Atlanta (Seasons 1-2): I applaud the ambition, but it didn’t always grab me. Could have been funnier, or at least shown more heart. Stanfield was great, as always, but was most impressed by Brian Tyree Henry’s nuanced performance.
Better Things (Season 4): The small moments have always been the best part of this show. There are so many moments I can relate to, but those I don’t, like a scene when a new husband sings “Martha” to their partner, or when a child recreates a classic Hollywood slapstick routine; those are the ones that make want to live in this world. Other shows make me laugh more, but no other makes me smile, cry or feel as much as Better Things.
#BlackAF (Season 1): I haven’t seen any of Kenya Barris’ other work so I can’t speak to it, but I thought this was funny, honest, insightful, and entirely too long. Read: Redundant. There’s a great movie in there somewhere. Love Rashida Jones, obviously.
Castle Rock (Season 2): I love Stephen King so much (probably too much) that I was intrigued from the start and then… wasn’t. I’ll give it to her though, as bad as this got, Lizzy Caplan was frickin’ committed.
Fleabag (Seasons 1-2): First season seemed kinda obvious. Sincerely don’t know how it could be described as groundbreaking. But I did laugh, a lot. Really liked the direction the second took. Hannah Jane Parkinson says it all a lot better than I can.
High Fidelity (Season 1): Since too many of my friends related a bit too much to Rob Gordon, I appreciated the female role reversal. Mighta been interesting to see future seasons not bound by source material.
Kim’s Convenience (Seasons 1-4): Just delightful. There isn’t a lot of social commentary, but sometimes that is O.K. It seems real. As a straight sitcom, it’s the best one I’ve seen in awhile. It’s that funny.
The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel (Seasons 1-3): Very seldom (if ever?) do I care about the B/C stories, but boy am I in love with Midge and Susie. And the stand-up is solid, something I rarely, rarely say about stand-up within shows or film.
Schitt’s Creek (Seasons 1-6): The plot makes little sense, but it’s so funny and has so much heart it doesn’t matter. I bought the final season on Amazon because I couldn’t wait to finish. The finale was a mess, but I was too, a blubbering mess, after watching the documentary at the end. The cast reading the letter from the mothers of thousands of LGBTQ+ kids fucking wrecked me.
The Sopranos (Seasons 1-6): The great rewatch. The greatest rewatch.
Twilight Zone; (Season 1): Thought I was going to love this. At least like it more than I did. The cast is often great (which somehow makes things worse), and some of the plots are interesting, but the episodes usually fail to stick the landings. “The Blue Scorpion” was solid. “A Traveler” seemed the closest to the original series. “Not All Men” and “Replay” were intense and scary. Could have done without the rest, especially the Black Mirror parody, “The Wunderkind.”
The Wonder Years (Seasons 1-6): The great rewatch. The greatest rewatch.
“Mr. Coyote states that on December 13th he received of Defendant via parcel post one Acme Rocket Sled. The intention of Mr. Coyote was to use the Rocket Sled to aid him in pursuit of his prey. Upon receipt of the Rocket Sled Mr. Coyote removed it from its wooden shipping crate and, sighting his prey in the distance, activated the ignition. As Mr. Coyote gripped the handlebars, the Rocket Sled accelerated with such sudden and precipitate force as to stretch Mr. Coyote’s forelimbs to a length of fifty feet. Subsequently, the rest of Mr. Coyote’s body shot forward with a violent jolt, causing severe strain to his back and neck and placing him unexpectedly astride the Rocket Sled. Disappearing over the horizon at such speed as to leave a diminishing jet trail along its path, the Rocket Sled soon brought Mr. Coyote abreast of his prey. At that moment the animal he was pursuing veered sharply to the right. Mr. Coyote vigorously attempted to follow this maneuver but was unable to, due to poorly designed steering on the Rocket Sled and a faulty or nonexistent braking system. Shortly thereafter, the unchecked progress of the Rocket Sled brought it and Mr. Coyote into collision with the side of a mesa.”
How are you? What are you working on, artistically or otherwise? Who or what has shaped who you are? What inspires you? What do you love? Send a letter to luke@retroduck.com and let me know.These letters inspire me. I hope they inspire you, too.
William Sterling is a podcast editor by day, and aspiring (and talented!) actor and writer by night. Here he is on the pressures of productivity during the pandemic. Stills from The Dinner Parting, which we shot last December.
Hi.
