Rob Wickings's Blog, page 24
May 12, 2021
How It Started/How It’s Going
This week marks the first anniversary of The Cut. That might not seem like much when put against, for example, The Guardian who celebrate 200 years this month. It’s a big milestone for me, though, as it’s the longest sustained and consistent run of publishment on this blog since—well, ever.
Yes but Rob The Cut is just you reposting a bunch of links every week and pretending there’s an office of people behind you.
True. But then, also untrue. Also, how dare you talk about The Cut Crew like that? Fictitious journalists have feelings too!
The whole point of starting The Cut was to connect the two pastimes I was indulging in most through lockdown. Regina Brett put it succinctly—
‘A writer writes.’
But then William Faulkner said—
“Read, read, read. Read everything – trash, classics, good and bad, and see how they do it. Just like a carpenter who works as an apprentice and studies the master. Read! You’ll absorb it. Then write. If it’s good, you’ll find out. If it’s not, throw it out of the window.”
Stephen King summed up the whole darn Situation—
“If you don’t have time to read, you don’t have the time (or the tools) to write. Simple as that.”
Lockdown gave me that time, and believe me, I’ve done plenty of both over the last twelve months. Living on Twitter, trawling my Feedly links, gobbling magazines (a subscription to Readly is a very worthy investment, giving you access to hundreds of publications, including some newspapers, for the price of one), reading a ton of newsletters every week kept me entertained, but wasn’t really helping me get blog posts out. There’s only so much material you can wring out of lockdown cooking, or the joy of having an insect share your space for a while (not kidding about that one, by the way).
So I went back to basics. A long time ago in a bhahdery blah blah bla-blah when dinosaurs and Margaret Thatcher still roamed the earth and phones had cords and dials, I began a Blogger site called The Ugly Truth. It was, as the fashion ran at the time, a weblog—a sort of diary of whatever I’d come across that was interesting and wanted to share. Like Twitter without the screaming and in a space I could call my own. My space, for want of a better phrase.
The Cut is the modern incarnation of that feel, with a little more structure. As it’s coming out of my reading list, there are a specific set of interests. Film, food, booze, music, the joy of language, the importance of comics and the links that are just too weird not to share.
Structure is important. It keeps things easy to read and more importantly, easy to write. There’s a preamble to set the scene, like the opening monologue of a chat show. Links are grouped together by subject or theme, trying to make one flow into the next without that screeching handbrake-turn of tone The One Show has managed to make its own. And we finish with a song, of course.
As a treat, have a peek behind the magic curtain. Here’s what The Cut looks like without any clothes on.
There’s the preamble at the top, with a READ MORE link that breaks it from the home page into the main body of the episode. Placeholders for links. The Exit Music bit at the bottom with places for the intro, YouTube embed and farewell. The placeholders get filled through the week. Using WordPress on my phone and tablet means if anything grabs me it can be in place with a couple of taps. When I get to the bottom that’s enough material for one ep. Anything extra gets spilled into next week. That’s it, really. All I have to do then is write the preamble, the intros for each link, sort out artwork, make sure it flows nicely and so on and so there.
But it’s still a blog, Rob. Why not roll The Cut into a newsletter, send it out as a weekly email and start monetizing? Did Substack show you nothing?
Yes. Well. I was thinking about that quite seriously at one point. Observant members of The Readership will note I did dabble with a Substack instance of The Cut, as a straight cut-and-paste of the weekly post. It foundered quickly. One step too much. Then the issues with Substack’s problematic championing of problematic writers became a thing and I just went urgh and walked away.
Here’s the thing—I do this for fun. Well, ok, it’s not fun when I’m up early on Saturday morning staring blearily at a screen trying to remember why that link to the clown motel in Nevada seemed like a good idea. But I’m a little lost and a little sad when I don’t have an ep of The Cut on The Go. Conversely, hitting the Publish button always gives me a little buzz of happy satisfaction. I never fail to smile when it goes live.
But I don’t have to do it. No-one’s asking me to put together a weekly slumgullion of linky stew. More importantly—no-one’s paying me to do it. Shifting onto a model where I have to hustle for readers and keep things exclusive to an expectant email list is many light-years from where I want to be with this enterprise. Let’s not forget—The Cut is entirely dependent on the work of other, more talented people. Without them, all you’d have every week would be the skeleton I’ve shown you above. I’d be kidding myself if I believed I could charge simply for that. I’d need to include more original material and I can’t guarantee how often that could happen. It makes more sense to keep The Cut as an open platform that anyone can read anytime, anywhere, for free, forever.
(If you like what I do and feel the urge to buy me a beer anytime, though, I will accept gracefully. I’m not a complete churl.)
Merrily we roll along, then. I’ve had a few bumps of positive feedback lately from people whose opinion I value greatly which is all the fuel I need, really. Honestly, I do love to hear from you, Readership. It’s good to know someone’s reading. To be honest, though, I think I’d do it even without the hit numbers, which regularly slip into double figures. Maybe I should rethink that whole monetisation thing.
Ah, what the heck. Let’s finish on a high.
See you on Saturday.
May 8, 2021
The Cut Season 2 Episode 19
By the time this episode drops, the Cut Crew will be on retreat, comfortably snugged into a big cottage by the sea, somewhere far from Reading. It will be a time of healing, a chance to regain perspective, a moment to reflect and re-energise as the world swings into whatever it’s deciding to call normal this week. We hope, Readership, you’re able to find your own path through the woods and out into the sunshine.
In this episode—purple Smurfs, Duke Ellington’s tips on creativity and the costumes of Ferris Bueller.
If (time) = NOW and (place) = HERE then (this) = … anyone? Anyone? Bueller? Anyone?
We think by now you know how fascinated we are by the mutagenic properties of language. How words can change their meaning, how pronunciation shifts. How do you say ‘Uranus?’ When exactly did we start every sentence with ‘So…’? No phenomenon more clearly shows this mutation than the Italian New Jersey accent. Even if you’re no Sopranos fan, we think you’re gonna dig this…
The Smurfs. Harmless, sweet cartoon characters, cleanly-drawn but simplistic creations with nothing to bring us but entertainment. Right? Nah, come on. This is comics we’re talking about, and you know by now The Ninth Art always has a lesson for us. Join Comic Book Bin in a look back at the story of the Purple Smurfs, a cautionary tale with very powerful links to The Situation…
http://www.comicbookbin.com/Purple_Smurf_teach_Us_About_Covid019.html
Two-Tone is forty! How old do you feel right now, cos the greying heads of the Music Desk have just drooped a little lower with an audible groan. As a massive new exhibition on the scene, the fashion and the music launches in Coventry, let’s take a look at the history of a movement which even now stands as an exemplar of what you can do with a dream and a handful of killer beats.
