JANUARY

WATCHING

• Soul (New Pixar) – Very different, surprisingly? abstract.

• Attack the Block – Aliens in the ends

• It’s a Sin – Loved it. Heartbreaking, but full of joy. A love letter to gay culture. Loved the characters. Loads of rave reviews - BFI one is good.

• Back, Season 2 – I can’t decide how I feel about this, at the end of season 2 it feels like we haven’t really learnt much more about the mysterious Andrew. I want to know WTF is up with him. And then this woman appears…

• The Simpsons – Seasons 8 – 10 (beginning to not want to complete my resolution to watch every episode from the start) but not enough to stop.

• Pen 15 - Season 2 – So much FUN and SO cringe! The first kiss scene is hilarious, and reminds you of what a weird age it was to be 13ish – not quite a proper teenager, not a kid. A no mans land of pretending.

• The Kiss of God – Surfer doc, a sad story of bipolar disorder.

• I am not ok with this – A Carrie inspired coming of age, which was super easy to watch and got really good, aaaaand then got canceled. Which is rubbish as it felt like it was just getting started. A COVID casualty.

• Sound of Metal – Really good. Riz Ahmed is, like, amazing. We don’t know much about his life, how long he’s been a drummer etc. We don’t know what he will do now… It focuses on the very scary, immediate moments of deafness, and how he has to adapt.

• A very British Scandal

• Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

• Call My Agent – Perfect lockdown viewing - really funny, great characters. And 4 whole seasons to binge. Plus French subtitles mean you actually have to pay attention and put your fucking phone down!

READING

• One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey – I hadn’t read this before but I love the film, and now I love the book. Disturbing, sad, and troubling but with moments that made me grin – gleeful to get one over on Nurse Ratchet, hopeful seeing the patients change and become emboldened from McMurphy’s antics. Our insightful narrator, the Chief, and the hazy scenes he describes are disorientating and pull you in. The end is devastating but inevitable.

• David Hockney: A Life – Really enjoyed this. As colourful as his landscapes, this biography takes you through all of Hockney’s artworks and his exploration of new styles, whilst in parallel what was happening in his personal life – his inspiration. The book gives you a real sense of Hockney as a person, and it makes me love him more.

• How to Change your Mind – Just began this, recommended by a colleague and so far so good. (All about Psychadelics)

• The biggest story in the UK is not Brexit. It’s life expectancy – by Danny Dorling for The Correspondent

  ‘The UK has reduced public spending to 36% of GDP by the end of 2019 from a peak of 41% in 2006’

• Sound Design, the obsessive beat-making of Madlib by Hua Hsu for the New Yorker

• Various New Yorker articles (new year, new subscription)

LOOKING

• Nathan Walsh’ cityscape paintings are UNREAL – hyperrealistic but all drawn freehand. His process is incredible.

• Cinta Vidal – Escher-esque paintings

• Mr. Jones Watches – Beautiful, unique watches for people that don’t actually care about telling the time…Various artists. This one might be my favourite, by Kristof Devos.

LISTENING

• Mostly radio 6…

• MF DOOM

• Madlib - Road of the Lonely Ones UH!

• Lex Amor

• Dat Brass

OTHER STUFF

• I’m working on a branding project for a cannabis company at the moment, so have been looking into all the weed brands - Tokyo Smoke is a gorgeous brand, with really beautiful (expensive) products like this ashtray/bong/grinder.

DECEMBER

WATCHING

• Small Axe – The Mangrove tells the true story of the Mangrove 9, a group of Black activists who clashed with London police during a protest march in 1970. Really uncomfortable watching. Really really good. Shaun Parkes (I can’t see him and not think of that Jungalist scene in Human Traffic) is great.

• The Unicorn shop – this starts off well… and has a great cast (Samuel L is a ‘unicorn salesman’) but it sort of trails off and is a bit, soft.