I’ve been working on a book. As such, my prose might seem stilted. Or there might be long run on sentences where I’m endeavoring to, like Hemingway, bring more thoughts together than deserve to be brought together and I will use more “ands” than any writer should ever use and you’ll understand it’s all because I have so many important things to say and these words will spread this brilliance and everyone will cheer and there will be roses and I will sleep well.
Or, at least, that may be my inner dialogue.
I suppose I struggle with this actor’s/writer’s need for recognition. And by this, I mean my own. Please pardon the disjointed cocktail of the actor and the writer like Jekyll and Hyde. Quarantine does not do well for my state of my mind. Instagram helps. I haven’t been able to bring myself to brave the world of Tik Tok considering I feel like only yesterday I was twenty-one.
I have had a lot of thoughts recently about the pressure of productivity. About how much I think I should be creating and how much I am creating. I do believe there is such a thing as too many voices. Too many pressures outside the pressure cooker of the self. Because we really are too hard on ourselves.
Prior to this version of the end of the world, my personal world ended a few months ago when I lost my dog. My best friend. The sometimes-uncontrollable fate of cancer consumed him, and I was crushed. But this was early November. Just before my thirty second birthday. And before I traveled to Michigan to star in a feature film co-written and produced by none other than Mr. Luke Allen Hackney. There I met so many souls and felt so much love and stretched so many creative muscles it felt like, finally, I was swaying in that hammock of doing the thing I had been destined to do.
But much to, hopefully all, of our woes, we had to wrap and go our separate ways. And then there was Christmas. And then the New Year. And I told myself 2020 would be the year of me. Because I had spent so many years at the beck and call of my day job. Answering the midnight calls of any pseudo-celebrity that needed an edit or a way to make them look better. But no, this year was going to be mine. I was going to learn the power of now. I was going to push back a little. I was going to set some healthy boundaries. I was going to make the others, not just see but, feel my presence and ability.
And it seemed to work for a few weeks.
But then the sickness came, and everyone forgot. And I can’t blame them. There are a lot of things I have forgotten or foregone or ignored because of the stress of this event. An event everyone is likely tired of hearing about or reading about or thinking about. But from this pressure I have also felt the core of my creativity push back.
For the first two weeks I pretended like every hour was the happy one. For the third, I wandered the wasteland of the mind wondering what it was all for. The fourth, I found productivity. The fifth I found tequila. And by this, as of now, end of the sixth I have completed what, by word count goal, will be one quarter of a book. One I began while filming in Michigan.
But I also dragged my ass through a vomit draft of a screenplay with my writing partner. And I’ve taped monologues and done scenes with my roommate and read books and newspapers and caught up on old New York Times magazines and watched some television and spent quality time with my girlfriend and become pretty good pals with her cat; monster. (Remember the “ands?”)
Needless to say, I think what I’ve discovered most in my process of writing this book and being way too hard on myself, upon forcing myself to reflect I realize I have accomplished quite a great deal. And if you’re willing to look at it from the outside in, you have too. That when push comes to shove and we’re not going into work and we’re left to our own devices, eventually the depression will dry out and the self-doubt will come up short and we’ll realize; we’re doing just fine. Because at the end of panic is peace. If we are willing to give ourselves grace, at the depth of that dramatic self-reflection is a determination that even nature cannot diminish.
I am, therefore I create. Not the other way around. And you are too.
It has been a blessing to be reminded by the clay that my hands have molded, even if I were left with nothing at the end of this; I would still be someone. I would still be me. And that me had enough to say to dig my way out of the holes that misfortune has created. And I take confidence in knowing that we can do this together. Because I’m still just a boy with a dream. Still an unpublished writer. Still an actor who hasn’t broken through to the other side of having no day job.
The truth is, at the end of it all, all the work in the world is only part time. And we all know that part time on this earth is borrowed, still. So why not listen to the call of the wild? The beat of the heart that continues, despite our desire to give up. Art is never ending. And just like you and I, it pulsates and pounds in the temples, and it cannot be stopped. During times of doubt, do not lean into disbelief. Remember that, even at the end of it all, all this, ourselves included, may only be temporary. But our art is not. The only positive thing to come from a pandemic is passion. And that is permanent.
Apparently I am most like Lady Sybil Crawley from Downton Abby. I’ve never seen it, admittedly. Is this accurate? From a bio on a Wiki I found:
Sybil was described by Mrs. Hughes as “the sweetest spirit under this roof.” Sweet tempered, caring, and politically ambitious, Sybil was liked by everyone, despite her differences in beliefs and interests.