We were delighted to see one of our local celebrity chefs, Tom Kerridge, team up with food hero Marcus Rashford to bring us a new series of easy introductory cooking vids. The pair have a lot in common—both suffered food poverty when they were boys and both understand how important it is to feed kids well. Tom tells us more about the new project and how it felt to teach Marcus how to peel a carrot…
In The Situation, many of us have found comfort in the establishment and nurturing of ritual. Whether it be a series of workouts with Joe Wicks, the same walk round the park every day or simply checking in with friends and family at a given time each week, applying structure to a seemingly formless stretch of time really can help us cope. Food, of course, can be part of that ritual. The Guardian chats to a few people who achieve serenity through repetition at breakfast or lunch….
Quizzes have become a big deal through The Situation. Again, this can be part of developing a ritual, if you’re doing it with the same people every week. We’re a nation of quizzers anyway, so the boom in online question-mastery should be no idea. Writing a quiz is an art on itself and can often reveal more than the setter thinks about their likes and personality. Journalist Martin Belam, who’s just started up a new weekly session for The Guardian, discusses the perks and pitfalls…
https://www.inpublishing.co.uk/articles/question-time-17041
One more on finding structure in the everyday Situation from a frequent favourite of ours, Austin Kleon. The idea and mechanics of work has taken a huge swerve into unknown territory. Events like the commute, the lunchtime sandwich, the quick pint before home time have vanished from our lives for the most part. The work day depends on good connectivity but has become at the same time much less connected. With nods to journalist Studs Turkel and cartoonist Richard Scarry, Austin asks a really important question—what do people do all day?
What do people do all day?
“I remember once talking to Jane Fonda,” Rossellini recalls, “and she talked about how we women are born having to interpret an ideal of beauty that isn’t created by women; rather it is an impersonation of woman.”
Isabella Rossellini on absolutely ferocious form. That’s all you need to know.
https://www.harpersbazaar.com/culture/features/a36182114/isabella-rossellini-interview/
As writers and film fans who grew up in the John Hughes era, how could we not be influenced by movies like The Breakfast Club and Ferris Bueller’s Day Off? They showed us places and people who were and were not like us all at once, where a dance party during detention or singing ‘Twist And Shout’ at a parade were, somehow, achievable. We have a confession to make—this interview with the costume designer on both films, Marilyn Vance, went into the link-list this week almost sight unseen. It’s quintessential Cut fodder.
The woman who styled your favourite ’80s teen movies
And finally. Subtle Maneuvers is another newsletter which comes with a hearty recommendation from the editorial desk. This article, on how jazz legend Duke Ellington took inspiration from everything around him, spoke very strongly to us as a way to keep us creative and engaged. It’s easier now than ever to shut yourself off from the world. There’s no need for it. Just keep your eyes and ears open and let the world give you clues.
https://subtlemaneuvers.substack.com/p/duke-ellingtons-hungry-ear
An example of that very thing. Martin Belam, the quizmaster we talked about earlier, regularly talks about Tim’s Twitter Listening Parties. You know, the thing where everyone presses play on an agreed album at the same time and live-tweets about it. Martin was discussing this week’s record, but we’d missed the part where he said what it was. So we clicked on the provided link and were transported back to our youth, and a piece of music which spoke so clearly about our travels this week although we hadn’t heard it in years. Synchronicity or what? A gift from the cosmos. We couldn’t resist dropping it as our Exit Music.
See you next Saturday, road warriors.
May 1, 2021
The Cut Season 2 Episode 18
Welcome to the fiftieth episode of The Cut! Begun as an exercise in sanity-preservation in the height of lockdown, we’re pleased to have kept the momentum going, sending our patent-pending brew of links and commentary without pause to our literally dozens of readers for all this time. Of course this means there’s an even bigger milestone looming up on the horizon in a couple of weeks…
This week, we ask important tongue-related questions, introduce you to The Witch of King’s Cross and sing a song for the man who took the loneliest flight of all.
Time check! Now! Location check! Here! This is The Cut!
The human body is a remarkable thing. No mere bag of meat and fluid, it’s an insanely complicated organic machine capable of extraordinary feats. Consider, for example, the tongue. Filled with receptors, able to detect and discern an incredible range of tastes and textures. Then, of course, there’s its role in the broadcast and dissemination of language. Try talking without it. We bet you’re waggling it around in your mouth right now. In fact, it takes up more of the brain’s processing power than you think. Which explains one of the more peculiar quirks of human behaviour…
https://www.sciencefocus.com/the-human-body/why-do-i-stick-out-my-tongue-when-i-concentrate/
During lockdown, people have come to know Robert Fripp as the quiet bloke with the loud guitar backing up Toyah Willcox as she cavorts and sings in a series of tight tops every Sunday lunchtime. The hoary old heads at the Music Desk know him better as the genius behind prog giants King Crimson. He has explored the far reaches of the sonic capabilities of his instrument, creating soundscapes both for his own projects and as a gun for hire. The wailing swooping feedback all over David Bowie’s Heroes? That was Fripp. Today we’d like to check a lesser known but equally resonant musical journey Robert undertook with another prog legend, Peter Gabriel. Here Comes The Flood…
https://musicaficionado.blog/2016/01/24/here-comes-the-flood-by-robert-fripp-and-peter-gabriel/
A couple of Marvel links. We’ve really enjoyed the Disney+ shows thus far, each of which have brought something different to the table. Surreal exploration of grief in WandaVision, and a fresh take on the buddy movie in The Falcon And The Winter Soldier. But as Sam Wilson picks up the shield and takes on the mantle of Captain America, it’s time for us to face an uncomfortable truth. The dude simply can’t fight…
It’s About Time We Acknowledged That Sam Wilson Can’t Fight
Meanwhile, over at the Cinematic Universe, the announcement of one actor’s arrival at the franchise brought wild excitement from many and bemusement from some. As Marvel launch their take on the classic Chinese Kung Fu action movie, the big question is—who is Tony Leung?
https://www.inverse.com/entertainment/shang-chi-who-is-tony-leung-marvel-actor
Yesterday was Walpurgis Night. We’re now officially halfway to Halloween, folks! On the day when all the witches cavort freely, we thought it might be fun to look at a woman who fully embraced the lifestyle at a time and in a place where to do so as openly as she did courted danger. Let us introduce you to Rosaleen Norton, the Witch Of Kings Cross…
Keeping it creepy for one more link, we have a travel recommendation for you. If you’re ever in Nevada and need somewhere to stay for the night, there’s a place just on the edge of Tonopah which may fit the bill. Coulrophobes may want to just keep on driving…
https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/clown-motel
Where do jokes come from? Comedians fret and worry over their material and are understandably sensitive if they think another performer is nabbing their gags. But sometimes the best jokes have a life and a history that’s less easy to track. John Hoare tries to lock down the origins of a classic, and finds it goes back further than one might think…
http://www.dirtyfeed.org/2021/04/what-the-papers-say/
This is a bit of a visual treat. Artist Nache Ramos has a real feel for retro comic styling. He’s taken and applied it to classic horror movies, to stunning effect. This ticks a lot of our boxes and is a gallery we couldn’t resist sharing with you.
