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One of my favorite playwrights of all time (just behind my dear friend Polly Stenham, who first introduced me to her work) - her book of complete plays (Blasted, Phaedra’s Love, Cleansed, Crave, 4.48 Psychosis, and Skin) is everything I love about music, films, really anything. There’s something about reading plays that allows my brain to process and experience the work differently - it’s a crazy thrill to read her,, especially Blasted. It’s intense to the bone stuff. She also made a short film for Skin in 1997 just before hanging herself in 1999.
Mar 17, 2022
Related Recs
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I read Clare Barron’s play Dance Nation and it touched something in me that was so personal and deep in there that I then read every other play of hers currently available, and they ALL did that for me. Without exception. I don’t know if it’s because she’s interested in the same things I am, or if it’s as simple as “she’s a beautiful writer”, but whatever it is, it feels like I told her all my secrets except they’re secrets I didn’t even know I had. That’s the best way I can describe her work- especially the monologues- they make me feel like I didn’t know that feeling or that impulse or experience was something I felt but it is. Absolutely thrilling to read. And perform! Not that I have gotten the privilege of being in one of her plays. I am unfortunately just talking about reading them out loud alone in my apartment, performing every character, recording the whole thing in photo booth, and then never watching it and deleting it 4 months later.
Aug 12, 2021
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This is my favorite writer. She grew up in Brighton Beach going to socialist preschool and then when she was older, as a mother, she wrote stories on receipts and scraps of paper, keeping them in her apron and then taping them together. She cared a lot about politics and life in the city, and she was always funny. The way she reads aloud is amazing, and there is a good recording of one of her classic stories here. You will notice it is me who uploaded it, two years ago. I had to learn how to “rip” audio.
Apr 4, 2024
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There’s a limited selection of poets that can move me to tears without even reading through their stanzas but allowing the recollection of their words to pass over my mind — the aforementioned Bachmann is one of the real ones, T.S. Eliot is another; Elizabeth Barrett Browning, on occasion; sometimes-too Hölderlin, Herbert, Hadewijch; at least one Donne piece has this power, at least one Brecht; perhaps-too I would add cuttings of Young’s Literal Translation of the Holy Bible — contemporarily, the lines of Paris Reid, an absolutely gorgeous young Canadian I discovered several years ago (her first published prose piece can be found in the most recent Heavy Traffic) certainly effect this movement upon me time and again … who else? — well, the only other living writer to fall on this list, and quite honestly my most exalted favourite of all-above, should be obvious to anyone who knows me … yes, yes, of course: singer slash poet slash emotional-genius Lana del Rey, my personal saint and hero … truly, her words either brought to sound or put to page surpass the Scripture to me and this I would not say if I did not mean it violently. She has held aloft my life: she is probably the third factor to my continuance. You know — as I type this — I can hear the lyrics to Venice Bitch, perhaps the greatest lyrical song ever written (though a strong case could too be made for Video Games!) echoing within and my vision swims — so overcome with emotion am I! Good God. My friends, it’s unbelievable. And everything she does is fantastic, of course, but lately I have been really been spiralling about in her demos and bootlegs and regional exclusives dating around the release of Ultraviolence, her third studio album. Pray listen; I’ll leave you with this. Say Yes To Heaven: breaks my heart. Fine China: breaks my heart. I Talk to Jesus: well, you know, onward and onward, from here to eternity…
May 10, 2023
Top Recs from @matthew-daniel-siskin
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Having an online audience of any kind or a patreon is a huge responsibility, but I highly recommend making your way towards the goal of eventually having or making children. I’m a dada to a 2.5 year old little boy, named Dashiell (Dash) - with our little girl Meadow set to arrive in August. This is by far the hardest group project I’ve ever been a part of - I won’t mention the endless list of things we all see when millennials talk about how tired they are, or how their boobs hurt (mine don’t, but if you have boobs they will hurt bad) - but when he takes my hand and pulls me in the direction he wants to go, or makes fun of something stupid I did in front of him (he has a way of saying “ohhh, daaaaddaaa” which just levels me ) - I swear I’ve never felt a bigger or more true love in my entire life. Everything fades, everything dies, except the love of a child. Unless you really fuck with them, be good to your kids and love them a lot. I swear there’s nothing better than this, absolutely nothing. There’s nothing better than love, I swear.
Mar 17, 2022
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I can’t say enough about a good loft. Ideally this is a large under-furnished-little-bit-industrial-a-little-bit-abandoned room for your unfettered thoughts and creativity to bounce around freely. I recently found one in downtown Los Angeles, and it’s changed everything for me.. As someone who has always worked from home, I typically turned my home into a work space. This made any sort of healthy relationship with another person impossible - either I’d give in to their demands and stop making art or functioning, or I would break up with them. I’m very happy with my love/work balance now. I get that lofts are expensive, and with gas prices what they are - all I’m saying is, if you find a loft, and you treat it well, you’ll never need to get gas again.
Mar 17, 2022
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The NoPost (i.e NoFap) is the simple exercise of not posting anything online on purpose. I find when I ignore the impulse to post, more than 5 or 6 times in a row, a great clarity hits me. Ideas feel new and beautiful again, my desires sink back into healthier corners, I’m focused. It’s great! I highly recommend trying this for a week, and see what happens. One of the rules though, is you can’t post that you’re doing it, as that breaks the NoPost core value. NoFap is good too but much more difficult to pull off.
Mar 17, 2022