• Industry

• The Simpsons – Season 5 +

• Big Mouth Season 4 – Maya Rudolph is the best

• Manc

• Schitt’s Creek - completed it mate. The last series is super sweet, and have become obsessed with Catherine O'Hara’s accent as Moira Rose. Here is a compilation of her saying ‘bebe’

• Eyes Wide Shut – Hadn’t seen it. Thought it would be better!?

• Elf

• Die Hard 2

• Nightmare Before Christmas

• The Grinch

• The Grand Budapest Hotel

• Death to 2020

• The Island

• World’s Greatest Dad

READING

• One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest

• Jorja Smith interview – The Face luv ‘er

• David Hockney: A Life

LOOKING

• The National History Museum – World Wildlife Photography exhibition, IRL!

• Katie Scott’s botanicals – particularly her black background works. And just botanical illustration in general

• Justin Bartels IMPRESSION Series showcasing imprints left on skin - pain is beauty. Love them

• Lucy Arnolds toxic slugs (watercolours)

LISTENING

• Kamasi Washington - sweet sweet saxamophone

• Gorillaz Song Machine

• The Streets OG

• Burial - Untrue

• Amy Winehouse - Back to Black

• Brittany Howard, Jaime

• Thundercat

• John Coltrane

• Sault

OTHER STUFF

• Lots of old school platform game gaming – mostly Alladin, and Sonic

• Spent a lot of time making Christmas cards, and designing a special gift for my parents, that BORRIS THEN SHIT ON. #2020

NOVEMBER

WATCHING

• Schitt’s Creek Resisted this for ages, thought it looked a bit naf – it’s aaaallriiiiiight.

• Contact

• Scent of a Woman On my favourite films of all time list.

• Misfits (series) re-watched.

• The Crown (Season 4) + various Diana doc’s. Horrid.

• The Life of David Gale

• The Undoing

• The Simpsons – Season 4

READING

• How do I know I’m on the right path? N’aw <3 From Nick Cave’s The Red Hand Files.

• Charlie Brogan’s poetry is really beautiful, and relatable. This one is so nostalgic and I immediately forwarded to all of my girl pals.

• Joanna Fuertes writes funny

• An ode to regional chippies made me miss potato scallops

• Irvine Welsh interview The Face talking about new program ‘Offended’. Bloody love him.

• A beautiful photo essay on what LA smells like by restaurant critic Tejal Rao (photos by Ryan Young) The New York Times asked readers what they’d put in their own personal ‘smell museum’ and it’s a lovely read. My smell museum: beer, cigarettes and deep heat from a childhood of rugby club weekends.

LOOKING

• Burberry Singin’ in the Rain by Megaforce (reminded me of the hail storm in Misfits)

• Gina Martin’s ink girls

• Wildlife Photographer of the year Looking forward to seeing this at the NHM when I can.

• Kelly Anna No idea how I’ve only just found her… love her Matisse like artwork a lot. A print is on my wish list.

• Hassan Hajjaj photography

• ‘You Love Me’ Beats by Dre - direct (and important)

• KOEKKOEK jumping cats and Italian summer dreams

• Colourful sunburnt, nostalgic imagery from Mark Leary

LISTENING

• Louisa Mark

• Sault

• Old + new Kanye

• Tank and The Bangas

• Bicep

• Charles Bradley

OTHER STUFF

• Recently found out (reading randomly on Medium) that the phrase ‘Jake of all trades, master of none’ is only half of it… ‘A jack of all trades is a master of none, but oftentimes better than a master of one’. Yay generalists

• A weekly still life drawing challenge – A new prompt is posted on the gram every Sunday, and the hosts then showcase some of the illustrations. Lots of nice stuff, and inspiring to see the different styles.

• There are many reasons to love Japan/Japanisms - ‘Mundane Halloween costumes’ is one of them.

• I Miss You by Riz Ahmed. He’s amazing. Made me cry. The old world is dead now.

• Surreal new BBC ads

OCTOBER

WATCHING

• Rocks First post lock-down cinema trip. Loved all the girls, especially Rocks’ best pal Sumaya.

