Favouritest Worstest Nightmare
What's urs?
It was the 10th anniversary of what is perhaps Arctic Monkeys best-loved album there about two weeks ago. A mere four days before that, myself and two pals sat around a barrel outside a pub in Rathmines in the balmy September night air talking shite. The shutters were open, the pub was buzzing and the shorts were out. Imagine that only being a few weeks ago. Bet you can’t. Oh, you can; can you? Well, fair play.
So anyway, this is relevant because eventually we got around to talking about the Arctic Monkeys, as we always do. They are our Roman Empire. We all agreed that AM was not our favourite album of theirs by a long shot, and then spent the rest of the night trying to decide which one was, until the lights were flashed and we went our separate ways; wading through the heat back to our respective beds.
Oh, right, yes. My favourite album. I went for Favourite Worst Nightmare. The album art, so very of its indie sleaze era, a time when Skins was on the air and Topshop sold long, striped fingerless gloves. A sound that was dark, with an edge, and lyrics that spun stories. And the whole thing is only thirty-eight minutes long! Are u mad?
The main reason for my choice, however, is that nostalgia is the feeling that has most control of me, and I purchased Favourite Worst Nightmare in the SuperValu in Killorglin, a village in Kerry most famous for hosting the Puck Fair (look it up), during the summer of my twelfth year. Nothing could make am album better to me than having heard it in its entirety before I turned fifteen.
And, speaking of nostalgia, I am already nostalgic for that night sitting out in the heat in front of a pub in Rathmines talking shite with my friends.
Theater Camp
This was stun. Perhaps not as funny as I anticipated, but all the more meaningful. Ben Platt and Molly Gordon’s love letter to their theatre childhoods is camp, silly and plain outrageous at times - the plot revolves around their characters trying to put on a musical called Joan, Still as a tribute to the camp’s founder, who has fallen into a coma, while her son desperately tries to find the money to keep the place going - but it is also full of joy and hope.
Featuring an appearance from patron saint of this newsletter, Ayo Edebiri, and an excellent performance from Jimmy Tatro as Joan’s tech-bro son, I would certainly recommend giving this one a watch.
Past Lives
A film is either tells a story or it sells a vibe. Sometimes, a film can do both (Clueless; …). Past Lives, much like Passages, does the latter. It’s also kind of about a throuple. Hmm.
Past Lives captures the melancholy of living as an immigrant; a feeling that you’re never quite at home no matter where you are, and you never quite will be. It also dances in a limbo of lost love and missed opportunity. No one is to blame, but everyone is sorry; and yet, things are the way they are.
Gorls
We are still on season 2. A masterful season of television. It would be hard to choose one episode that exemplifies this, but ‘One Man’s Trash’ is the closest I’ll ever get. Guest-starring Patrick Wilson, ‘One Man’s Trash’ follows Hannah into the Brooklyn brownstone of a recent divorcee, where she spends a blissful thirty-six hours, and then one more less-than-blissful night. All good things come to end, as Nelly Furtado once sang, but they’re still good for a while first.
Top lines of dialogue:
(After Hannah faints in the shower) “I thought I
was a gummy worm for like seven minutes.”
“Please don’t tell anyone this, but… I want to be happy.”
Reading
I recently won a MUBI competition for, most importantly, the slutty little mesh crop top Franz Rogowski wears in Passages. Another of the prizes is a MUBI tote. This is a real W for me, as I have been lugging my bits around in a bright red New Yorker tote for the last three years, even though I read - at best - one New Yorker article every six weeks. The article I read most recently is this long-read on a children’s psychiatric facility in Austria, and by god is a grim one to peruse over your Tuesday morning yoghurt and granola.
Also, I am currently reading Anne Enright’s latest novel, The Wren, The Wren. That woman has a way with words that makes my head spin. They pirouette off the page in reams and tie themselves in knots around me. And you know what? You can just leave me here like this.
Tweets
Ben Platt for president