How are you? What are you working on, artistically or otherwise? Who or what has shaped who you are? What inspires you? What do you love? Send a letter to luke@retroduck.com and let me know.Here is one from my friendAmber on willing your heart to find a way to rise anew, an excellent Easter Sunday sentiment.Photos found at Dangerous Minds.
It’s springtime, and I’ve been looking out the window, thinking about chaos and physics and the joys of muscle memory. And the unique fizzy bliss of riding a motorcycle in and out of a turn. ::grin::
If you haven’t ridden, a moving motorcycle is affected by gyroscopic forces that are unique to two-wheeled machines–on a bike, you’re both part of the external forces and the self-correcting mechanism.
When you go around a corner, you as a rider apply force via leaning, and gyroscopic forces will Drift Your Bike around said corner until you stop leaning. Those same gyroscopic forces will then correct your bike back upright and into a straight line.
I think in bike class, I heard ‘cornering bike is a collection of competing forces that are nine-tenths crashed’ and the “whoa important!” last-tenth is the balanced gyroscopic forces that you eventually learn without thinking, like breathing.
As you become more proficient, your body becomes a wiser machine, your core and legs and arms coiling in unison with your brain. It purrs somewhere, maybe in your lizard brain(?), and hums its way throughout. The chaos and the order and the science and adrenaline of it all make me swoon just writing about it.
When I started to learn this in my body, not just reading about it–and for fuckle’s sake not sitting behind someone on a bike–I was so excited. I grinned with such uncool obvious goony glee: publicly, goofily, unmistakably joyful in that early mastery. I love that feeling–beginning to viscerally know something challenging that took an investment and a measure of discomfort and bravery.
Like knowing without looking where D and G and C are on your ukulele. (Or anything.) Or gently curling up into bakasana. Or building a meditation practice. Or nailing a joke while telling a story where people pay rapt attention.
I’d leaned into motorcycles when my life was packed with busy empty things, avoiding my grief about a marriage ending. I was so brittle. My bike whisperer brother found a 1980 Yamaha XS 400 for me that became a community project in the center of his shop, more than an hour from my home. His former band mates, a curious neighbor, friends from school, even my Dad showed up odd nights and on weekends to help bleed a brake line, paint the tank, fix the fuel pump. Piece by piece, beer by beer, by mid-summer I had a bike.
Practicing for my riding test, talking physics and music with my brother, learning new fixes from friends–all ways I leaned into growth and joy as I was grieving the end of another part of my life back at home.
Anyway, I felt like visiting with something that feels joyful and expansive that I carry with me—especially while waiting in isolation at home during the pandemic can make things feel small and limited.
In the quiet sheltering month ahead, I wish you the giddy joy of new mastery of something thrilling and difficult. I hope you become a new machine. And I’d love to hear about it.
If, by the virtue of charity or the circumstance of desperation, you ever chance to spend a little time around a Substance-recovery halfway facility like Enfield MA’s state-funded Ennet House, you will acquire many exotic new facts…
That certain persons simply will not like you no matter what you do.
That you do not have to like a person in order to learn from [them]. That loneliness is not a function of solitude. That logical validity is not a guarantee of truth. That it takes effort to pay attention to any one stimulus for more than a few seconds. That boring activities become, perversely, much less boring if you concentrate intently on them. That sometimes human beings have to just sit in one place and, like, hurt. That you will become way less concerned with what other people think of you when you realize how seldom they do. That there is such a thing as raw, unalloyed, agendaless kindness.
Wrote this for Kottke.org, but thought I’d share here, too.
Jason,
It is Day 16 of Michigan’s “Stay Home, Stay Safe” initiative. As long as I am productive, I think I am fine. I take my temperature and vitamins every day. I mostly eat the same things: fruit and/or vegetable smoothies for lunch, chicken and vegetables for dinner. Thanks to something you mentioned long ago, I practice intermittent fasting. Low/no calorie powdered drink packets add variety to my water intake. I work on what I can from home, mostly early in the morning and in the evenings so I can take advantage of the sunlight.
Decided to no longer be a cis-white-American male with an unread copy of Infinite Jest on the shelf. To remain active during the day, I’ve also been listening to it via an Audible free trial. I go for a walk most days through a nature trail that (thankfully) starts on my block and bring the book with me. I listen to it on the way there and back, and when I am doing just about anything around the house. Now that the weather is nice that includes yard work.