The strangest story of the week has to be this one, as a Russian singer on a Chinese boy-band talent show finally gets the result he has been begging for. This ties in pretty closely to the way audiences on shows like I’m A Celebrity will glom onto a particular contestant and force them to do all the most horrible tasks. Crowds can be cruel…
A local link to finish off. We were delighted to see one of our favourite Reading writers, the gleeful misanthrope known as STiR, relaunch his pub review site. Even better, he’s started back up with a visit to Loddon Brewery’s tapyard, a place close to both our hearts and the office. STiR is an extremely good writer and his reviews are funny, irreverent and insightful. He’s a genuinely useful reviewer and you always get a good feel as to whether a particular pub is for you or not. We were pleased see he likes Loddon. We can strongly recommend if you’re ever in Dunsden Green…
http://shitandnotshitpubsinreading.com/2021/04/26/loddon-brewery-taproom/
And finally. It was a sadness for us to learn of the passing of Michael Collins, the pilot of Apollo 11 and, for a while, the loneliest human alive. He never got to set foot on the moon, but that never mattered to him. His job was to get his crew there and back again, a task he accomplished with quiet dignity. A bit of an introvert hero, in our minds.
https://www.space.com/michael-collins-remembers-apollo-11-moon-landing.html
He is the inspiration for our Exit Music, as we offer up a little bit of prog from Jethro Tull. We had no idea until writer Danny Kelly pointed it out that their song ‘For Michael Collins, Jeffrey and me’ was about the astronaut. It’s a lovely tune, and a fitting tribute to the man.
See you next Saturday, star children.
April 24, 2021
The Cut Season 2 Episode 17
There are a few pots of seedlings on a warm, sunny windowsill at Cut Command. Tomatoes and a couple of kinds of chilies. Normally, the gardeneers in the office would simply buy plants to pot out in our little patch of ground out past the back door. This year they decided to try and grow from seed. The progress has been slow, a little worrying when we come in to find the plants have gone floppy for no good reason. But it’s such a nice feeling to see that dot of green on the surface of a pot appear, reach out and stretch into a new life, a new kind of potential.
That’s a metaphor for something, probably.
This week, how you can’t walk away from a memory on the internet (even when it didn’t happen), the trouble with vinyl and a real blast from the past.
See now this right here now, this is The Cut.
Jeff Vandermeer is a writer who has never been afraid to embrace the weird. His work moves from tangled gothic thought experiments into considerations of a natural world turned strange and vengeful thanks to our misconservatorship. His latest novel, Hummingbird Salamander, is a bit of both wrapped in a globe-spanning conspiracy-tinged thriller. He’s doing the interview rounds to promote the book. Jeff is a fascinating character and this chat with the Guardian is well worth a look.
How much can you pack into a sentence? Well, quite a bit if, like Ken Fuson, you really want to give your reader a snapshot of a particular moment in Iowa in March. This is part poetry, part journalism and entirely lovely.
What a Day!
Pockets are important. You can put stuff in them, or even just your hands if they’re cold. It seems odd to us how women’s clothing has pocket details without the actual functionality (there’s a theory pinning it down to a fear of what women were actually putting in their pockets in times of unrest—weapons, seditious broadsheets—that led to a shift in fashion led by a nervous ruling class). Anyway, our bemusement is shared by young Camryn Gardner, who decided to do something about it…
https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/2021/04/09/old-navy-girls-jeans-pockets/
(The last two links come courtesy of Ann Friedman’s very excellent newsletter, which we urge you all to read and possibly, as we do, pay for).
This made us chuckle. There’s been much hoohaa and folderol in the UK media this week about Aldi’s copy of the iconic Colin the Caterpillar cake, which brought on legal action from M&S. As most British supermarkets stock some version of the delicious grub-shaped treat, it seems a bit disingenuous to drag Aldi up to the bench. It’s true they have built a business from clever copies of big-name brands, but there are classier ways to address the ‘homage’. Take indie beer masters BrewDog, who took a smart and humorous approach to an Aldi clone—one which could lead to both beers sitting on the same shelf…
https://foodanddrink.scotsman.com/drink/brewdog-responds-to-lookalike-aldi-beer-yaldi-ipa/
Ah, whisky. We love us a wee dram here at The Cut. Like all good journalists we have a small bottle tucked into a drawer of our desk, ready to go when we need a little liquid inspiration. Part of the attraction is the aging process—the way time and the wood the grain alcohol sits in imparts flavour and richness. It adds to the mythos and, of course, the cost. What if there was a way to cut that time down from years to months or even days? What impact would this acceleration have on the industry? There’s bound to be a lot of pushback from distillers whose business models are based on the old ways but we have to admit it’s a product we’d be willing to try. You know, for science.
https://www.ft.com/content/faf7f7e5-d36e-4484-af19-7493d5d04d6a
This week’s long read discusses a very twenty-first century problem. It’s always un-nerving when you do an internet search for a product or service, only for it to start popping up on your social media ad streams. Imagine then how it must feel when, years after, you’re still getting recommendations based on those searches which were for an event that never happened…
https://www.wired.com/story/weddings-social-media-apps-photos-memories-miscarriage-problem/
We’re solidly into awards season now. The Oscars are coming up this weekend, celebrating cinema’s strangest year. To what extent has lockdown affected the choices of award nominee, bearing in mind that the movie experience in 2020 was one taken at home using streaming services? Smaller, quieter and more racially-aware films are the big hitters for Oscar this year, as we have been more able and willing to take a punt on movies outside our normal range. If we’re paying for Netflix anyway, we may as well make the most of it. The question is whether this change is one likely to stick as we start returning to cinemas.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/15/movies/oscar-nominations.html
When Neil Gaiman exhorts you on Twitter to read an article, you would be foolish not to at least click the link. We will do no more than pass that recommendation on, adding only how much we enjoyed it. You know how we roll, Readership. Enjoy this exploration of two writers we guarantee you won’t know and will want to read by the time you finish the piece.
https://neglectedbooks.com/?p=7945
Kintsugi is the Japanese art of repairing pottery, using bright and colourful materials to embrace rather than disguise the flaws in the object. French artist Ememem does something similar, fixing damaged and potholed pavements with mosaic. He calls the process flacking. It’s a charming twist on street art, elegant, witty and far cleverer than the one-note bombast of Banksy. We’d love to see something like this on British streets.
https://www.ememem-flacking.net/flacking
The huge boost in sales of vinyl (what the crusties on the Music Desk used to call records) has taken many by surprise. It’s become a boom industry as collectors snap up limited editions in wild colours. The problem—demand is massively outstripping supply. There simply aren’t enough places making the platters anymore…
And finally. One of the great losses to Covid in 2020 was Adam Schlesinger, lead songwriter for the brilliant Fountains Of Wayne. He specialised in a grounded but wise kind of power pop, finding the skewed beauty in the everyday. Unfairly marginalised as a one-hit wonder as their track Stacy’s Mom blew up in 2003, the Waynes have a lot to offer. They also have a lot of celebrity fans, who are coming together for a benefit gig on May 5th. Courtney Love, Peter Buck and Sean Lennon are just a few of the names celebrating Adam’s life and music. This will be one to watch, we guarantee.
