May 12! Vidiots! Vidiots Founding Member @alexwinter.com is hosting a screening of the erotic neo-noir classic AFTER DARK, MY SWEET. I’ll be moderating a Q&A after the film with star Jason Patric. In my opinion, this is THE great noir of the ‘90s. TICKETS: vidiotsfoundation.org/movies/after...

‘Like many a Romantic man, Brian Wilson’s way of feeling intimacy is via something cloudy, oceanic, mountain-top. The nearest faraway place.’ Ian Penman on the Beach Boys. www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

Mark Jenkins, the unique filmmaker, who captures the lives of Cornish fishermen — with a twist www.thetimes.com/culture/film...

Max Hastings: "Reading Sebestyen’s gripping book, we encounter on page after page demagogues who employ phrases that might have come out of today’s White House." www.thetimes.com/culture/book...

Don't mess with Rita Moreno... youtu.be/VoIZQh1IjI8?...

"...the 1944 edition of the King James version, since that includes a misprint urging women to “submit yourselves to your owl husbands” www.thetimes.com/culture/book...

‘He is beyond psychiatric help’ — the traumatic origins of JG Ballard The Illuminated Man by Christopher Priest and Nina Allan explores how the writer of Empire of the Sun was shaped by his early experiences in a PoW camp www.thetimes.com/culture/book...

Ringo Starr: “John Lennon, Klaus Voormann and I were one of the finest trios ever" www.uncut.co.uk/news/ringo-s...

Hilary Mantel's advice to writers to leave the reader "acknowledged, and yet estranged" is exemplified in the intense flavour of Chloe Aridjis's novel The Shadow of the Object, with its focus on the tension between reality and imagination. My review in the FT:

Ambrose Akinmusire & Mary Halvorson - Soundcheck youtu.be/Owxi3lOgEpQ?...

With all of this Boards of Canada excitement going on, I'm reminded of a wonderful audio drama called Octopus by @anitasullivan.bsky.social, which made excellent use of the music of BOC to create an immersive soundscape to explore the intelligence & consciousness cephalopods youtu.be/Dt9cSEmMf0A?...

Michaela Coel: “If the inspiration strikes for me to make another story, I have to make it” www.thetimes.com/culture/tv-r...

Was Bob Dylan the fifth Beatle? The two giants of the Sixties criticised each other’s music as ‘folk crap’ and ‘bubblegum’ — but then they met and everything changed, as this extract from Jim Windolf’s new book reveals www.thetimes.com/culture/musi...

What Am I, A Deer? — Polly Barton’s love letter to karaoke www.ft.com/content/cd52...

The Palm House — Gwendoline Riley’s novel of toxic men and flawed mothers The prizewinning author deploys language to devastating effect as she revisits her theme of women plagued by brittle relationships www.ft.com/content/55cb...

Worth noting that if you're pre-ordering Boards of Canada's new album Inferno, then if you do so on bandcamp, it includes the digital download 😉 boardsofcanada.bandcamp.com/album/inferno

Reading the FT front page story about a Chinese company introducing a battery with a 1500 km range & six minute recharging time & about how two Chinese companies own more than half of the global EV battery market & I am struck by the different realities the US and China occupy. We’ve lost the plot.

“What becomes canonical on the internet is not always what is most admired, but sometimes what is most argued over.” @mellymeldubs.bsky.social on "Infinite Jest": https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/infinite-jest-david-foster-wallace-4chan-incels-feminism/

This must have taken an insane amount of time to create. And it was worth it.

This is also why universal demand subsidies in rich countries are immoral.

Radiohead - 2 Meter Session (1995) youtu.be/kvrV_j-UW8M?...

Listen to a great podcast conversation with Peter Coviello about his amazing book VINELAND REREAD, the joys of Thomas Pynchon, and *One Battle After Another,* on the Two Month Review. bit.ly/3VQLBIT #Rereadings @chadwpost.bsky.social @columbiaup.bsky.social

Beck is back! On this special ep of All Songs Considered from @npr.org talk about his glorious new song, "Ride Lonesome." ❤️

When the Prodigy threw the BBC into a moral panic Thirty years ago, the Firestarter video sparked outrage – and made Keith Flint a dance music hero. www.telegraph.co.uk/music/concer...

Ian Grant of, @jokermen.bsky.social podcast, attempts to untangle the perplexing weirdness behind Bob Dylan’s Mysterious AI Experiment www.gq.com/story/bob-dy...