• Grayson Perry’s Big American road trip G

• Dating Amber

• Freaks and Geeks Franco, Rogan, Segel and Cardellini

• RBG notorious

• Pen15 (season 1) lols

• David Attenborough !!!

• Adult Material lighthearted + funny – dark turn.

• The Lighthouse What is Willem Defoe saying? What is happening? Watched on couch and needs to be in cinema

• My Octopus Teacher

• The Simpsons – mission to watch every episode again. So far Season 3

• Rebecca I was made to read the book and liked it, fan of Ben Wheatley – Sightseers. But bit cheesy and meh. Looked good.

• The Queen’s Gambit easy, binge-able, not convinced of the visualisation of her dreams of chess. Made me think of this Alexander McQueen show.

• Kajilionnaire I like Miranda July’s books and short films but not seen her other features. Loved the weird setting of the foam factory.

• Rosemary’s Baby weird

• The Witches (2020) NO! 1990 film much better.

READING

• Burnt Sugar

• Buying Myself Back Emily Ratajkowski on owning her own image.

• One Flew Over the Cookoo’s Nest

LOOKING

• Grayson Perry, The Most Specialist Relationship

• Pavement Project – mosaics

• Andy Warhol at Tate Modern – went by accident (Natural History Museum was closed) didn’t love it

• Martin Schoeller photography Love his portraits. Jay Z and Bill Murray are faves. His identical series is great too.

• Secret 7 Sleeves

• This picture of Bill Nighy

LISTENING

• A guide to Classic Jungle on Bandcamp

• summer Jungle Rolled in Sunshine

• The Hangover Cure (11/10/2020) by Soho Radio

• The Correspondent podcasts

• Gorillaz Song Machine

• Sault

• Etta James Tell Mama

• Kanye College Dropout

• Alabama Shakes Sound and Colour

OTHER STUFF

• Local Lenses from Snapchat AR experiment on Carnaby that lets you paint the street (with pre designed red/blue graffiti). They created a 3D map of the whole area which is pretty impressive, and (as the article mentions) it could be a good ‘canvas’ for some creative projects, as well as lots of different ways to put ads in front of people…

SEPTEMBER

WATCHING

• Palm Springs Like groundhog day but with more Black Mirror edge. Really enjoyed this, and it’s release is pretty timely what with Covid n’ all.

• The Bodyguard Oh Whitney

• East is East I LOVE this film. haven’t watched for a while and it’s so heartbreaking and hilarious.

• I Hate Suzie Billie Piper is so GOOD. Honey to the bee, that’s Billie and me. Yes, I loved her as a pop star, but acting is definitely her forte. Really like the structure of the series too, with each episode focusing on an emotion she feels after falling victim to hackers. I said ‘Can you imagine’ a lot in the first episode. The anxiety is palpable.

• Dracula 2020 (Netflix) Mini series made good by Claes Bang (Dracula) and Dolly Wells (Van Helsing)

• The Duchess As a big Katherine Ryan fan I liked this. It’s good writing and a refreshing take on motherhood. The acting is not so good.

• Selfish A nicely done short animation about plastic pollution.

• Des - meh. David Tenant is fantastic. But just didn’t feel… long enough. It’s a very disturbing story, but it needed more build up than the 3 part series allowed for.

• Maurice Ashley, The Grandmaster – an ad/film from Hennessy & Droga5, that is SO nicely done. An homage to the first black chess grandmaster. Directed by Daniel Wolfe

• I Love New York: Bella Hadid, Misty Copeland & Whoopi Goldberg Celebrate the City | Vogue. Created and Directed by Bardia Zeinali. Written by Jeremy O. Harris.

• Us This annoyed me. I’m a big fan of Jordan Peele, but what was this supposed to be about? It did LOOK stunning though…

• Ratchet A super stylistic origin story of Nurse Ratchet. A lot of very fucked up scenes… Maybe a bit too ‘torture porn’ than necessary. Will probably watch all of it, but won’t be recommending.

READING

• Burnt Sugar Just started… So far so good. The cover made me buy it.

