The Swipe Volume 2 Chapter 10
Strange days. Personally, TLC and I are on the verge of a big positive shift in our financial affairs. Something we’ve been working towards for a very long time. Professionally, the next few months look to be enormously challenging with the potential for good things down the line. If things go as hoped. You know what they say about best laid plans. Hey, I’m staying positive. How ever the situation resolves, the next couple of weeks promise to be interesting—hopefully not in the old Chinese curse kind of way. Spring is definitely the season of change for us, anyway.
Wherever you are, whenever you are, however you are, welcome to The Swipe.
Rob is reading…
Babel by R. F. Kuang. So far, a vaguely generic fantasy-adjacent tale set in 1830s Oxford, with hints to magical goings-on. It’s won a ton of awards (and not others, controversially) so I’m sticking with it, and chuckling at the diss aimed at certain colleges.
Rob is watching…
Dune Part 2. It’s a spectacle to be sure, but I’ll have to be honest – it left me a little cold. Still trying to figure out why. I think the movie needed to be trippier. If only Jodorowsky had got the time and budget he needed. The sound design and soundtrack, however, rule.
Rob is listening…
To Plains. Hope you don’t have a problem with it.
Rob is eating…
Something from Café Fictif. The Big Kahuna Burger looks good.
Rob’s Low-Key Obsession Of The Week…
Yes, I have been wandering around all week singing ‘Heeeere comes the weekend.’ Not that I’m wishing my life away or anything…
Yeah, sure, the money isn’t great but I mean, come on. Who amongst us wouldn’t jump on this sort of career opportunity?
We all know Wednesday can strut her stuff, but it’s still surprising how important dance is to our favourite spooky ooky family. An expression of joy and love, which is what they do so well. Never mind the set dressing, we love the Addams clan precisely because of their joie de vivre.
It’s Oscars Night this Sunday. As usual, the wrong movies will win the big awards, and there’s still no best Stunt Award. I did like this list from the NYT of other nominations which should really become part of the main event.
Michael Chabon, who knows a bit about mythic characters, on the ‘Superman problem.’ I wonder how James Gunn, hard at work on the latest movie iteration, plans to address it. It’s a tricky one. At heart, Kal-El is a simple hero designed for simpler times. But then sometimes a figure with an unswerving moral compass isn’t such a bad base for a story. Subverting the role for subversion’s sake never makes for interesting reading.
Limiting your options can be enormously freeing for your creativity. Check out Catherine Lacey, whose recent blogs have all weighed in at 144 words. There are 12 in the series. Go on, do the maths.
Another Threads—thread, this time from Mike Achim, who guides us through the important steps in a vital step in getting your story seen by the right people. Put this advice in your trick bag.
Lastly (yes, we’re running short this week, I’ve been a busy boy) news on the extensive restoration on a movie which many at the time of its release considered irredeemable. To be fair, it’s not so much a buff and polish, as a complete demolition and rebuild…
Hurray For The Riff Raff started cropping up on a couple of my ‘can’t be arsed to think of something to listen to’ Spotify playlists, and she’s just crept into my daily rotation. I love it when that happens. Life on earth, from a couple of years back, is a little cracker of an album. Here’s a taste.
See you in seven, fellow travellers.