In ordinary times, we’d put one of Adam’s songs on the jukebox as our Exit Music. But this week also saw the passing of musical behemoth Jim Steinman. The man behind Meatloaf, the genius for whom too much was never enough. He fused rock and roll and opera into a seething stew of teenage drama, sodden with lust and life. Famously, he turned down a chance to collaborate with Andrew Lloyd Webber in order to finish a Bonnie Tyler album. He deserves our respect for that if nothing else.
With such a legacy to pick from, you’d think we’d struggle to settle on one song to sum up Jim’s music. Pah. It’s like you don’t know us at all. We’ll take any excuse to play our favourite song from the greatest film soundtrack ever written. Rather than the slightly cheesy video, we’re playing out with the final scene of wild urban western fantasy Streets Of Fire. Redline the volume, Readership.
Let the revels begin.
See you next Saturday.
April 17, 2021
The Cut Season 2 Episode 16
We are yet to have a haircut. We have yet to drink a pint in the sunshine. We are shy and retiring creatures and the news footage of all those people and all that noise has put us into retreat a bit. It will come, perhaps this weekend. After all, we all look like versions of Doc Emmet Brown from Back To The Future now. We celebrate and congratulate those of The Readership who have taken their first steps into a brighter world. We hope to join you soon.
In the meantime, check out one writer’s post-Covid schedule, snag a primer on the weird world of government economics and join us in song as we say goodbye to a legend.
Here in this place, now at this time, you will find The Cut.
We all know Peter Jackson as the man behind the increasingly bloated J.R.R. Tolkien film adaptations. How many endings can a film have? We counted at least four in Return Of The King. But Jackson’s work didn’t used to be that way. His early work was fast, cheap and dirty. Oh and very, very bloody. In this week’s inevitable Film School Rejects post, let’s take a look back at his first movie, whose subject was summed up in the title…
Gumption and Gore: How Peter Jackson Made ‘Bad Taste’
Jackson’s later work is also known for its heavy reliance on CGI and green-screen technology, which is now an extremely common working method in film and TV. Why even leave the studio when you can bring the world into it? As back-projection a la The Mandalorian gets more accessible, sticking an actor into a capture volume and adding everything else virtually is, for good or ill, the way forward.
It didn’t used to be that way, of course, and one film-maker led the way, a man who shone very brightly for a single movie then vanished. Let’s reacquaint ourselves with Sky Captain And The World Of Tomorrow!
How’s life for you as lockdown starts to ease? Have you made it out of the house? Have you started, however tentatively, to make plans? Claire Zulkey has, and she shares her post-Covid schedule with us, courtesy of her Evil Witches newsletter (worth a subscribe, in our humble opinion).
https://evilwitches.substack.com/p/my-post-covid-schedule
Oh lordy, we miss bookshops. Once we pluck up the nerve, we’re running out to our favourites to browse and sniff and cuddle the books and generally make an embarrassment of ourselves. We are very happy to note we are not alone in this need to get back into the stacks…
Synesthesia is a condition where the senses get scrambled or augmented. You see sound, you hear tastes. Confusing and unsettling, certainly. But also an opportunity to make fascinating art. One of the pioneers of modern art, Wassily Kandinsky, had the condition and used it to effectively kickstart abstract expressionism. Now, artist Michel Levy has used his skills in animation to show how he experiences Bach and John Coltrane. This is absolutely beautiful.
John Coltrane’s “Giant Steps” & Bach’s “Prelude in C Major” Get Turned into Dazzling Musical Animations by an Artist with Synesthesia
The Music Desk are mostly, as we mentioned last week, shaggy old rockers (extremely so with their lockdown hair) but they’re also fond of the occasional blast of angular experimental electronica. Aphex Twin is a favourite, his jackhammer skronk often jolting us out of our after-lunch doze. Today let’s take a look at a piece which, while not one of his best known works, (in fact you’d be surprised to know it was the man behind Come To Daddy and Windowlicker who wrote and performed it) has an enduring legacy far beyond its original release…
A busy week on the Music Desk. One of our favourite newsletter writers, Austin Kleon, has posted a fascinating consideration on the nature and craft of songwriting. It’s inspired partly by the viral clip of Paul Simon breaking down how he found inspiration for Bridge Over Troubled Water on a 1971 clip of the Dick Cavett Show. Those of us who think all music springs out from the brow of the tortured artist are, sadly mistaken. From Motown to the Brill Building to today’s bolt-together musical solutions, song-writing has for a long time been an industrial process…
The song machines
With that thought fresh in our heads, let’s see how some song artisans are banding together to make sure they get a fair share of the profits for their work. A common hustle in the recording industry is ‘change a word, get a third.’ Dating back to the era of that old villain Colonel Tom Parker, it’s one reason the big stars of the moment unfairly make sure they’re a part of the collaborative process, and snag a chunk of the coin to boot…
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-56736047 – change a word, get a third.
Right, economics. Ugh, dry, boring. Who cares? Well, you should. Economics, or more accurately the misrepresentation and misapplication of economic theory especially at the national level is one reason we have such a confused idea about finance. As we use cash less and less, the idea of money becomes more of an abstract concept. A figure in an app or online service. Pirate economist Richard Murphy has form in this arena, clarifying matters in long and fascinating Twitter threads. These have now been collected into a free ebook. We heartily recommend picking up a copy and preparing to have your mind blown. It really does seem like money ain’t nothin’ but a number…
‘Money for nothing and my Tweets for free’ is out today
We had to share this glorious collection of hand-drawn logos from Marvel up to the early 90s for no other reason than their gorgeousness. You know, just by looking at them, that the character they announce will be as big, bold and colourful as the banner. Excelsior!
https://reaganray.com/2021/04/06/marvel-lettering.html
A big read to finish off. Elle magazine would not be the place you’d expect to find a portrait of a wrestler. But Becky Lynch is no ordinary grappler. Her story is one of extraordinary grit, determination and refusal to compromise. It also reflects the wild world of pro-wrestling which is never quite as simple as you think. Sure, the matches are scripted. But no-one complains about that in the movies or TV. And the hits in the ring are very, very real.
https://www.elle.com/culture/movies-tv/a36031455/how-becky-lynch-became-the-man/
We dedicate this week’s Exit Music to the memory of actress Helen McCrory, who moved onto better things this week thanks to that fucking cancer bullshit. She automatically improved any scene she was in by 20 per cent. We’re cranking up the Billy Joel, and invite you to sing along while raising a glass.
See you next Saturday, sweethearts.
April 10, 2021
The Cut Season 2 Episode 15
Is it sensible to ignore a huge breaking news event, given that any response we give is liable to raise hackles?
Yes, Readership, we believe it is.
In this week’s ep, Britfunk and Prog bump up against a very large synthesiser. We look at the quiet still point of a noir classic and wonder just what the heck is up with Trump and Musk. And is Trump and Musk a fragrance brand we should look to market?
This time is adjacent to the place in which you will find The Cut.
