A Special COW (Community of Worms) Recommendation List!
Where I show you mine and you can show me yours in the comments!
I’m still working to find the sweet spot for the shorter weekly posts, but for now I’m thinking they can be a few different things.
Sometimes they might take the form of an earwormette (wormette perhaps is a better name), other times it might be a silly mini-essay, like the 12-step process for writing a Substack Post from last week!
While for others, like this newsletter, I might offer some recommendations of albums, TV shows, movies, YouTube clips, websites, books or other forms of entertainment that you might want to check out.
Of course I’d love to know what forms of media you’d recommend as well! There are so many artists sharing their important stories, films, paintings, photographs, songs, etc. with the world, and I for one would love to discover more of them. Hopefully you do too.
Here are 4 things that have inspired me recently.
Causeway - Apple TV+
Jennifer Lawrence and Brian Tyree Henry star in this understated film about a US soldier who’s forced to return home after suffering from a traumatic brain injury during her tour in Afghanistan. It’s about two damaged people forming a friendship after tragic events have occurred in both their lives. They don’t make films like this anymore, dialogue-rich talkers that take their time developing the story. Lawrence and Henry are both excellent.
Reservation Dogs (HULU)
No other TV show has stayed with me as deeply as this FX/HULU series created by Sterlin Harjo and executive produced by Taika Waititi. With an almost entirely Indigenous cast and crew, this show captures life on a reservation in Oklahoma through the eyes of more than a dozen characters, from teenagers to grandparents. Every character, even the smallest roles, are given depth and humanity. Season 2, which aired this year, was even better than Season 1 which was excellent.
Electric Fire - Kurt Baker
Kurt Baker has been making head-bobbing rock-and-roll with a power-pop edge for more than a decade. “Electric Fire” and “Move Up,” his two singles from 2022 are both excellent. I’m hoping a full album is imminent.
Bill McClintock - Mashup Artist Extraordinaire
Nobody does video mashups better than Bill McClintock. The way he seamlessly mashes up James Brown and Judas Priest in “Electric Sex Machine” is sublime, but this is just one of more than 100 other video mashups he’s done. If ever I’m feeling down or depressed, I can always pull myself out by going to the Bill McClintock YouTube channel.
So what has inspired you this week? Any new music, film, tv, book, painting, blog that has brought a glimmer of joy to your heart? Share your thoughts in the comments. I’d love to hear!
Thanks for sharing Weeve! I love this idea of shorter weekly posts, including thoughts on other media forms you're passionate about (I can relate!). I just saw Causeway, it was magnificent. I want to watch it again, it's stayed with me. The quiet, humid, slowness holding the characters, the simplicity of a few locations in Louisiana (also a character in the film which gave it so much depth), what was not said in the dialogue, in the body language, absolutely brilliant. I read that the director originally shot flashback scenes of Jennifer Lawrence's character in Afghanistan, but once in the edit room, the story was best told in present day between JL and Brian Tyree Henry. Both fantastic. Also - RESERVATION DOGS is one of my all time favorite shows, Season's 2 "Offerings" is one of the best pieces of TV I've ever seen. It changed me (Willie Jack is my favorite character). Thanks for prompts!
Liz, thanks so much for your comment! So glad you love Causeway. It really is so rare to get a movie like that made nowadays; it seems those quiet movies tend to become TV shows or series that end up a little longer than they needed to be.