Gene Hackman, Great Art Explained, My Best Pictures, etc.
In which sometimes it's a little better to travel than to arrive...
👋 Good morning. Since it’s my birthday tomorrow, now thru the rest of March, an annual subscription is only $25. This newsletter will always remain free, but if you would like to support, please click here.
🧘 These self-care tips for kids are self-care tips for all.
🙏 Rest in Peace Gene Hackman, and I don’t say this lightly, truly one of the best to ever do it. His work in The Royal Tenenbaums is a masterclass in charismatic misanthropy, and he effortlessly walks the tightrope between deadpan and vulnerable, encapsulated in this conversation in which the sorta-titualar Royal attempts to make amends:
Royal: I've always been considered an asshole for about as long as I can remember. That's just my style. But I'd really feel blue if I didn't think you were going to forgive me.
Henry Sherman: I don't think you're an asshole, Royal. I just think you're kind of a son of a bitch.
Royal: Well, I really appreciate that.
In The Conversation, he arguably plays the opposite: quiet, introverted, and utterly haunted.
✡️ And also Marian Turski, a 98-year-old Holocaust survivor who never forgot. “Do not be indifferent when you see historical lies. Do not be indifferent when any minority is discriminated against. Do not be indifferent when power violates a social contract.”
🎬 Still haven’t seen Wicked, but I’ve managed to watch the rest of this year’s Best Picture nominees. My favorites were Anora, The Brutalist, A Complete Unknown and Nickel Boys. Would have included Challengers, A Real Pain and Sing Sing, myself.
💿 Bill Hader shops at the Amoeba Music in Hollywood, talking about his favorite things, including Frank Zappa, De La Soul, Minutemen, David Bowie, as well as some great films (and Daniel Clowes!).
🎧 An album I love every week, in no particular order, figuring by year’s end I’ll have what would constitute my top 50.
(7/50) De La Soul, 3 Feet High and Rising: And since Hader mentioned it, now is as good as time as any to write about my now and likely forever all-time favorite hip-hop record. Admittedly there is some filler: if you subtracted say, three songs and replaced with some of its great B-Sides, I’d find it perfect. Still, I can’t think of too many albums that make me as happy as this one.
🎶 Steven Hyden’s top 50 Kinks songs. With all due respect, I’ve always had a more of an affinity to Ray Davies and Co than The Stones. Would have personally slipped Starstruck into the conversation, but a great list and a great read.
🎨 Great Art Explained is an excellent series on Youtube, including videos on Andy Warhol, Keith Haring, Van Gogh and Da Vinci.
📺 It appears as if an Office spin-off is in development, created by Greg Daniels, who adapted The Office for American television. “The series, rumored to be titled ‘The Paper,’ will follow the staffers of a dying Midwestern newspaper whose publisher is trying to revive it with volunteer reporters. It will be ‘filmed,’ so to speak, by the same documentary crew that immortalized Dunder Mifflin’s Scranton branch.”
🦊 Your moment of Zen: winners of the 2024 World Nature Photography Awards.
📖 Speaking of Zen, this week I read Zen and the art of Motorcycle Maintenance.
“Care and Quality are internal and external aspects of the same thing. A person who sees Quality and feels it as he works is a person who cares. A person who cares about what he sees and does is a person who’s bound to have some characteristic of quality.”
“Mountains should be climbed with as little effort as possible and without desire. The reality of your own nature should determine the speed. If you become restless, speed up. If you become winded, slow down. You climb the mountain in an equilibrium between restlessness and exhaustion. Then, when you’re no longer thinking ahead, each footstep isn’t just a means to an end but a unique event in itself.”
✌️ Have a healthy snack. Drink water. Take a break. Keep the Hoping Machine running now and forever.
Love,
Luke