Let’s begin with a confession from the Music Desk, who are to a person hoary old rockers and psych heads. This does not, we freely admit, lead to a nuanced and empathetic coverage of the wider musical spectrum. What can we say? On the wages The Cut offer, you get what you give. Therefore, a mea culpa—in our formative years we were violently dismissive and therefore horribly wrong about 80s Britfunk. Nowadays, with ears and minds suitably broadened, we can hear how refreshing, bold and forward-looking the music of bands like Freeez and Hi-Tension was. We’re slow, but we get there.
https://www.theguardian.com/music/2021/apr/02/how-britfunk-overcame-racism-to-reinvigorate-uk-pop
Phew. That was cathartic. Let’s give the Music Desk a break and let them focus on a subject closer to their bailiwick. To be precise, a character for whom the word ‘interesting’ has only become more accurate over time…
Our final Music Desk link comes from the fine folk at Look Mum, No Computer, who offer a look at one big old heck of a synthesiser. We’d love to get up close and personal with this wall of sound…
https://spectrum.ieee.org/geek-life/profiles/the-intense-sound-of-1000-analog-oscillators
Over to the Book Desk. If you’re hoping for a deep dive into some contemporary lit or histfic or even romance, we’re afraid you’re seriously out of luck. Nope, we’re skiffilicious this go around. In this first link, we invite The New Atlantis to run us all through Iain M. Banks’ Culture books. Star Trek fans may also find points of interest in a post-scarcity society with a bit of a dark side.
The Ambiguous Utopia of Iain M. Banks
John Scalzi is as entertaining on his blog and Twitter feed as in his brilliant novels—irascible, scatalogical and hilarious. An equal chunk of fun comes when he offers up the podium to other voices. On Whatever (yes, really) Oliver K. Langmead grabs an opportunity to large up his new novel and the Big Idea within. We love the notion of hyperobjects, which means we think you will too…
https://whatever.scalzi.com/2021/04/08/the-big-idea-oliver-k-langmead/
Donald Trump is launching his own social network. We’ll take a second to let that sentence settle in. While we’re sure The Cheeto King thinks all he has to do is snap his tiny fingers for a viable rival to Twitbook and Facebot preloaded with adoring followers to thunder out of the gates, the truth is, we’re delighted to report, a leeetle more complimacated. Especially if the people you need to make the darn thing work just aren’t that keen on taking the orange dollar…
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-social-network-tech-experts/
Michael Mann’s first movie, Thief, turns forty this year. This is a depressing metric which we’ll pass over in the chance to celebrate a brilliant piece of cinema. This Film School Rejects bit dials into one key scene, which won’t be the last time Mann chooses to let the focal point of a film land as two people talking in a diner.
An Ode to the Diner Scene in Michael Mann’s ‘Thief’
Comics, as none other than the King Jack Kirby pointed out, will break your heart. The Ninth Art has always been a space where hucksters, gobshites and conmen run free. The biggest companies in the business are notorious for scamming the talent which created their most valuable properties out of a fair share of the profits—or indeed any share at all. Sadly, sharp practice is still a big part of the funny-book world. It’s only become more blatant.
https://io9.gizmodo.com/comics-contracts-and-covid-inside-the-scandal-at-ter-1845120487
And finally. We could not resist sharing this Current Affairs post on the man who more than any other has embraced the sobriquet ‘mad genius’ and gone HOG DADDY WILD with it. Elon. Dude. Dial it back a couple of notches, mmmkay?
https://www.currentaffairs.org/2021/04/surely-we-can-do-better-than-elon-musk
Right then. To prove we have our finger on the pulse of the youngs (after first checking that we have one ourselves) we give the Exit Music slot over to Dry Cleaning. They are both lairy and controlled, poetic and bawdy, flatly delivered and balls out rockin. We find them pleasing, and trust you do too. Chances are we’re behind the curve on this one and Dry Cleaning are already last year’s news but as we pointed out earlier, it took us the best part of forty years to catch up with Britfunk. LOOK WE’RE TRYIN’ HERE, OK?
See you next Saturday, hepcats.
March 27, 2021
The Cut Season 2 Episode 14
Happy Easter! We hope you’re finding the time and space to meet up with loved ones again in a responsible and socially distanced manner. It’s a strange time in which hope and dread become entangled—hope for a more normal future, dread of a sudden reversal. For now, we plan to enjoy the fresh air and company, feeling the kiss of the sun on our face as a substitute for the real thing.
This week—games you can fit on a business card, all manner of mayors and the importance of chairs in a well-loved science-fiction franchise.
Now is the here is the place is the time is The Cut.
Gods, we miss cinemas. Certainly the team at the Film Desk spent far more of their youth than was healthy in darkened rooms staring at big dreams on big screens. Sometimes the film wasn’t even the point. Cinemas are, for us, fascinating places in their own right. Places with a specific purpose and their own set of behavioural and decorative rules. Which brings us to the magnificent objects that were lobby carpets. The A24 blog has more…
https://a24films.com/notes/2021/03/if-y2k-era-movie-theater-carpets-could-talk
Who here remembers Tina Bell and Bam Bam? No-one? Well, until this week we were the same. That’s borderline criminal, as she was a powerful and forgotten musician whose influence in the nascent grunge scene was deep and wide-ranging. Completely ignored in many supposedly complete histories of the time, Tina deserves to be up there as a formative voice of one of the major musical movements of the century. Read this, get angry, spread the word.
https://zora.medium.com/the-black-mother-of-grunge-who-inspired-nirvana-95886f21eccc
We were fascinated by this bit on New York Times editor Sam Sifton’s new book, which strips back the notion of a recipe to suggestions taking up a paragraph. There’s a lot to unpack here in terms of appropriation in food writing, particularly in terms of a supposed gender bias in the way men and women will approach a dish. Read the article and make your own mind up, but here’s a couple of thoughts from us. Firstly, Sifton’s approach is hardly radical, as fans of Nigel Slater and in particular his ground-breaking Real Fast Food (published in 1992) will know. Secondly, sneering at the idea of exact measurements and timings ignores the fact that baking requires exactly that sort of precision. Try eyeballing the wet and dry goods for a Victoria sponge and see what you end up with…
We’re not gamers, which is a failure on our part. Some amazing and creative work is done in the field, particularly in the realms of tabletop and RPGs. Stripping the mechanics of a playable system down to the bare bones takes skill, understanding and a deep love of the format. Let’s bounce over to Dicebreaker and look at a competition for games that fit neatly on both sides of a business card…
https://www.dicebreaker.com/topics/itchio/news/pleasure-not-business-card-rpg-jam-itchio
The writing of Charles Willeford ushers us into a cruel, amoral world where the only choices are hard and fate inevitably deals out a losing hand. Never a cheery read, his work is nonetheless vital, compelling and sadly still very relevant. The Book Desk hesitates to recommend Willeford unless you have a strong constitution.