I just finished a free trial of the Criterion Channel, which I signed up for mostly to watch out-of-print titles. Managed to squeeze in 21 films in 14 days.
I am worried about everything I should be, but for now I take it day to day and try and make the most of this time off. A part of me felt guilty for not deciding to master an instrument or conquer a new language, but I got over that pretty quickly.
How are you? What are you working on, artistically or otherwise? Who or what has shaped who you are? What inspires you? Send a letter to luke@retroduck.com and let me know.
From artist/writer Tim Lane, here is one on The Smiths, his days as a Catholic school boy, the convolution of memory and revelation, and the separation of art and artist.
Hey Luke,
Morrissey’s been a bit of a disappointment, hasn’t he? I was so psyched to see him in Flint a few years back, but then he canceled. And then a whole slew of cancelations took place, and he was being talked about, and I discovered for the first time some of his political leanings. How in the hell, I wondered, could the guy I listened to back in my formative years with, I’ll be honest, a little bit of unease, but a lot of admiration, turn out like this? I mean I love The Smiths. The music is great. And Morrissey’s vocals were, and maybe still, are, great, but the lyrics were the thing I picked apart. “Oh, the alcoholic afternoons that we spent in your room. They meant more to me than any living thing on Earth. They had more worth,” or, “Why pamper life’s complexities when the leather runs smooth on the passenger seat,” or, “There’s a club if you’d like to go. You could meet somebody who really loves you. So you go and you stand on your own, and you leave on your own, and you go home, and you cry, and you want to die.” It was like he was always singing directly to me, directly to us, right? I mean this guy knew, right?
So how?
It amazes me to this day that I never wound up seeing The Smiths. It’s kind of like being a fifty-year-old Catholic who’s never received communion.
I’m not Catholic anymore, but while I was in elementary and middle school, I was more Catholic than the pope himself. I was an altar boy from fourth through tenth grade, really. I would serve on the altar in some capacity every day for two weeks straight, and then intermittently for the next two weeks, and then I got a week off before the rotation began all over again. EVEN IN THE SUMMERS!
I have this poignant, lucid memory of the second time The Romantics came to town which is wrapped up with so many other old memories of being Catholic.
I had red hair: so I never had a girlfriend. I mean it’s like Intro to Philosophy: Logic 101. Right? Red hair was death. The girls in my class were into guys with the dark hair, or the blond hair, but not the red hair. Do you know that the red hair gene is totally being weeded out of the gene pool? In so many years, like ten or fifteen or twenty—I’m not exactly sure—there won’t be any natural redheads on the entire planet.
The number of masses I sat up on the altar in my black cassock and flowing white surplus, scanning the church for cute girls is a lengthier catalogue than the Book of Psalms. Catholics are into ritual and routine, if nothing else, so families usually attended the same mass each Sunday. By tenth grade, when I wasn’t scheduled to serve, I’d occasionally volunteer to serve ten o’clock mass on Sundays anyway. My dad and I usually went to eight o’clock mass, but the really cute girl with the slightly stylish dark hair and penetrating dark eyes went to ten. I mean like how could she not have noticed me? For six years, I had almost been a permanent fixture on that altar. I had certainly noticed her. Enough to think about her. I mean like I had thought about her for a while. A good long while. I think I might have dreamt of her once. And then, by God, a miracle (which had nothing to do with her) happened in tenth grade. My buddy started dating a public school girl, and her girlfriend was apparently just as lonely as me? Similar dark hair and eyes as my scope at the ten o’clock mass. Cute. Suddenly I had a girlfriend. I mean like I was just thrown in the back seat with this girl. It was strange, but I was happy (until she dumped me).
Shortly after this, The Romantics came to town, and for some reason that totally escapes me, the girlfriends couldn’t go. Maybe they had Model UN or something. Maybe they’d been grounded for smoking pot, like most public school kids did. Maybe their parents didn’t want them dating Catholic school guys. I don’t remember. But I clearly remember what happened at the concert. The concert was at the Capitol Theater. My buddy and I were sitting left of the stage, about midway up. The cute girl from church, who was older now, and even cuter, was sitting behind us. I recognized her instantly. And I’ll be damned if she didn’t recognize me. When our eyes met, she flashed a big smile, and we froze like that for a moment. In that instant, her eyes and smile said, Oh, it’s you! I’ve been waiting for this to happen. It’s taken longer than I figured it might, but I always knew it would happen. We’ve been on course for a slow-moving, head-on collision for some time, haven’t we?
