WATCHING
SUCCESSION! Series 3. Oh, I’ve missed it. Such good writing…
A Creative Block Story by Illustrator Celcile Dormeau – What a lovely soothing voice she has, a nice film about the creative process, and a good to watch when in a funk.
Balenciaga and The Simpsons
First Wives Club
The French Dispatch – Wow this was boring. I very much agree with this review.
Silence of the Lambs
Free Guy
The Fox Catcher – I found this really slow.
The Billion Dollar Code (Netflix) – Great mini-doc/series about Terra Vision, the German artist/devs behind the inspiration for Google Earth. Google come off as right cunts.
SNL - Romi and Kim K are great. Very much enjoyed the Kims Kourt sketch.
Venom - Silly lols
The Bone Collector
(New) Stath Lets Flats
Alma’s not normal (BBC) – Loved this so much. Really funny, but also sad and tender. Sophie Willan is brilliant (who is Alma, and also wrote the show), and also her nan is a great character.
Impeachment: American crime story – just started. Read a lot about this, and looking forward to seeing how Monica Lewinsky is portrayed (and Bill)
Hereditary – Tony Colette is amazing. I regret watching it though, I’ve never got on with horror very well and I keep having flashbacks to random terrifying scenes.
READING
Such a fun age by Kiley Reid – Got less interested as it went on. But did enjoy her writing style/voice.
Betty Blue – Halfway through. Into it.
On the Internet, We’re Always Famous –What happens when the experience of celebrity becomes universal by By Chris Hayes for The New Yorker ‘Understanding the centrality of the desire for recognition is quite helpful in understanding the power and ubiquity of social media. We have developed a technology that can create a synthetic version of our most fundamental desire. Why did the Russian couple post those wedding photos? Why do any of us post anything? Because we want other humans to see us, to recognise us.’
Lisa Simpson’s bookshelf: from the curator of Instagram’s Simpsons Library, It’s Nice That
https://www.internetisshit.org/ – A manifesto of sorts. Via Web Curios
The Four Dirty C Words by Paul Jun – An interesting read on the language we use (and 4 words in particular that get used a lot in advertising) He also talks about the title ‘Creative’. I’ve always struggled with titles…
Degrowth as an aspiration – The end of efficiency and why that may be a good thing (From Sociology of Business blog)
LOOKING
I read about Circus magazine in It’s Nice That, and I love the intent, and after reading the interview with founder Jackson Bowley I had a little cyberstalk. His photography is really vivid, but at the same time seems natural and not overly polished. Love ‘im!
The Feed, Internet Cafe – Useful work thing. Tracking culture at the speed of social to maximise impact for brands. Powered by@wearesocial
Cat Art Show – Especially like Endre Penovac’s inky cats, and love Vanessa Stockard’s painterly cat attacking chair. She has a recurring character ‘Kevin the Kitten’ which I love, reminds me of Max Ernst and Loplop.
Netflix has created a whole world around the release of Sex Education Series 3, and I thought this was a nice educational website that speaks to the values of the show – well a link to the OG: The Vulva Gallery – a celebration of the Vag and vag diversity!
https://thissneakerdoesnotexist.com/ – I like this as a concept. Now what to steal it for…
https://www.typographicposters.com/ – What it says on the tin. Loads of lovely design/typography stuff.
Illustrator Sofia Bonati – her portraits are beautiful, and I love the mad patterns they’re enveloped in.
Night Cafe – an AI art tool, where you can type in whatever you want and it will generate an image. Results are quite mad, good for inspiration when you have a creative block.
INQUE Magazine is ‘a beautiful annual literary magazine dedicated to extraordinary new writing. Documenting what is going to be an era-defining decade, it will run no advertising, have no web version, and only ever publish 10 issues’. It is SO beautiful. Art direction by Matt Willey
LISTENING
Joy Crookes - soulful and singalong (keep catching myself humming various songs) Going to see her on Monday LIVEEEEE
Gabriels - Soul (lots of samples) and a bit of indie.
Phoebe Green - downbeat pop
Childish Gambino – Awaken My Love
Burial - Untrue
Jarvis – THE FRENCH DISPATCH | "Aline" Music Video | Directed by Wes Anderson
Neo Jungle playlist by Joe Muggs for Sound of Life – I may be too pregnant for an actual rave, but I can still rave in my headphones
Beck - Debrah 🎶
The White Stripes
Bad Bad Not Good - talk memory
Foreign Beggars – Asylum Speakers. One of my favourite albums everrrr.
OTHER STUFF
Tux and Fanny – Switch game! Haven’t played a game for ages, and this was recommended by The White Pube (and I generally trust everything they say) it is great! Really weird, and captivating and funny - games within the game, within games… LOVE IT. Then I got to a bit and got stuck - now waiting for the very lovely and responsive maker of Tux and Fanny to patch it up so I can continue and give the fly to the goddam frog.
Went to see David O’Doherty and the union chappel - LOVED Tim Key. David OD was good, his song about mice was especially gross/funny.
Grayson Perry, Normal People at Brighton Dome – Wasn’t sure what to expect from this, but enjoyed it. The first half of the show was much more coherent to me. Makes you think about what normal is, how we are all the same, but equally, see ourselves as different. Wasn’t so sure about the skew towards religion in the second half.
Kew Gardens - Japanese exhib; this was nice but a bit underwhelming. The hanging haiku’s 'One Thousand Springs' by artist Chiharu Shiota looked impressive, amongst the foliage n ‘all – but the exhibition by Zadok Ben David was the highlight. A room full of small black floral sculptures fills a huge box of sand, and as you make your way around them, the other side reveals a multicoloured side to the sculptures. Very cool.
#Peachtober illustration challenge. A few of my favourite illustrators I follow on the gram took part in this, so thought I’d give it a go – didn’t end up doing many, but got me drawing again.
Seen a couple of ads I liked recently: Uncommon’s ‘Change’ campaign for B&Q is nice. And ‘Jack the Mannequin’ by Mother London for Spoke was an ad I saw on TV and I actually noticed.