Amoral Fiction
Marianne Faithfull has one of the most distinctive voices in pop, all the more so for the way it changes over time. From sweetly pure to world-weary, her delivery of her signature tune As Tears Go By is a history of a life well lived, if unwisely managed. She’s an icon, a star and for we proud residents of England’s largest town, a local hero.
Hear Marianne Faithfull’s Three Versions of “As Tears Go By,” Each Recorded at a Different Stage of Life (1965, 1987 & 2018)
Meanwhile over in That London, a broad swathe of weirdoes, freaks and losers are battling for a top political prize—the chance to be Mayor Of London. It’s a power-broker’s role which gives the incumbent a punt at the big time—just look at the career trajectory of former holder of the office and wet bag of laundry Alexander Boris de Pfeffle Johnson. The Byline Times takes a look at the runners and riders…
In Monowi, Nebraska, Mayor Elsie Eiler forges a different path. She runs her town her way. There are no complaints and no-one stands against her, for one very good reason…
https://www.eater.com/22357222/monowi-nebraska-population-one-elsie-eiler
April Fool’s Day was earlier in the week, and the inevitable tedious corporate ‘pranks’ were back in full force after a hiatus last year in the face of the pandemic. Mostly obvious, mostly dull, although we did like the notion of Dave Grohl playing a villain in the ever-delayed Bond Movie No Time To Die. Grohlfinger, indeed. Our pal Janelle Shane has pointed her menagerie of AIs at the idea of the April Fool’s joke. The results are inevitably hilarious and disturbing…
https://janellecshane.substack.com/p/pranks-you-can-do-at-home
One of the great joys we take from film and TV SF is the set design. From Ridley Scott’s techno-gothic excess to the clean lines of Gerry Anderson’s Moonbase Alpha, we love the aesthetic in all its various forms. Star Trek, of course, has a distinct visual language which takes surprising cues from mid-century European design. Come with us down the rabbit hole as we join Fast Company in an exploration of the chairs of Star Trek.
As a companion piece, we’d also like to offer up this bit from the X&HT archive which broadens the remit while keeping the focus tight…
And finally. Austin Kleon gives us a lot to think about in a clever little piece which collapses the auteur theory of creativity in favour of a more inclusive ecosystem. Read the whole thing, please, but we liked this quote from Ursula Franklin …
The dream of a peaceful society to me is still the dream of a potluck supper. The society in which all can contribute, and all can find friendship. Those who bring things, bring things that they do well. [We must] create conditions under which a potluck is possible.
Ursula Franklin
Further notes on scenius
This week, we present a short documentary for Exit Music. Specifically, a film by Mike Peters of The Alarm on the song that changed his life—In A Big Country. He is a passionate and mesmerising performer who has been through a lot, only to come out the other side with an even stronger determination to make a difference through the power of community and music. We’ve seen him perform In A Big Country with the band of the same name in our favourite sweaty little Reading club. It was a transcendent moment. Let’s take the tune as an anthem to help us through the challenges ahead. Stay alive.
See you next Saturday, true believers.
The Cut Season 2 Episode 13
Doldrums. Holding pattern. Stuck in an unmoving queue. Days merge to weeks, weeks blur to months. Like a tanker on the Suez Canal, jammed in place, going nowhere. Sometimes, the closer you get to a sense of release, the more time slows. Zeno’s paradox, where you can never reach the finish line, however near it looms.
Anyway. Don’t mind us. We got all dreamy thinking about a quiet pint in a pub and the blues took hold. Once we get past Eggmas, things will look better. Hey, whaddya say we look at some links? This week, musical legends lost and found, a taxonomy of pasta shapes and the pub that came back from the dead.
Right here, right now, this is The Cut.
Back in the early days of The Cut, we tried out a newsletter port using Substack. It rapidly petered out, due mostly to the extra bit of work involved. Following reveals on the platform’s shady tactics on author payments, many well-known writers are leaving in droves. We’ll probably just quietly shutter the failed rollout and walk away. More details on the controversy below.
https://techcrunch.com/2021/03/18/substack-backlash/
The furore does make us wonder about how we release The Cut, though. Are you happy with the way you get your weekly linkeration? Would you like to see us try more seriously with an email newsletter format? Let us know in the comments!
We have been thinking this week about Stephen Hawking’s party for time travelers, and have come to a couple of conclusions. Firstly, it doesn’t sound like a fun event to start with, which probably put a lot of temporal fun-seekers off—it’s not like Stephen was hosting a foam party in Ibiza, right? Secondly, we believe time travelers would also have access to mind-wipe technology. What if they showed up and simply erased all evidence of their presence afterwards? Regardless, it remains a fun thought experiment.
https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/stephen-hawking-time-travelers-party
The Situation has also seen a huge rise in the dissemination of conspiracy theories. A lot of unhappy people have been stuck at home with easy access to the kind of wild-eyed nonsense which used to be tucked into adverts for mail-rider pamphlets at the back of Fortean Times. They don’t have the skills needed to judge this stuff at anything but face value. End result—the January breach of the Capitol building. The big problem is the theories change over time, mutating to fit new ‘facts’ and ‘proofs’ into a narrative that’s destroying lives and families.
‘Nothing has worked for any of them’
OK, one more gloomy post and then we promise to lighten things up. Another mainstay and helpmeet for many of us has been the Nintendo Switch game Animal Crossing – New Horizons. The focus and point of the game is community and collaboration. No fighting or death counts to be had here. People are making a life in Animal Crossing, which includes the memorialisation of those they have lost. This, from Order Of The Good Death, is both moving and strangely positive.
Exploring Grief in Animal Crossing: New Horizons
Over to the Music Desk for a change of pace. We love Willie Nelson. The Red-Headed Stranger is a regular on The Cut Boombox. He is a prime mover, an original and distinctive voice for decades who continues to ride the road in his own way. Did you know he’s also a smart and classy interpreter of the Great American Songbook? Willie ain’t just a country boy!
https://www.texasmonthly.com/the-culture/willie-nelson-interpreter-of-the-great-american-songbook/
Would record buyers even remember “Moonlight in Vermont” and “Someone to Watch Over Me,” let alone want to hear Willie Nelson sing them?
We’re staying in the States for the next link, exploring a college town which should be on any rock-lover’s road trip. If you love R.E.M or the B52s (and you get big points off us if you admit to a crush on Pylon or Love Tractor) point the nose of your Pontiac towards Athens, Georgia, y’all!
https://pleasekillme.com/cool-town-athens-georgia/
Our last music link shoots back across the Atlantic to another big music town—Liverpool. We don’t want to talk about The Beatles, Echo And The Bunnymen, or even Sonia. The purpose here is to review the short but very sweet career of Lee Mavers, head songwriter of The La’s. Their one album and the standout track from it cannot, in our opinion, be bettered. Maver’s refusal to release any more material speaks to his perfectionism. He chose to walk away rather than struggle on with diminishing returns.
https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20210315-the-mystery-of-lost-rock-genius-lee-mavers
The next link is a celebration of typewriters in the movies. Not computers. Not word processors. There are no blinking cursors to be had here. No auto-indents, no choice of fonts. It’s ink, metal and paper. Primal stuff. Enjoy the clatter.