• Who Am I Prepared To Kill by William Davies. A thoughtful essay on our (society) tendency to reduce everything to yes/no, right/wrong, when really it’s all quite a bit more complicated than that. Some favourite quotes: ‘society of perpetual referendums’ (referencing social likes/dislikes) ‘The tyranny of binary opinion isn’t just a symptom of consumerism, but also an effect of the constant flow of information generated by the internet. It is not for nothing that, in the age of the digital platform, we use liquid metaphors of ‘feeds’, ‘torrents’ and ‘streams’ to describe the way images, sounds and words surround us.’ It is all a bit overwhelming innit. From London Review of Books

• I’ve signed up to ANOTHER news letter… Book read by… No idea when I’ll read this, or the books I’m reading about people reading. Over. Whelming.

• And another one… Why Is This Interesting

• This is funny, in a geeky literary way. Basically Authors as blurbs.

• And this is another interesting read from The Fence interviewing the New York Times Correspondent for The New York Times, David Gallipoli-Jones ‘– Nothing is more important or fundamental to a rights-based democracy than accountable journalism’

• Godmother of Soul, Erykah Badu’s expanding musical universe by Kelefa Sanneh for The New Yorker. There’s a lot a didn’t know about Erykah Badu.

• The Correspondent I think I found this from ‘Why Is This Interesting’ lots of tabs open lately… This is ‘An antidote to the daily news grind’ offering news without the sensationalised headlines, where the readers are the clients – not the advertisers. A very smart model which I’m looking forward to reading more from. This is the Correspondent’s manifesto of sorts, and definitely worth a read.

  – Delayed Gratification is doing a similar job, a quarterly publication that focuses on the impact of news events.

• Girls Night In – Weekly newsletter of smart reads and recommendations, reminded me of my pals VERY GOOD little side hustle: Articles Club

• Starving Artists GREAT article in The New Yorker by Hua Hsu about artists being paid (or not being paid) in the digital era.

LOOKING

• https://elizahopewell.com/

• Thomas Blanchard makes beautiful films and images zooming into worlds of inks, paints and soap reacting together.

• Spotify made a great website in the absence of Carnival this year

• Pollution popsicles 3 students from the National Taiwan University of the Arts made ice lols from polluted water around Taiwan. They are quite beautiful, and have got a lot of coverage, so hopefully Taiwan will look into the pollution of their waters further… one of them is BLACK. The samples were first frozen in moulds then preserved in polyester resin for display. 

• FKA Twigs Sad Day is a lovely haunting song with an elegant Twigs kind of weird music video.

• Cows but make them fashion - photographs by Klaas Zwijnenburg

• 19 Chairs a great creative project raising money for Age UK, artists are sent a chair to ‘revamp’ anyway they want…

LISTENING

• Carnival in your living room - playlists from Spotify

• Carrot Cake by Pan Amsterdam x GUTS Only just discovered Pan Amsterdam (from Radio 6) and now LOVE HIM. Have been listening to his 2018 album Pocket Watch and he has a NEW album coming out Ha Chu.

• But You Can't Use My Phone, Erykah Badu (I’m very late to the party…)

OTHER STUFF

• ScreenplaySubs well this is a very cool Chrome extension – if you’re into films/scripts. It lets you watch films on Netflix with the script on the side.

• Founded by the CD of Droga 5 (which I found from snooping at the team behind ‘The Grandmaster’ ad - above), The Great Brain Cell Sacrifice is a nice idea, that is actually also real (which always helps)… They make and sell wine. And for every bottle of wine they sell, they donate a book to the charity Books For Kids. ‘By drinking our wine, you're trading in a few of your brain cells to help build the brains of the next generation’.

• Mario Cart just got sort of real! Mario Kart Live: Home Circuit – players use their Nintendo Switch to pilot a physical kart around their house and set up ‘gate markers’ to highlight areas that will become the track. Imagine this wouldn’t be all that fun in my small flat, but if you have a large space, very cool.

• Filmmaking Masterclass of Masterclasses