Best of the year (so far)
Things I liked in the first half of 2024
Hey y’all,
For something a little different this week, I wanted to share some of my favorite stuff from the first half of the year:
Best bathroom reading: One essay at a time from Elisa Gabbert’s outstanding collection, Any Person Is the Only Self, and Brian Dillon’s great book of essays about essays, Essayism. Issues of The Believer and The Idler cover-to-cover. Lichtenberg’s The Waste Books. Matt Farley’s The Motern Method. Ken Layne’s Desert Oracle.
Best anywhere reading: Katherine Morgan Schafler’s The Perfectionist’s Guide to Losing Control helped me finally understand perfectionism. Elisabeth Tova Bailey’s The Sound of a Wild Snail Eating is a marvelous little book about a bedridden woman who observes a snail while she slowly convalesces from a debilitating illness. Jesse David Fox’s Comedy Book. John McPhee’s Oranges. Matt Bucher’s The Belan Deck. Katherine Rundell’s Why You Should Read Children’s Books. Alasdair Gray’s Poor Things. Jen Beagin’s novel Big Swiss didn’t stick the landing for me, but it made me laugh a bunch and I think it could make an outstanding TV series. Marion Milner’s A Life of One's Own is a very strange and interesting book published in 1934. (I particularly like her idea of two kinds of attention.)
Books I haven’t finished yet, but plan to: Dani Shapiro’s Still Writing: The Pleasures and Perils of a Creative Life, Françoise Gilot’s memoir Life With Picasso, and Adam Moss’s The Work of Art: How Something Comes From Nothing.
Music: the old music dad craft project of downloading Cindy Lee’s Diamond Jubilee off a Geocities website and burning it onto two CDs. Owen Kleon’s TECH. Four Tet’s Three. Geese’s 3D Country. Waxahatchee’s “Right Back to It.” The Smile’s Wall of Eyes. (I love P.T. Anderson’s video for “Friend of a Friend,” and the album also makes a great soundtrack to Buster Keaton’s Sherlock, Jr.) Listening to The Joystick Jukebox with the kids on KOOP. C418’s Minecraft soundtracks, Volume Alpha and Volume Beta. Grandaddy’s Blu Wave. The jazz album Overseas, which I had on repeat while writing my latest book proposal. Making mixtapes!
TV/streaming: The third season of Hacks was just as funny as ever. The Mr. and Mrs. Smith reboot was sexy and fun. I’ve loved Walt Goggins in everything I’ve ever seen him in and the TV series Fallout was no exception. We liked Fargo, Shogun, Reacher, All Creatures Great and Small, and Ripley. Couldn’t resist bingeing the artful trash of Bridgerton and the trashy trash of Below Deck.
Movies: I love the new Criterion 24/7 stream. Found The Beach Bum totally outrageous and absolutely delightful. We’re usually a year behind with movies, so we caught up with Poor Things, Past Lives, Oppenheimer, American Fiction, Saltburn, The Holdovers, and Bottoms. Enjoyed a French movie called Delicious and the twisted 2000 comedy Sexy Beast. Saw Fall Guy in the theater with Meg — perfect date movie with pretty people and stuff blowing up. Surprised how much I enjoyed the Anne Hathaway rom-com The Idea of You. Caught half of LA Confidential in a hotel room, re-watched it at home. Who could forget the funny lines in Napoleon about boats and pork chops? Hit Man.
Documentaries: Stax: Soulsville USA gets my highest recommendation. Hans Zimmer: Hollywood Rebel is just what I want in a documentary: short and to the point. The Greatest Night in Pop. Howard. Corman’s World. Heavy Metal Parking Lot. A Room Alive! (Where do I list comedy specials? We liked Dave Attell’s Hot Cross Buns and Jacqueline Novak’s Get on Your Knees.)
Pizza night blockbusters with the kids (9 & 11): Big winners were early Disney live action movies like 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea, Blackbeard’s Ghost, and Swiss Family Robinson. We all liked Puss in Boots: The Last Wish, Groundhog Day (Groundhog Day fell on a Friday this year), Air Bud (a surprise hit), Pirates of the Caribbean, Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure (my kids are Bill & Ted), The Sandlot, and the 28-minute Bluey special, “The Sign.” (The 9-year-old was probably too young for Godzilla Minus One, but he liked it.)
Podcasts: I don’t listen to a lot of them, but I enjoyed making collages to Courtney Love’s Women and doing dishes to the Walter Martin Radio Hour. (I also try to catch Life of the Record and Song Exploder when I can.)
Gadgets: my whole family is nuts about the classic Pentel Sign Pen; my new favorite fountain pen is the LAMY Safari; I bought some art caddies for organizing my art cart by the kitchen table; got a cheap automatic card shuffler for playing UNO with my kids; replaced our Chemex after I broke it in the sink; found these cheap acrylic book stands to hold up “now playing” CDs and tapes by the stereo and display books on our bookshelves; and I’m nuts about our Douni White Noise Machine that masks the sound of delivery trucks and engines on our street.
Here’s to the second half of the year! I’m always looking for good stuff, so I would love it if you posted some of your favorite things from the year so far in the comments:
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xoxo,
Austin
On Wednesday, I had an interview for a really cool educator position that teaches kids how to make podcasts. I had to teach a very short writing lesson as part of my interview, so I prepared a lesson on personal narrative writing with the prompt of telling a story of either meeting a hero or feeling supported by a family or friend. Anyways, my example was of the time I met you, about a year before lockdown in LA on the Keep Going tour. I couldn’t hold my emotions in and you said when you cry you like to get ice cream.
I was going to be really early to my interview, so without really giving it much thought, I bought some ice cream and ate it while I waited for a more appropriate amount of being early. I won’t know if I got the job for about another week while they check my references, but I just wanted to let you know again how much your work has impacted me, Austin.
I’m currently running a book club with my arts collective on Corita Kent’s Learning by Heart. Someone asked me how I chose the book and that it’s so powerful and I said I was working up my artistic lineage from you. I think we’ll do Making Comics by Lynda Barry next. We do a lot of other cool stuff too, and we’re going to be in an article by the local NPR station this month.
I told someone else last night the reasons I am an artist now are LA Zine Fest, my favorite musician Porter Robinson, and you. I think the year we met is when I started to take art seriously. Now my arts collective is preparing to open a space. I’ve thought of this dream of an arts space for over a decade, been working on this specific project over different iterations for 4 years almost, and my dream feels closer than ever. Thank you. Thank you, thank you, thank you!
I’ve been excited for what comes next for you for quite some time, and I look forward to Tuesday and Friday. I hope you continue to take your time and you will inspire countless people in the meantime. I don’t know for sure that I’ll get the job I mentioned in the beginning, but I was really happy with my interview, especially the paragraph I shared about meeting you. Thanks again
Fallout! I should not have liked it, as it is made up of things I generally don't enjoy -- graphic violence, gross-out images, and a certain type of video-game. But I LOVED it! Can't wait for the next season!