A Celebration of Typewriters in Film & Television: A Supercut
John Higgs continues to amuse and delight the Book Desk. His work on counter-cultural icons such as William Blake and The KLF provide insight well beyond the initial scope of their remit. We live in a Discordian world, and Higgs is the man to show us how we ended up here. We recommend a subscribe to his newsletter, from which he resurrected this old but pertinent link. A Modest Proposal, indeed…
Why Don’t We Just… jail people with more than £100 million?
Pasta. A foodstuff so ubiquitous examples are found in cuisines worldwide. Most of us have some spaghetti or a pack of penne kicking around in the kitchen. So many shapes, though! Can it be each is only designed to be paired with one kind of sauce? As ever, with a product this simple, the story is a lot more complex than we think…
https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/643218/stories-behind-pasta-shapes
As a sidebar, check out the work which goes into the invention and manufacture of a brand new pasta shape!
Six years ago, unscrupulous developers ran a bulldozer through the walls of the Carlton Tavern, a historic pub they planned to redevelop into flats. A strong local campaign to keep it as a community hub was building momentum and listed status for the building was looming. The developer’s intention was clear, the tactics dirty as they get. Whoops, sorry, folks, it’s a done deal, no going back now. But things did not work out as the villains of the piece expected and this story has a very happy ending. We’re planning a road trip to Maida Vale once lockdown ends…
And finally. Authors, like other entertainers, have a public-facing persona which can be very different to their real personalities. All part of the branding, even if the image develops after the fact. Take Sylvia Plath, a poster girl for the doomed waif market. Writer Rebecca Brill gained access to Plath’s diaries to find a different person to the one she thought she knew. One who was very keen on her food…
https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/what-sylvia-plath-ate
Wolf Alice bring us this week’s Exit Music. The band announced new releases and a tour this week, but we’d like to take you back to 2016, and a Tiny Desk Concert which showed a gentler side to the often fiery alt-rockers. We’re delighted to see them back in circulation. We plan to make live dates part of our post-Situation strategy. Catch you down the front!
See you next Saturday, sweethearts.
March 20, 2021
The Cut Season 2 Episode 12
This week marks a grim anniversary–a year since the UK first went into lockdown. It’s been a bumpy twelve months, to put it mildly. We’ll touch on this briefly in the course of the episode, as well as offering up a couple of links on the ongoing conversation about listening to and offering safe spaces for half the population of the godsdamn planet.
Plus a fun online toy to play with, the seventieth birthday of a famous ten-year old and a very important food and drink pairing guide.
Is this the time? Is now the place? Is this The Cut?
It’s lovely to see the return of an old friend and it seems we’re not alone in that feeling. The Bayeaux Tapestry Generator, an old web toy from the Flash days has been rebuilt and is now available for all your medieval meme needs. We’ve included one of our faves as the featured image. Why not hit up the link and make your own?
https://htck.github.io/bayeux/#!/
This piece from Thomas McBee hit home for a lot of the Cut Crew this week. As writers, we know the dread of imposter syndrome and the creeping worry that everything we do just isn’t good enough. It’s a comfort to realise we’re not alone, even if it’s never really going to quash the fear. We believe this is a problem anyone with a creative bone in their body faces regularly. It’s OK. Better that than complacency, for heck’s sake.
https://thomasmcbee.medium.com/the-biggest-mistake-ive-made-as-a-writer-1374346ef987
With a year of lockdown behind us, how are we coping? How are you? We hate to worry you, but it turns out you may no longer be the person you were before The Situation. Twelve months of isolation has possibly affected our brain chemistry…
https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2021/03/what-pandemic-doing-our-brains/618221/
Streaming technology has been a major lifesaver all through The Situation, not least for the beleaguered curators of international film festivals (yeah, yeah, we know, dig out the tiny violin and play us a tune). Cannes took a year off, and many of the other major players dropped to an online-only offering. There’s a possibility of this trend continuing even as the world opens back up again. Film festivals are big, expensive beasts for everyone from distributors to the attendees. Travel costs, venue hire, it all adds up. With events like the biggest horror festival on the planet Frightfest seeing big upticks in people able and willing to attend remotely, are we about to see a new era in the celebration of cinema? And how do you sort out drinks at the hotel bar afterwards?
The big stream: The rise of virtual film festivals
This story comes based on a set of circumstances which can apparently no longer happen. Which to us feels like a bit of a shame. Happy accidents are often such a source of joy and the tale of Erwin Kreuz and his unscheduled trip to rural Maine is the sort of thing you really couldn’t make up…
We all know Netflix has become one of the big entertainment powerhouses over the past few years. The investment in exciting new film and drama projects has changed the home entertainment landscape. This piece on the way bespoke tools are used to finesse the science of studio production is nowhere near as dry as it sounds, shows just how serious Netflix is about their own content and, most importantly, highlights how mind-meltingly complex a modern movie or drama shoot is.
https://netflixtechblog.com/studio-production-data-science-646ee2cc21a1
The previous link comes courtesy of Dan Hon’s brilliant newsletter. We urge you all to snag a subscription and perhaps even a little cash.
When is a cookbook not a cookbook? Last week’s answer would have been ‘when it’s an audiobook’. This week the correct response is ‘when it’s lurid, bug-eyed propaganda’. This Atlas Obscura piece on the alleged cookbook of Oliver Cromwell’s wife is an eye-opening look at a document that… well, as writer Anne Ewbank puts it–
“…if you were to go out and buy a cookery book [supposedly] written by Michelle Obama and the first third of it was an essay by Donald Trump saying how awful Barack Obama was…”
https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/cromwell-cookbook
The conversation around safe spaces for women has ramped up in intensity and volume over the past few weeks, with very good reason. Here at The Cut we have always been clear–we believe and stand by all women in the ongoing struggle for equality, including the right to be able to head down the fucking street without harassment or worse. Let’s take a look at a famous NYC safe space, a story with some well-known names and a surprisingly sweet coda…
In a similar fashion, this interview with pioneering chef Amanda Cohen on Resy is likely to raise both heckles and dander. She’s been ahead of the curve for years on experimental ways with vegetarian cuisine, only to be copied, usurped and effectively silenced by loud-mouth food-bros. She’s more than capable of fighting her own corner, though. Now may well be her time.
Amanda Cohen Has Pioneered So Much. Why Aren’t We Listening to Her?
One last Big Apple-based piece. We promise, this is a goodie. We love food. You get that, right? We love hip-hop. Put the two together and you have a very happy, bouncy Cut Central.
https://vittles.substack.com/p/the-mythos-of-food-in-new-york-rap
Food and booze pairings are always fun. The Food Desk partook of a great evening late last year hosted by Reading food heroes The Grumpy Goat and Double-Barrelled Brewery. Stout and blue cheese? Ohh yes. There are those that maintain the best accompaniment for a piled-up plate of fish and chips is a big mug of builder’s tea. Burum Collective choose to differ. This might put a new perspective on your weekend visit to the chippy…
https://www.burumcollective.com/opinion20/ciderandchips
And finally. We join the many voices wishing a very happy birthday to one of the most enduring of British comic heroes–Dennis The Menace. The spiky-haired mischief maker has turned seventy, although on the pages of The Beano he will be forever a ten-year-old. Time has not changed Dennis massively, although he’s less of a bully than in the early days (especially as his nemesis Walter is no longer a softy pushover). He’s a classic anti-establishment figure, needed and loved now as much as he ever was. Many Happy Returns!