For a moment, I was religiously numb. The Romantics took the stage and it was pandemonium. But it was like I wasn’t there. I was in between the concert and the altar. I was in between the Capitol Theater and St. Mary’s Church. I was in some gray limbo, waiting for the band to break through to me, waiting for the girl to take my hand, waiting for my life to start. Eventually, the moment passed, like so many other moments. My buddy and I probably exchanged looks, or I was jostled, who knows? The Romantics were great. I found myself caught up in the show, or was I ever really completely caught up in the show? I don’t know, man. I can’t remember. Was the cute girl with a guy? Was the cute girl thinking about me? Did she actually remember me, or had I read too much into her smile? And the dread, Oh, my God, the dread. I mean I was sinning right then and there, throughout the whole concert, just as I had been throughout my whole life: sins of the MIND. I had a girlfriend. We had only been dating for about three months, but it was official. We had kissed. She was wearing my varsity jacket. I was cheating.
I think that I actually felt relieved when the concert came to an end. The needle would rise, the record player’s arm would return to its perch, the record would get re-sleeved and life would continue. But that’s not what happened. When the lights went up, the girl tapped my shoulder. The girl tapped my shoulder. THE GIRL TAPPED MY GODDAMN SHOULDER, Luke.
“There’s a party out in Burton,” she said. “No way,” I said. She shrugged. She told me the address. She smiled. She turned and joined the people in the aisle pouring out of the theater. Of course, I thought. Of course there’s a party in Burton. Of course I have a girlfriend. The first girlfriend I’ve had for more than sixty seconds since eighth grade, and there’s a party out in Burton, on a school night, after the concert. Oh, there’s probably a party out in Burton every night. There’s probably so much going on out there, outside of this theater, all the damn time, and I have no idea. I have no clue. But the cute girl from church knows. Damn straight, she knows. She’s probably known for a long time. She probably knew all of that time we sat in church separated by rows of pews, stealing glances at each other. Oh, yeah, I’d caught her looking once or twice. I couldn’t help staring. And now, she had made a pass. All of those years of longing had paid off. But I went home, and several months later my girlfriend returned my varsity jacket and started seeing some senior who had his own car, and I never saw the cute girl from church ever again.
The Smiths have a song for that anecdote, don’t they? “Well, I Wonder,” maybe? Yeaaaaah, dude. Forty years later, I never listen to The Romantics anymore, if I’m being honest. I saw them twice while I was in high school. They came to Flint twice. But I’ve never seen The Smiths. I mean I liked The Romantics, but I loved The Smiths. It’s bizarre. I still listen to The Smiths all the time. Seriously! And as I said, I’m not Catholic anymore. Hell, I don’t even have red hair anymore.
Over the past ten years, I’ve had the opportunity to catch a handful of bands that I missed during their heyday—my heyday. Kraftwerk, Psych Furs, OMD, Modern English, to name a few. At each concert, I always find myself scanning the crowd for a familiar face from the past.
How is it that I didn’t know more about Morrissey? I’ve had more than several conversations with Sheila and my friends over the years on whether we should separate a person’s art from their politics. How do we separate what a person makes for the world from who they are? Obviously, it can be done. The question becomes this: Should it be done? Should I forego studying Bobby Fischer’s amazing chess matches (I mean it’s not like I can understand his moves anyway) because of his antisemitism? Should I have never voted for Bill Clinton? Should I boycott Woody Allen’s Manhattan? I’ve probably seen that film six times. Should I burn all of my Smiths records because Morrissey has come out and said some stupid racist bullshit? It’s hard. Or is it? Maybe I’m just lame. I guess what I’ve decided is that I will never try to catch a Morrissey concert if the opportunity arises, but I’m going to continue to cherish The Smiths. They were—and still are—such a part of me.
My mind is currently on auto-pilot, but need to call you soon. It’s cool to hate talking on the phone now so I plan to talk on the phone more. I can’t seem to formulate sentences anymore so need practice.
I need to organically run into Bill Murray. I don’t know if I used organically right, but I need to make some changes in my life to help this pending fortune along.
I think one thing you and I have always had in common is the basic inability to be unequivocally excited. I think (hope) there are still a few illusions out there to get ourselves wrapped up in. We just have to train ourselves to be excited about the everyday before we can address that.
