Your Favourite Media, second edition

As promised, here is the next exciting installment of Your Favourite Media, in which I interview someone who is not me.

Hello Tim and welcome to popculturAL! Tell me, what is your favourite kind of media?

Hi! I love vinyl records and music in general. I like to have music around as much as possible so mp3 is a good portable option. Vinyl at home is the best place to listen to music though. I enjoy movies, TV and books as well.

Where do you get your records from?

Real Groovy, Trade Me, plus sometimes Discogs and Ebay. I haven’t been to a record fair for a while but they’re great fun and you always find something there. I buy from op shops too but less often, it’s harder to find good stuff there but a good dig can be rewarded if you’re lucky.

How do you get ideas of what to buy/listen to next?

Tangents. Someone played with someone on some record… The internet.

What kind of music do you mostly listen to?

I'm a rock and blues fan. Mostly guitar-based music, but not exclusively. I like twangy guitar and I’m into great country artists like Merle Haggard and Willie Nelson. A friend gave me a Mickey Newbury record recently so I’ve been listening to a lot of him lately. I’ve been thrashing the song “If You Ever Get to Houston (Look Me Down)” for the last couple of weeks. Unknown Mortal Orchestra’s Multi Love is on high rotation at home at the moment too. I’d love it if all the Mutton Birds albums got released on vinyl.

I totally agree! Did you ever buy a record that you ended up not liking?

Yes, a Patsy Cline record with 80’s overdubs. I love Patsy Cline, she’s one of my all time favourite singers, but those overdubs really suck.

What do you use the library for?

Books and DVD’s mostly. It’s a great place to rent DVD’s from and books are good to have around the house. My missus gets out a lot of design books which I like to look at too. Our five year old daughter is asking a lot of questions about 'the olden days' right now so we’ve got some history books with photos out at the moment.

What is your favourite record?

That changes constantly, earlier this year it was Fleetwood Mac’s Tusk then their self titled album from 1975. It’s also been Sentimental Hygiene by Warren Zevon and Aldous Harding’s LP recently. Right now it’s Lovers by Mickey Newbury and the new Unknown Mortal Orchestra album (pink vinyl with a photo print and embroidered patch). The Clean’s Boodle Boodle Boodle (with the comic book) and Neil Young’s Eldorado are a couple of my more valuable favourites. I have more Neil Young records than any other artist (about 46).

How many records do you own?

About 1200 LP’s and 12 inches and around 200 45’s.

Wow. Do you keep track of all your records?

Yes, but I’m a bit behind. In more recent years I started including additional information on my list like label, year, country, catalogue number, condition.

What upcoming music events are you looking forward to?

Next week my missus and I are going to Sam Hunt with David Kilgour and the Heavy Eights at the Kings Arms. Then Fleetwood Mac in November. We thoroughly enjoyed seeing Haruki Murakami at the Writers Festival recently too.

I hear Murakami is also a serious record collector. Would you like to share anything else about your music habits?

I’m a bit addicted. I really love acquiring more music, especially the hold-in-your-hand format of vinyl. It’s really hard to not buy vinyl.

We all have our addictions! It's all fine as long as no one gets hurt, right?

Right!

Tim, thanks so much for sharing your love of vinyl records here at popculturAL. Stay tuned, readers, for the next exciting installment of Your Favourite Media in which I interview someone about something that they love and are possibly addicted to, but in a totally healthy and reasonable way.

Podcasts are like wild mountain gorillas

They’re really hard to find, but when you do finally find one they scream, grunt and bang their chests and you realise that you’re not that interested in listening to them after all.

Let’s just say, there is a lot of rubbish out there, so here are some podcasts that I highly recommend.

Serial

The best and most popular podcast ever. This is a fact. Once you start you’ll be completely hooked and you’ll be binge-listening until the end. It’s the true story of the murder of an American high school student, told over 12 episodes. Her ex-boyfriend was convicted of the crime but he has always maintained his innocence. The podcast was a spinoff of This American Life. It goes over the facts and interviews everyone involved. Be warned, it's highly addictive.

This American Life

Weekly episodes of short, true stories, mostly about Americans and tied together thematically.