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2021/mar/17/beano-hero-dennis-the-menace-turns-70-joe-sugg
Exit Music this week comes from Radiohead, who played a blinder of a set as part of the From The Basement series in April 2008. Based firmly on their best album, In Rainbows (no, this is not open to discussion), we invite you to wallow in some fantastic tunes and textures from Oxford’s third-best band after Ride and Supergrass.
See you next Saturday, paranoid androids.
March 13, 2021
The Cut Season 2 Episode 11
Featured image by Joel Meyerowitz, Times Square, New York City, 1963. Via Flashbak.
We begin with a little housekeeping. Some of you will have noticed there was no drop yesterday. The inevitability of a skip day has been looming ever more since responsibilities other than The Cut (yes, we do have lives and engagements more pressing than the newsletter, distressing as that might sound) have jumped on our backs and starting nibbling at our earlobes.
So, thus and therefore, the executive decision has been made to shift The Cut’s drop point to Saturday morning. This gives our beleaguered staff a little more wiggle room to deliver on schedule and means you, our beloved Readership, can now read our compilation of curiosities in bed with a nice cup of tea. Everyone wins! Do join us in this brave new world of possibilities.
This week—Muppets! Creepy skunks! And yes, something about reading in bed.
Saturday is the time. Bed is the place. This is The Cut.
The Muppet Show is one of the great examples of sheer craft and talent combining to create a work of wonder. A built environment designed with such love and care that it transcends the boundary of believability. To us, Kermit, Fozzie and the rest are not just constructs of wood and fabric with a puppeteer’s hand up where the sun don’t shine. They are real living, breathing creatures. Part of that comes down to the costuming. A particular example is the couture worn by Miss Piggy, who you know would never lower herself to shrug on any old tat. Muppet Show seamstress Polly Smith lets us in on all the details.
https://www.vulture.com/article/muppet-show-costuming-polly-smith-behind-the-scenes.html
If, like us, you’ve been captivated by WandaVision on Disney+, it’s likely you’ve been captivated by the breakout star of the show—the amazing Kathryn Hahn. This interview in the New York Times gives us the skinny on her life and acting, and what’s coming next for an actor who isn’t scared to go big on her performances. Be warned—huge spoilers for the closing few eps of WandaVision if you’re one of the few who hasn’t watched it.
In a week full of serious discussions about toxic male behaviour and how we go about improving it, this discussion on the role of a cartoon skunk with boundary issues struck a chord. Pepe le Pew has always been a dodgy character, even in the pantheon of Loony Toons, who, let’s be clear, are clearly narcissistic sociopaths of the highest order. A scene featuring the skunk getting schooled on the right way to behave has been cut from the upcoming Space Jam sequel (not sure why we need one, but the world is a strange and unpredictable place nowadays). An example of cancel culture, or a missed opportunity to teach an important lesson to a young audience?
https://film.avclub.com/the-space-jam-sequel-reportedly-cut-a-scene-where-pepe-1846429328
We are big advocates of reading in bed. It’s comfy, a fine way to end the day, and a better way to start it. The best bit? There’s no judgement. It’s your bed and your book. Read what you like for as long as you like. We agree with Ramesh Ranganathan—comics are best when you’re reading them propped up in a nest of pillows.
We’re fans of the historical fictioneer Angus Donald. He writes propulsive, brawny books with boldly drawn characters and sharply detailed settings. His newest series deals with Vikings and in particular the peculiar phenomenon of the Berserker. In this blog post he talks about the genesis of the book and, refreshingly for the histfic scene, just how much fiction is wrapped up in the history.
The history and the fictions behind my new novel The Last Berserker
A glaring omission to our editorial coverage is the lack of a Sports Desk. The Cut Crew are, to a person, the sort who always got picked last for any team events during P.E. And rightly so, being the speccy unco-ordinated sorts whose signature move was (and sadly remains) tripping over their own feet and face planting into mud. We’ve learned to accept our shortcomings and lean into our strengths instead. We were, however, fascinated by this piece in Six Colors about fake sports and how they reveal just how geeky we all are under the skin…
The joy of fake sports
To our shame, we’d never heard of John R. Erickson, the Texas author beloved by millions. His tales of Hank The Cowdog are favourites to generations who grew up enjoying his adventures. This in-depth interview with Texas Monthly tells us more about the man, his writing, and of course his dogs.
https://www.texasmonthly.com/the-culture/how-john-r-erickson-became-king-canine-canon/
We’ve realised that in our never-ending quest for material, we have neglected a resource right on our doorstep. Our host blog, Excuses And Half Truths, has a fifteen-year archive of writing tucked away, ripe for rediscovery. We’d like to start bringing the highlights out for you, starting with this defence of a problematic pop classic. Intended to be the start of an ongoing series, we believe Rob peaked at the start line. There’s nowhere really to go after The Thong Song…
https://excusesandhalftruths.com/2010/02/26/in-defence-of-the-thong-song/
We love a good cookbook. The best ones are beautiful objects in their own right, providing inspiration with every recipe and exquisitely photographed meal. The Food Desk is a literal pileup of cooky booky goodness. That bunch have almost barricaded themselves up against the rest of the office. Is there room in the food writing world for audiobooks? How does that work if you don’t have the recipe in front of you? Stuart Heritage, with a little help from his three-year-old son, tries out Ruby Tandoh’s latest endeavour…
And finally. We’re pretty certain you’ve all seen the amazing film of a drone whizzing around a bowling alley that appeared this week. It’s a marvel of artistry and technical wizardry. But did you notice some of the nods to The Big Lebowski dotted through the film, from dialogue to the Jesus ball-polish? There’s an excuse to watch it again, if you needed one.
More on the making of the movie from the New York Times. As a sidebar—what an amazingly cool place! If there was an alley like this in Reading, you’d never get us out of it!
Our Exit Music is a clip from the remarkable, more than a little bonkers 1941 variety mash-up Hellzapoppin’. The Lindy Hop sequence is rightly praised for its energy and groove, but the music is a jam all by itself. The clip is back in the news following a colourisation pass using AI, which works pretty well—although we think the skin tones are a bit off in places and there’s a whip pan halfway which reverts to black-and-white. Discussion as to whether film material originating as monochrome should be colourised can wait for another time. Right now, let’s just rock this joint!
A bit more context from Open Culture…
The Iconic Dance Scene from Hellzapoppin’ Presented in Living Color with Artificial Intelligence (1941)
And that’s it! We may be a day late, but hopefully not a dollar short. See you next Saturday, hep cats.