This year, for the first time in 30 years, the Super Furry Animals will perform at the National Eisteddfod

"A decade before the notion of 'prestige television' entered the lexicon, Twin Peaks was a stalking horse, one whose sui generis mixture of psychological horror and whimsical camp drew equally from the experimental cinema of Luis Buñuel and the high-intensity soap operatics of Peyton Place..."

“Radu’s films are political, like Godard’s films are. But it’s more than that. They are sensual, they have moments of extreme fragility, and they are very beautiful,” the actress Ilinca Manolache says of the Romanian director Radu Jude. newyorkermag.visitlink.me/EHdHPH

In honour of @ryanhatesthis.bsky.social's Panic World podcast covering Cicada 3301 this week, here's a documentary where I got identified as its potential creator because I designed ARGs. Now the video is mysteriously delisted – coincidence? I can neither confirm nor deny...

"Because Voyager 1 is more than 15 billion miles (25 billion kilometers) from Earth, the sequence of commands to shut down the instrument will take 23 or so hours to reach the spacecraft."

"One could fairly criticize Reggie Dunlop—'player-coach' of the Charlestown Chiefs in George Roy Hill's chaotically raunchy SLAP SHOT—for a wide variety of character flaws and professional failings, but he is true to the letter of St. Francis de Sales’ wisdom: Be who you are and be that well."

Pretty frustrating that the New York Times is crediting AP with uncovering the existence of Aadam’s archive when I reported on it 15 months prior. chicagoreader.com/music/gossip...

RIP Andy Kershaw, longtime champion of #HMHB, who he called 'the most authentic British folk band since The Clash' . Pictured with the band in his garden, when they recorded a Kitchen Session for his podcast. (Thanks to John Burscough via FB, who took the photo.)

Lovely tribute by @willhodgkinson.bsky.social that recognises the many achievements in Andy's broadcasting career, chiefly, being a brilliant ambassador for world music: "Kershaw was an enthusiast who was prepared to go further than most to pursue his obsessions." www.thetimes.com/culture/musi...

Of course I only found this post-flight, but there is a good presentation of all the camera systems installed on the Artemis II Orion spacecraft. #Artemis Recording: www.youtube.com/watch?v=VJzU... PDF: ntrs.nasa.gov/citations/20...

Tori Amos: “The muses barely wait for me. If I don’t show up, they’re going to go find Björk.” www.thetimes.com/culture/musi...

This has the potential to be good (if it gets off the ground), but I still would like to have seen what Dennis Kelly's (writer of Utopia) adaptation of Consider Phlebas would've looked like... deadline.com/2025/02/cons...

Andy Kershaw obituary Broadcaster who brought world music to a mainstream audience on BBC Radio 1 and travelled widely to report on conflict and the cultures that fascinated him www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio...

Andy Kershaw, broadcaster who opened the nation’s ears to music from around the world www.telegraph.co.uk/obituaries/2...

Very sad to hear the news of Andy's passing. As a teenager, his BBC radio 1 show introduced me to such a wide diversity of music and musicians from all around the world. An extremely talented broadcaster who enriched the musical landscape. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

DJ Shadow: ‘Kraftwerk are a touchstone for every phase of my career’

Independence takes root in a place where it was once absurd

Every weirdo in the world: A look at Thomas Pynchon www.ctpublic.org/show/the-col...

Pete Hegseth quoted a fake Bible verse from the Tarantino movie Pulp Fiction yesterday during a Pentagon prayer service

I love that the Pope sounds like Bob Dylan. “The masters of war pretend not to know that it takes only a moment to destroy, yet often a lifetime is not enough to rebuild,” the pontiff said after Trump attacked him again on social media. www.youtube.com/watch?v=XmPR...

Speculation around the return of Boards Of Canada has further intensified following the presence of a number of mysterious posters in different worldwide locations, with Warp Records sharing social media posts of the images buff.ly/zMLwCBk

A new Boards of Canada track!?! Does this mean there is a new album on the way? 🤯 youtu.be/6bghDcbzfEU?...

Second new Tom Waits song coming too, and it’s the very best kind of Tom Waits song: A song about bugs!

The traumatic childhood that propelled Freddie Mercury to greatness Queen’s second album was inspired by his family’s dramatic escape from Zanzibar – and showcased a style that led to Bohemian Rhapsody www.telegraph.co.uk/music/news/f...

John Waters on the joy of bad taste — before the Trumps ruined it www.ft.com/content/048f...