No such thing as a fish

The researchers of brilliant British comedy TV quiz show QI hosted by Stephen Fry make this podcast with their leftover facts. It’s fast and funny and you might even learn something new. Basically it’s fact!fact!fact!joke!joke!joke!fact!fact!fact!joke!joke!joke! so do try to keep up.

Comedy bang bang

Hosted by comedian Scott Aukerman and featuring regular and irregular guests, sometimes with improvisation that goes so deep you forget what’s real and what’s not. Also, this is the first podcast to make me snort with laughter while walking down the street. How embarrassing.

TED radio hour

TED stands for technology, entertainment, design but speakers cover all kids of subjects including science and culture, taken from TED conferences around the world.

How did this get made?

Another comedy podcast, this one takes the mickey out of bad movies and helps us to understand the director’s vision, however unclear and idiotic that may be.

Radio New Zealand has some great podcasts too, and check out Auckland Libraries' own music podcasts!

Your Favourite Media

An interview with myself in which I ask myself about my reading habits. So meta!

Hello. What is your favourite kind of media?

Books! Hands down, it’s books. I mean, you can’t live without music, and I love blogs, but books are my number one.

Where do you get your books from, the library? Or do you buy them?

I get most of my books from the library. I sometimes buy books but usually after I’ve test-driven a library copy first.

So you re-read books?

Sometimes. I mostly read nonfiction, so if I buy a book I’ve already read it’s for future dipping-in, rather than for reading it again from cover to cover. I like to have books around.

What do you mostly read?

Mostly nonfiction. My favourite books are ones about interior decorating, but anything might take my fancy: architecture, art, photography, craft, biography, history, science, social issues, fashion, whatever.

Do you ever not finish reading a book?

Yes, all the time. There are too many excellent books in the world to waste time on lame ones.

How many books do you usually have on your library card at a time?

You can only get out 35 books at a time, so I’m usually in the 30s. It’s probably a good thing that there’s a limit to how much you can borrow at one time. And thank goodness for due dates! Deadlines are great for getting books read.

I hear that! What do you think of e-books?

I think e-books are great for books that don’t have pictures. I like being able to touch a word and get the definition, and I like the iPad for reading at night. If it’s just text, like a novel or a biography, then e-books are excellent for that.

So you read e-books yourself?

Sometimes, but only for books with no pictures. Don’t laugh.

I’m not laughing?

Anyway, I don’t think that, for example, coffee table books could really work on e-readers. Like, if there are a lot of photos or pictures I’d rather look at them in a big glossy tree-book. But I love e-audiobooks, especially about science or history or something, if it’s told in an interesting way. And podcasts! Yeah!

Where do you get ideas for what to read next?

I read the Auckland Libraries New Book Lists every month and have a bit of a reserving frenzy. I also get ideas from magazine reviews, and stuff I see in bookshops or read about on blogs. Or word of mouth. Just anywhere, really. I have a bit of FOMO about books and a bit of anxiety if I’m behind on my reserving.

Anxiety?

Yeah totally. Being at the bottom of a long line of holds is…challenging! I like to have a lot of books at home, all the time, and lots of books coming in. A big fear of mine is being stuck somewhere with nothing to read. And don’t even get me started on magazines. American Vogue, British Vogue, Australian Vogue, there’s a new issue every month! Vogue anxiety, I has it.

What is your favourite book?

That’s like asking someone who their favourite child* is! I’ve thought about this before, and while I can’t seriously pick just one book, I’ll say ‘Pineapple: King of Fruits’ by Fran Beauman.

Is that a book about pineapples?

Well, yes. But it’s also about history, trade, colonialism and horticulture. It was one of the first nonfiction books I read that just sparked something in me, where I just thought “Yeah! Nonfiction is for me!”

You’re a total nerd.

What’s your point?

Do you keep track of all the books you read?

Yes I do. I have Library Thing account where I record nonfiction books I’ve read that I really like. But I’m way behind on updating it, so I also have lots of lists. Like, a lot of lists. I have list anxiety.

Would you like to tell me anything else about your reading habits?

Once I brought a wheelie suitcase to the library with me to pick up all my holds. It was one of my cleverest ideas ever!

Thanks for sharing your favourite media here at PopculturAL. Readers, stay tuned for the next exciting instalment of Your Favourite Media, where I will interview someone who is not me. Honest.

