100 Perfect Things (Part One)
I’m writing the newseltter much earlier than I usually would this week. It’s Tuesday, early in the morning, and I’ve just dropped my greyhound Ida off at the vets.
She’ll be fine; she’s just gone in for some routine dental surgery. But she’ll be out all day — till 6pm, at the earliest — and I miss her. I’ve spent the last hour or so wandering around the house, empty of her for the first time in two years, and it’s starting to get me down.
So this newsletter — a Definitive and Very Silly Ranking of my favourite moments in “the culture” — is something like a selfish pick-me-up. Ever since I was little, compiling lists of things I love has calmed me. I have this vivid memory from when I was six of huddling up under the covers, terrified by the thought of death, and making a numbered list of my favourite books to get my breathing to slow. I haven’t changed much since then.
This list has also been inspired by the podcast Las Culturistas, hosted by Bowen Yang and Matt Rogers. On their 200th episode, they ran down a list of the “best moments in culture”, a playfully meaningless ranking which includes Rhianna at the Met Gala, Jane Fonda workouts, albums, books and performances.
This is the first part of my version of that list. It’s kinda just the first half of a “100 things that I like a lot” list, where “things” excludes people in my life, because I am not such a sociopath that I would measure the worth of like, family members against books and random that I enjoy. Or at least, I don’t think I am.
This New Yorker profile of philosopher Derek Parfit, and in particular this passage about his eating habits:
“Because Parfit didn’t want to waste time on choice or preparation, he developed rigid routines that he could follow without thinking. For years, according to a colleague, he made the same meal every morning for breakfast, which he conceived of as a recipe for maximum health: sausage links, green peppers, yogurt, and a banana, all in one bowl. One day, the colleague’s nutritionist wife explained to him that this was not a particularly healthy meal, and suggested a better meal; the next day he switched to the new meal and never varied it.”
PJ Harvey’s Dry era, and especially the song ‘Sheela-Na-Gig’.
Cold, black T2 Earl Gray tea, served over ice in a heavy glass.
This David Hockney painting, ‘A Bigger Splash’:
This profile of how French filmmaker Claire Denis is spending quarantine, and in particular the following section, in which she talks about making hummus:
“I started making, once a week, my own hummus. I never thought I would, but it turned out great! Hummus makes me feel so good. But it takes a lot of time — two days. I never use canned chickpeas. I get them dry, and then I put them in water overnight, and then the next day I cook them a long time, and then I mash them with onion, garlic, some herbs, and tahini paste, with olive oil and a little bit of lemon juice. I think hummus is not good with bread; I eat it out of a bowl with a spoon, but I make a little pancake on the side.”
Those first few weeks of spring, when jasmine starts to bloom.
This “anti-smoking” PSA cult film director John Waters made:
K. Austin Collins’ article “Watching Safe At the End Of The World.”
This photograph of author Ottessa Moshfegh in her mint green suit:
This joke from the “nipple salesmen” episode of Ren and Stimpy:
This interview Tom Waits gave about how much he loves Babe: Pig In The City:
This scene from Babe: Pig In The City, in which a dog named Flealick briefly goes to Heaven:
This short piece of writing from film director Noah Baumbach, in which he defends his infamous decision to screen Eyes Wide Shut and Babe: Pig In The City as a double bill at the Metrograph in New York:
This Aesop perfume, which is called Hwyl, a word that feels as nice to say out loud as the perfume does to smell.
The last few stanzas of Ted Hughes’ poem River, which go like this:
It had happened.
Then for a sign that we were where we were
Two gold bears came down and swam like menBeside us. And dived like children.
And stood in deep water as on a throne
Eating pierced salmon off their talons.So we found the end of our journey.
So we stood, alive in the river of light,
Among the creatures of light, creatures of light.The passage in Saint Augustine’s Confessions in which he admits to stealing pears as a child.
This photo of author and essayist Maggie Nelson standing in front of her bookshelves:
The eye pop scene from the first Mad Max:
Jeff Koons’ flower dogs:
Raspberries.
Philosopher Michel Foucault describing what it felt like to get hit by a car:
“Once I was struck by a car in the street. I was walking. And for maybe two seconds I had the impression I was dying, and it was really a very, very intense pleasure. The weather was wonderful. It was seven o’clock in the summer. The sun was descending. The sky was very beautiful, and so on. It was, it still is now, one of my best memories.”
The final scene of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre:
Erin Michelle’s "uncles” joke.
Everything Mark Fisher ever wrote, but particularly this section from his essay ‘Exiting The Vampire Castle’ about the failures of the modern left:
“Where to go from here? It is first of all necessary to identify the features of the discourses and the desires which have led us to this grim and demoralising pass, where class has disappeared, but moralism is everywhere, where solidarity is impossible, but guilt and fear are omnipresent – and not because we are terrorised by the right, but because we have allowed bourgeois modes of subjectivity to contaminate our movement.”
That time Andy Warhol got interviewed at a Wrestlemania match:
Chris Kraus’ After Kathy Acker.
This quote from Flannery O’Connor:
“All human nature vigorously resists grace because grace changes us and the change is painful.”
The metal band Neurosis’ album Times of Grace, and this comment on a YouTube rip of it:
“In my top ten greatest albums of all time. Saw them about 20 years ago at a small club in Philadelphia and they did most of this album. Killer show they played almost 3 hrs. I'm 65 and am listening to it now as I mow the lawn.”
This shot from Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s Martha:
This Keith Haring jacket:
The music video for Torres’ Dressing America:
Everything to do with octopi, but particularly the fact that they can use their ability to spit thin streams of water to get what they want:
“In at least two aquariums, octopuses have learned to turn off the lights by squirting jets of water at the bulbs and short-circuiting the power supply. At the University of Otago in New Zealand, this game became so expensive that the octopus had to be released back to the wild.”
This photo of author Donna Tartt with her dog Pongo:
The train set scene from Wallace and Gromit: The Wrong Trousers:
This description of the house of comic book author Alan Moore:
“His house is something like an occult bookshop under permanent renovation, with records, videos, magical artefacts and comic-book figurines strewn among shelves of mystical tomes and piles of paper. The bathroom, with blue-and-gold décor and a generous sunken tub, is palatial; the rest of the house has possibly never seen a vacuum cleaner. This is clearly a man who spends little time on the material plane.”
The chestburster scene from Alien:
This photo of David Cronenberg with the props from his film Naked Lunch:
The last words Alex the talking parrot said to his owner before Alex passed away in his sleep, which were:
“You be good, I love you. See you tomorrow."
The poem ‘Saturday Night as an Adult’ by Anne Carson, and in particular these lines:
“We order food by pointing and break into two yell factions, one each side of the table. He and she both look exhausted, from (I suppose) doing art all day and then the new baby. We eat intently, as if eating were conversation. We keep passing the bread. My fish comes unboned, I weep pretending allergies.”
The art from ‘80s horror paperbacks, like this:
This profile of director Todd Haynes.
Lush bath bombs
Kier-La Janisse’s House of Psychotic Women
This whole interview with Kathy Acker, and in particular, this exchange:
Q: Do you brush your teeth after every meal?
KA: Fuck you.The anecdote about Nietzsche and the horse, recounted here:
“On January 3, 1889, in the throes of a manic episode, Friedrich Nietzsche left his lodgings in Turin, walked a short distance across a nearby square, and then halted. Seeing a horse being flogged by its owner, he threw himself towards the animal and protected it from the blows. Breaking into tears, he slumped to the floor. He was almost arrested for disturbing the peace, but was rescued by his landlord and was taken back home and to bed.”
The underpass scene in Possession:
Nudie suits and cowboy boots.
