz, a comic which satirizes and celebrates Brit comic traditions in equal measure. It turned 40 a couple of years back, and shows no signs of either growing up or slowing down. Like all good satire, Viz manages to annoy a lot of people. That’s another reason to support it. Here’s the story of how it started.
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2021/jul/26/how-we-made-viz
Dig back far enough into any website’s archive and you’ll find links which don’t lead to the content you expect. It’s either been moved, the URL has changed or it’s been deleted. It’s a phenomenon known as link rot, and it’s becoming more and more of a problem. The internet is supposed to be a place where all the information you could ever need is at your fingertips, a mouse click or finger-tap away. That’s not the case. The internet as we thought it would be is quietly but unstoppably rotting away…
Another bit from The Atlantic, which is turning into a solid source of news and interest for us. The debate about where and how we work is becoming more fraught as lockdowns worldwide start to ease. A large majority of white-collar workers have seen how The Situation has massively changed their work-life balance. They don’t want to go back to the way things were. The bosses who do are finding their arguments for why workers should be in the office are looking mighty thin…
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/07/work-from-home-benefits/619597/
And finally. This is a great piece on an unsung venue in New York which was a pressure cooker for much of what we now know as pop and dance music. The Continental Baths hosted an extraordinary roster of talent who entertained the fellas who came in for a little restorative relaxation. From DJ Frankie Knuckles to the divine Bette Midler (who had a surprising accompanist on piano), the music just kept on coming. This one will spin you right round baby, right round.
We’re out slightly early this week. As part of our weird week there are optician’s appointments to endure and a bit of shopping to do. Darned peculiar.
For Exit Music, let’s bounce back to The Gaslight Anthem and The ‘59 Sound. It’s been a while since we heard this track and it genuinely sent chills down our spine and brought a tear to the eye when we cranked it up. Yeah, yeah, sappy as hell. But like Zohra said—
“It is NOT corny. It’s how people feel. It’s how you and I feel. It is not corny.”
See you next Saturday, true believers.
July 24, 2021
The Cut Season 2 Episode 30
A week of freedom, and to our eyes little seems to have changed. Most people are still wearing masks and socially distancing. We went to one of our favourite pubs in Reading (The Fox And Hounds in Caversham, try the loaded fries) which was table service only and all the more pleasant for it. It feels like we’ve heard the official advice, saw it for bullshit and decided to stay safe. Well, for the most part anyway. It could all shift again by this time next week.
But hey, at least we have links for you. Comics chat, saving chocolate and a disagreement about vinyl.
Now is the time. Here is the place. This is The Cut.
(featured image from our pal and X&HTeam-mate Dominic Wade).
Part—well, a lot of what we do here at The Cut is concerned with a sort of discovery. Done right, we want each week’s ep to be more than a random collation of links. There’s a process running under the hood where you, lovely Readership, get to see our thoughts ticking over. We want you to follow where we have been a-wandering, to find joy or inspiration in the same moments as us. It doesn’t work all the time. Never mind. There’s always next week. Robin at Snarkmarket puts it another way…
The art of working in public
Plant a seed, a seed will grow. What if you don’t know what the seed is? What if the seed arrives at your house unexpectedly, without you asking? This story on the mysterious appearance of thousands of packets of Chinese seeds through the letterboxes of British and American households is a fascinating conspiracy theory with a conclusion the more savvy amongst you may be able to spot.
https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2021/07/unsolicited-seeds-china-brushing/619417/
We are proud of our adopted home town. Reading council’s application for city status saddens us slightly—why be just another city when we’re already the biggest town in the country? There’s a lot to love about this place—the food culture, the parks and greenery, the history ranging from Henry II to Oscar Wilde. We’re also proud of our brilliant university. Especially when we found out it’s a big part of the effort to protect one of our most vital natural resources.
Beach Of Dreams is the record of Kevin Rushby’s walk down the east coast of England. It’s travel journalism on a grand scale, with elements of psychogeography and the giddy glee of discovery bubbling through every post. Well worth a deep dive or just a skim. We are particularly enjoying his route down the Essex coast, a particularly mysterious and unexplored territory.
Beach of Dreams Blog
This Dangerous Minds piece on the rediscovery of how good vinyl can sound gave us pause. We have a record collection here at Cut Central, fuelled mostly by old records from our youth and the occasional second hand find. It’s decidedly cheap and cheerful. We worry that the approach and conclusion reached here—that you can only truly hear a record as it’s supposed to sound if you splash out a ton of dough on gear and wildly expensive repressings—strikes us as the worst kind of elitism. For most people this solution is simply out of reach. Sneering at folk for listening to music digitally seems snobby at best. Anyway, have a read and see what you think.
https://dangerousminds.net/comments/extreme_record_collecting_confessions_of_an_analog_vinyl_snob
Similarly we started this piece on a new doco on the late lamented Anthony Bourdain with enthusiasm and ended it feeling a little deflated. Bourdain was a complicated man who probably would have hated the new film about him. Especially as the director has used AI techniques much like the one we highlighted last week to fake Anthony narrating. A bit icky, frankly. If nothing else, make sure you follow the link to Bourdain’s first published piece to give you a truer sense of the flavour of the man.
https://www.eater.com/22583492/anthony-bourdain-documentary-roadrunner-review-morgan-neville
The furore over Jeff Bezos and Richard Branson making it to the vestibule of space (one writer claimed smartly this week it was like you standing by the sliding doors of your local Tesco and claiming you’d been shopping) has one positive outcome. The Blue Origin flight gave Lady Astronaut Wally Funk the chance to finally see the curve of the earth, a moment she had been working towards for all of her long life. That, at least, makes Bezos a tiny bit less of a cartoon supervillian.
OK, we’re going full-on Ninth Art for the next couple of links. Thanks for your patience. First up, the always-great NeoTextCorp hosts Sergio Lopez’s remarkable long read on pastiche comics—funny books which work both as parody and commentary on classic Ninth Art tropes. There’s a lot to unpack here, and we appreciate this may not be for everyone, but there are lots of pretty pics to look at.
How Pastiche Comic Books Help Us Rewrite Our Own History
Sergio sez:
History is never as simple as the narratives which are sanitized and packaged for public consumption, and the comic book industry was no different. Beneath the veneer of affability at Marvel Comics, to use one example, lay the stark reality of work-for-hire, which left many creators feeling exploited by management — and Stan Lee in particular.
Which brings us on to a Hollywood Reporter bit which has had the comics socials buzzing this week. Most of the blockbuster comic-book movies from Marvel and DC are based on the work of men and women who are not adequately compensated for their creations. It’s a sad fact of the industry—one which we need to keep exposing to make sure brilliant creators get more than a mention at the back end of a long slow credit crawl.
And finally, let’s lighten the mood and have a little dance, eh? Don’t just stand there, let’s get to it. Strike a pose, there’s nothing to it.
https://www.vogue.com/article/madonna-vogue-video-30th-anniversary
The joy of discovery is, as we mentioned at the top, a big part of the Cut’s ethos. The delight of a fun piece of writing showing up in a newsletter or Twitter thread. And of course, when the exact right song pings up on the big random playlist we run as the soundtrack to our work (couldn’t do that with vinyl, sadly). The opening kick of Don’t Carry It All by The Decemberists was met with a cackle of recognition and realisation by the heads at The Music Desk. In a time of worry and uncertainty, here’s a song to remind us it’s ok to be unsure, to not let our burdens bring us down.
See you next Saturday, neighbours.