*I do not have a favourite child, but I concede that it might be whichever one is asleep.

Reconsumption

What is it about watching the same movie or TV show over and over? Why do some books survive repeat readings? Well, it’s partly because with reconsumption you pick up on different aspects of the story – details that you missed the first time, or the tenth time. And partly it’s your brain wanting that reliable reward - every time, guaranteed - whether that reward is delight, thrills, or consolation. It’s also a way to gain insight into your own life and gauge how you’ve changed over time.

Anyone with kids will know that they love to have the same stories read to them, over and over and OVER. It’s comforting and familiar, and repetition has some actual sciencey benefits too: children learn vocab much faster through repeat readings and they gain a deeper comprehension of, say, exactly where is Spot.

We’re going way back here, but for me as a tween (although tweens hadn’t been invented then) my most-thrashed movie was the Parent Trap (1961) starring Hayley Mills AND Hayley Mills (see what they did there??). This was when you had to rent movies on VHS from your local video store – there were no easy downloads straight to your phone – but I still managed to borrow it so often that I learned all the dialogue by heart AND drove my family completely crazy.

When I re-watched it as an adult I was absolutely shocked at how TERRIBLE the story is! But it's good-terrible. Hayley Mills stars as identical twins, Sharon and Susan, who were separated from each other as babies when their parents divorced. Each parent took a kid, Dad took Susan to California and Mom took Sharon to Boston, and they never told them about their sister. Can you imagine? These details are just glossed over in the movie. It’s Disney. There is no bitterness, no family therapy, not even a “how could you lie to me for my whole life?!”

The twins meet at summer camp and decide to switch places. (Sample quote: “You must bring Mother to California. Boston is no place to rekindle a romance.”) I think this was the big draw card for me: an opportunity to have a complete change of scene for a while: new city, new family – what fun! The twins have a good old time meeting their long lost parent and plot to get them to meet and fall in love again. (At confession time: “Let’s get this straight. I’m not Sharon I’m Susan. Sharon – your Sharon – is out in California with Daddy, swimming, riding and having a keen time while I’m stuck here with these lousy music lessons and I hate them!”) The spanner in the works is Dad’s new girlfriend, icy blond Vicky who’s out to get his money (Vicky: “You're a big girl now, Susan. You're old enough to understand that wonderful, delicate mystery that happens sometimes between a man and a woman.” Sharon: I know what wonderful, delicate mystery Daddy sees in you. And I can't say I blame him there, either. You're very nicely put together.”)

You get the idea: pranks, shenanigans, misunderstandings, camping. And a happy ending. Even I can still see the appeal in all that, even if the premise is seriously suspect.

6 Movies that are Better than the Books they were Based on (IMHO)

Books that are better than the movie are ten cents for twelve (you know, a dime a dozen) but I really had to do some serious pondering to come up with some movies that surpassed their source material. Here’s my list of 6 movies that succeeded in spite of being based on books that were all just like blah blah blah.

American Psycho
It’s kinda hard to read a book with your eyes closed but that is how I got through ‘American Psycho’. The promising beginning soon descends into page after page of murder! madness! misogyny! mutilation! without really going anywhere - at least, nowhere that I wanted to go. The movie has all of that, but one thing the book doesn’t have but really needed: character development.

Once Were Warriors
Am I allowed to say that? The movie just made such a massive impact and was so accessible in a way that a novel could not be. Of course, the movie succeeds in part because of the depth of the source material but…it’s just BOOM! you know?

The Devil Wears Prada
A chick-lit novel about fashion would be easy to slate, but it’s actually not a bad read. It’s entertaining enough: there’s a beginning, a middle and an end. There’s just something that the movie has that the book does not: Meryl Streep. She gives her fashion editor character a depth that the book lacks.

Trainspotting
I owned this book for years before I even got past the first few pages, what with all that Scottish dialect and no speech marks. Just watch the movie, it’s so much easier. And it has a great soundtrack.

Girl with a Pearl Earring

Yawns all round! But the movie has Colin Firth, so it wins by a smidge.

