1) FILM / TELEVISION
JOAN DIDION : THE CENTER WILL NOT HOLD - (Documentary - Netflix)
“Joan Didion was an American writer. Her career began in the 1950s after she won an essay contest sponsored by Vogue magazine. Her writing during the 1960s through the late 1970s engaged audiences in the realities of the counterculture of the 1960s and the Hollywood lifestyle. - Wikipedia
I thoroughly enjoyed this documentary on Joan Didion’s life and career. In full disclosure I hadn’t had a ton of exposure to her actual work. But I will surely be diving into so much more of it moving forward. Joan’s writing style is expressive and fresh, and she demonstrated an innate sense of grabbing hold of the reader. Her story is much bigger than this documentary, but this is a damn good place to start.
Here is the trailer:
2) MUSIC / PODCASTS
OLIVER TREE - (American Indie Pop)
“Oliver Tree Nickell is an American singer-songwriter and filmmaker. Born in Santa Cruz, California, Tree signed to Atlantic Records in 2017 after his song "When I'm Down" went viral and released his debut studio album Ugly Is Beautiful in 2020. He achieved further success with his song "Life Goes On" in 2021.” - Wikipedia
You’ve probably heard a song or two of Oliver Tree’s, and thought, “Damn, that’s a catchy ass tune.” And if you’ve ever seen him in the flesh, by photo (see above) or by video (please see below ;), it will be tough to forget the guy. He style is something to behold, both in music and in dress.
https://www.olivertreemusic.com/
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3) ART
AD REINHARDT - (American Abstract Painter)
“Adolph Dietrich Friedrich Reinhardt was an abstract painter active in New York for more than three decades. He was a member of the American Abstract Artists and part of the movement centered on the Betty Parsons Gallery that became known as abstract expressionism.” - Wikipedia
Here is a short video essay on Reinhardt:
MOMA website: https://www.moma.org/artists/4856
4) BOOKS / WRITING
JOAN DIDION - (American Writer)
Well, I might as well feature the writer that I lead this off with! So that you can get a true taste, here is an excerpt from the essay GOODBYE TO ALL THAT by Joan Didion:
“…I suppose that a lot of us who have been very young in New York have the same scenes in our home screens. I remember sitting in a lot of apartments with a slight headache about five o’clock in the morning. I had a friend who could not sleep, and he knew a few other people who had the same trouble, and we would watch the sky lighten and have a last drink with no ice and then go home in the early morning, when the streets were clean and wet (had it rained in the night? we never knew) and the few cruising taxis still had their headlights on and the only color was the red and green of traffic signals. The White Rose bars opened very early in the morning; I recall waiting in one of them to watch an astronaut go into space, waiting so long that at the moment it actually happened I had my eyes not on the television screen but on a cockroach on the tile floor. I liked the bleak branches above Washington Square at dawn, and the monochromatic flatness of Second Avenue, the fire escapes and the grilled storefronts peculiar and empty in their perspective….”
Here is a link to the full essay: http://diva-in-distress.blogspot.com/2012/01/seen-and-be-seen.html#more
5) PHOTOGRAPHY
BRASSAI - (Hungarian/French Photographer)
“Brassaï, original name Gyula Halász, French Jules Halasz, (born September 9, 1899, Brassó, Transylvania, Austria-Hungary [now Romania]—died July 8, 1984, Eze, near Nice, France), Hungarian-born French photographer, poet, draughtsman, and sculptor, known primarily for his dramatic photographs of Paris at night. His pseudonym, Brassaï, is derived from his native city.”
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