What’s your mission statement? The last time I took a serious look at mine I was five and I was going to be a ballerina or a princess of some sort so it’s going to need some tweaking.
I think raw almonds might have special powers, FYI.
If I am in a bad mood for no apparent reason I take note of any basic needs I have ignored – put to the wayside and/or poor diet choices. I try to take corrective action instead of burn everything down based on reasons I have assigned when my body was in survival mode from the various poisons recommended to me as an American Consumer. If I am in a good mood, for apparent no reason, same thing: I am looking for magic charms to keep in my arsenal. This shit has to work both ways, no?
So I ate a few handfuls of almonds and rediscovered the storyline I needed to continue on as a just and fair actor in my life.
You should make a cameo, too. I will find you or you find me.
Love and miss you,
Adri
Adri,
When I am in a bad mood for no apparent reason, I think I do the same thing, and that is how I always come back around to you.
“In any great outcome, there is a component of luck. Yet if life were all about luck, the same people wouldn’t repeatedly do great things. When someone repeatedly does great things it is because they prepared in advance to advance to recognize, work on, and fill in the blanks when necessary. This is the essence of intelligent preparation.”
“I can’t give my students more time in their lives; but what I try to do is change the way they think about and value it in the first place. There is no Soylent version of thought and reflection — creativity is unpredictable, and it simply takes time. “
“Comparing ourselves to others allows them to drive our behavior. This type of comparison is between you and someone else. Sometimes this comparison is motivating and sometimes it’s destructive. You can be anything but you can’t be everything. When we compare ourselves to others, we’re often comparing their best features against our average ones. Not only do we naturally want to be better than them, the unconscious realization that we are not often becomes self-destructive.”
Cannot understate how proud I am of the cast and crew of The Dinner Parting. Like at work, like in life, I only want to surround myself with people better than myself. Always build the best team you can:
“One of the best pieces of advice I ever got, back when I was 23 and newly out of school, is this: look around and figure out who you want to be on your team. Figure out the people around you that you want to work with for the rest of your life. Figure out the people who are smart & awesome, who share your values, who get things done — and maybe most important, who you like to be with and who you want to help win. And treat them right, always. Look for ways to help, to work together, to learn. Because in 20 years you’ll all be in amazing places doing amazing things.”
I made a pledge to watch at least one female-directed film per week that I hadn’t seen prior in 2019. Here they are (roughly ranked, if you’re looking for recommendations).
…I made a consciousness decision not to post anything negative on social media. I understand the need to vent, but for me, it’s made a big difference on how I view things and how I feel in general. Would encourage you to consider it.
Thank you to everybody that has reached out and asked how shooting has been going. If I’ve missed you, the answer is, hectic. Possibly the hardest thing I’ve ever done. I sleep very little, and on the set’s couch because it forces me to get up and be ready bright and early every day. But also wonderful. I am so thankful and fortunate for everyone surrounding me. I’m convinced we are all making something we will be very proud of.
2018 was one of the hardest, most challenging years of my life, and also one of the worst. 2019 might be one of hardest, most challenging years of my life, but also one of the best. East Lansing gave me an award for my contributions to the city. Someone deemed that newsworthy. Yesterday I was re-elected chair of the Local Development Finance Authority. And tomorrow I head to Detroit to film a movie with one of my oldest friends and a cast and crew I almost can’t believe we assembled. Life gets better. Or at least it can. Sometimes it gets worse. You have to accept what is out of your control, and work as hard as possible at what you can.
Listened to 315,504 songs, spread over 10,147 artists, according to my (second) account.
The twenty I listened to the most: Belle & Sebastian, The Beatles, The Smiths, Pavement, Ramones, Why?, Broken Social Scene, Bob Dylan, The Microphones, Modest Mouse, Prince, The Blow, Radiohead, Devendra Banhart, Sonic Youth, Chet Baker, Talking Heads, The Kinks, Tom Waits and The Magnetic Fields.
If you were to ask if those were my favorite artists, I would say, “Close.”
He is charged with exposing our many grievous faults and failures, with dredging up to the light our dark and dangerous dreams for the purpose of improvement.
Furthermore, the writer is delegated to declare and to celebrate man’s proven capacity for greatness of heart and spirit — for gallantry in defeat, for courage, compassion and love. In the endless war against weakness and despair, these are the bright rally flags of hope and of emulation. I hold that a writer who does not passionately believe in the perfectibility of man has no dedication nor any membership in literature.”