Anne of Green Gables
This is highly controversial of me to say, but mostly because Anne of Green Gables was technically a miniseries, not a movie. Come on! You know I’m right. The book is great, lots of chapters about Anne’s various shenanigans in Avonlea, but it’s all a bit old-timey in structure and I want a bit more direction from my novels. Many of the books’ scenes just work better after being tweaked a bit for the movie to really bring out the humour, drama and sadness. Plus, Megan Follows is the Best Anne Shirley Ever and Gilbert Blythe is a stone cold fox. Facts.

Well, I’m done dancing with the devil for now. There’s nothing left to do but invite the outpouring of offence in the comments below. Do you agree or disagree with my 6 choices? What movies do you think are better than the books? Who’s hotter, Colin Firth or Gilbert Blythe? Post your comments below!

Celebrity Day Jobs

Not content with being beautiful, famous, rich and having millions of followers on Twitter, some celebrities need a little more to do in their spare time. Behold! The phenomenon of the Celebrity Day Job.

You may be aware of Gwyneth Paltrow’s lifestyle website Goop, and perhaps you even subscribed to the newsletter – ironically - but then had to stop because you realised that juice detoxes, monogrammed linen napkins and 5-star hotels are just not really, and never will be, a part of your actual lifestyle. And maybe you’ve even - also ironically - looked at the Preserve website which contains some kind of information about life from plucky lifestyle guru upstart Blake Lively from Gossip Girl and then thought “yeah nah”. Perhaps you did those things.

But wait! There’s so much more. Celebs flashing their talents all over the place, expressing their boundless creativity, and doing random jobs that have nothing to do with their professional training. They have other skills that they want us to know about, so let’s indulge them, shall we?

Do you know that Brad Pitt, besides being a decent actor, is also a furniture designer? Sorry ladies, just because oft-voted Sexiest Man Alive on the Planet Ever designed a bed, does not mean you want to buy it.

Just look at that monstrosity! It would be a major pain in the neck to make every morning. I mean, it’s not like Brad Pitt is actually in the bed, amirite ladeeez??

Instead, why not enjoy Brad Pitt doing what he does best, which is: having abs in Fight Club.

Now, thanks to filmmaker Sofia Coppola, single serve sparkling wine in a can with a straw is a thing. Apparently it is also a thing that you can actually buy and then, presumably also drink, because OMG celebrity bubbles! If you have tasted this, please let me know in the comments section, and also let me know if it improved your ability to direct indie films because wouldn’t it be great if a drink could do that?!

Or, just watch Lost in Translation, possibly Scarlett Johansson’s last good movie, and also starring the wonderful Bill Murray, who, in real life, owns a restaurant and a baseball team which keeps him busy when he’s not wasting ghosts / reliving the same day over and over / seeking to avenge the death of his best friend who was eaten by a shark.

Speaking of ScarJo, when she’s not looking gorgeous and acting in (mostly) bad movies she also likes to sing. Can she sing? Not really! But she’s a celeb, so she does what she wants. Randomly, in 2008 she recorded an album of Tom Waits covers and even though her main job is “actress” she managed to suck all the emotion and meaning out of a bunch of great songs. If you’re new to Tom Waits, perhaps try his album Rain Dogs, one of my all-time favourite albums ever, and featuring 100% of songs not sung by a Hollywood actress.

Closer to home (but not that close, he’s an Australian, right??) is Russell Crowe who, aside from being in various bands in his spare time, recently became part owner of the South Sydney Rabbitohs, a rugby league team. So either he really likes rugby league or he intends to write a song that rhymes ‘Russell Crowe’ with ‘Rabbitoh’, which is what I suspect.

And anyone who’s anyone has a cookbook /advice guide/ diet book /children's picture book out these days. Just a quick glance at the library shelves and I spotted such gems as: Badass: a hard-earned guide to living life with style and (the right) attitude by Shannen Doherty; April loses it: lose 30 kilos in 30 weeks by April Ieremia; and Dream more: celebrate the dreamer in you by Dolly Parton. Celebs. Is there nothing they can’t do?

But my favourite example of celebrity day jobs is in the second season of the Simpsons when Homer, normally a Nuclear Safety Inspector, designs a car so shabby that it bankrupts his brother’s company:

Lesson learned: don't give up your day job.