Spike Lee's Essential Cinema, The Tyranny of Being Reachable, Food Expiration Guide, etc.
In which I share a few things to get you through the rest of the week.
🤔 My friend Marvin wrote on Substack, asking, “how and when did you choose to be who and how you are?” I answered.
🎞️ After no careful consideration, what I believe to be the ten best films of this century.
📽️ Also: Spike Lee’s essential cinema for aspiring filmmakers.
🎧 (23 and 24/50) The Strokes, Is This It, Room On Fire: Along with The White Stripes, The Strokes were a full-blown cultural reset. Their authenticity was often a subject of debate, but seeing Last Nite for the first time was revelatory: I was watching a band I had always wanted to exist. Is This It sounded like the '70s reborn: raw, loose, urgent, and effortlessly cool, channeling the Velvet Underground and Television while not really sounding like either.
Room on Fire sharpened that sound, leaning into '80s new wave and post-punk slickness, with tighter grooves and melodic finesse. While critics debated their similarities, the second record subtly expanded the band's sonic palette without losing their edge. They made messy, stylish rebellion feel new again, if only for a short while.
📲 On being available, always. “Because we appear online, we’re assumed to be free.”
☎️ The dropped call with customer service? It was likely by design.
🏙️ Frank Lloyd Wright’s sole skyscraper is currently unoccupied. “Turns out, its design was maybe a little too considered.”
🥛 “The first thing you should know? The dates, as we know them, have nothing to do with safety.” The expiration dates you should actually follow.
🍻 As seen in Bilbo’s: “If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world.”
✌️ The 100th newsletter drops Friday. Unbelievable. Until then, keep that Hoping Machine running.
Love,
Luke
