Recently: 25 June

25 June 2023

Colin Dickey on Betty Boop in Snow-White, Twin Peaks, and the erotic life of things.
Texas Monthly is undefeated in powerful, empathetic crime story pieces and this one about Stephenville and Susan Woods is yet another example.
A Brief History & Ethos of the Digital Garden.
Kat Howard on retelling stories and the theory of a continual retelling.
“Art is entirely indifferent to our self-annihilating excuses, special case pleas and circumstantial grievances. We must cease to concern ourselves with our unique suffering – whether we are happy or sad, fortunate or unfortunate, good or bad – and give up our neurotic and debilitating journeys of self-discovery.” Nick Cave.

I shouldn’t need to recommend the latest Megan Abbott novel, because you should have preordered and read it immediately already, but just in case: Beware the Woman is terrific.
Gentle Writing Advice: How to Be a Writer Without Destroying Yourself by Chuck Wendig is a wise and worthwhile volume.
I never read the original Mary Poppins stories, but many years ago I read P.L. Travers’s collection of different versions of the Sleeping Beauty tale and I knew she had a strong interest in folklore and mythology. What the Bee Knows: Reflections on Myth, Symbol, and Story is a compendium of her essays and I loved it.
There are few pieces of art as foundational to me as The Wizard of Oz is and I also happen to enjoy the many works of Mr. David Lynch—therefore, I liked the documentary/longform video essay that is Lynch/Oz. Although I wished it would have been more thoughtful about what storytelling traditions Wizard itself called back to.
This is one of those ones from the “I can’t believe I’m only watching this now” files, Robert Altman’s 3 Women is excellent.
One of my least defensible positions is that I love PG-13 horror movies. I cannot tell you why. I just do. Especially when they manage to bring something interesting and/or real to the table, which I think The Boogeyman does. It’s worth checking out.
Happy summer. Here’s Florence singing about murderous, drunken mermaids.