83: Home for summer
Hello, I hope you’re well.
Welcome to Border Crossing issue #83.
Thank you very much for reading.
We’re home after our month of dancing between France and Catalonia, which was fruitful, both fun-wise and writing-wise. Surprise surprise, a few days on a quiet balcony overlooking the Mediterranean in twenty-five degrees, in a building that also contains a breakfast buffet, does help with clocking up some solid “I’m a writer, really” hours.
Though it’s good (sort of) to be home. I haven’t settled back into a viable Brighton routine yet but hopefully this week will be productive.
This summer, Christopher, this summer.
And you too, I hope.
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Sausages, to me, are the food equivalent of Dr Dre. There’s never a situation that isn’t improved by a sausage.
— Greg Davies.
gems
1
Greg Davies opens the new series of Desert Island Discs with one of the loveliest episodes for a while.
2
Marie Phillips’ thoughtful, understatedly powerful segment for This American Life about moving in with her boyfriend (the British music writer and editor Andrew Male) and finding herself connected to his previous partner, who’d passed away. I’ve linked just to the segment rather than the whole TAL episode, though it’s all good.
3
Last year, we saw the gorgeous rocknroll master potter (and Throwdown judge) Keith Brymer Jones live at Brighton Theatre Royal, with his partner Marj. During the (very entertaining) gig, they spoke about a huge project they’ve undertaken to restore a derelict chapel in Wales, which was also going to be a television series. Turns out, last month while I was away, it aired on Channel 4 — Our Welsh Chapel Dream is available on the C4 player and it’s a wonderful, heartwarming four parter. Thank-you Anna Madeleine for the reminder.
I think I wrote before of how some earlier seasons of Pottery Throwdown were uniquely powerful for me in a ‘body positivity’ self-esteem sense. One key aspect of that was KBJ demonstrating how the pottery challenges should be thrown, while wearing dungarees with no shirt and bare shoulders. In more recent series of Throwdown he doesn’t do that any more — he keeps his shirt on. But with the more personal tone of Our Welsh Chapel Dream, the mighty shoulders are back.
4
Maya Mikdashi’s piece ‘Can Palestinian Men Be Victims?’ on the Arabic Studies Institute’s new-ish Jadaliyya website explores the gendered nature of western reporting on Palestinian deaths and injuries in Israel’s war. Not an easy read but a perspective and analysis I haven’t seen elsewhere.
5
If you’re within reach of Brighton, and you like your visual art to be rough-hewn, psych-folksy and outsider-ish, I was very taken by the small exhibition of the illustrator and tapestry-maker Stewart Easton’s work, downstairs at Family Store Records & Gallery (this links to their Insta). I dug it enough to spend actual cash on a big print. Unusual for me, we already have enough posters. But Easton is heavy on the pointy wizards playing music in ancient villages, in the vibe of Richard Dawson, Weird Walk, Benjamin Myers, the Sheldrake brothers, that sort of jazz, so I couldn’t resist.
6
Godzilla Minus One has showed up on Netflix. If you didn’t see it in the cinema, if you still have Netflix, and especially if you’d never normally consider a godzilla type monster flick, may I recommend giving this Japanese outright masterpiece a go? As a study of post-war trauma and recovery, it is a powerful, humane, beautifully made film, with character at the heart. Yet at the same time, it’s still a blast of a thriller, where the monster never for a moment becomes silly. For me it was so good, it sits alongside Past Lives and The Zone Of Interest in my top three films of last year.
7
Zadie Smith full-length podcast interview on This Cultural Life.
8
Dan Charnas writes deftly for Slate on the blunt racism — outright segregation — of the early 1980s post-disco music world when artists of colour were barred from American pop radio and MTV. He uses Sabrina Carpenter’s lovely summer jam ‘Espresso’ as a route into the narrative, since it revives the sound of that era. But really, Charnas could’ve written this essay back when Dua Lipa’s Future Nostalgia came out, it is the album that spearheaded this sonic revisiting.
9
One of my favourite long-running blogs is the artist, educator, music-obsessive and terrific writer Unpopular. I’ve recommended it before but not for a few years: his presentation is pleasingly unsplashy and the content is always very rich. Of late, he’s been boffing on about classic American detective fiction, so the blog is a dryly joyous mix of deep dives into that topic, plus vintage British underground indie guitar music, playlists from his mixtape, and some beautiful woodcuts of the west country.
10
One of my very favourite audio shows over the past decade, Longform is very sadly calling it a day. This is an American interview show talking to mainly non-fiction writers about their reporting and writing processes. It’s run for twelve years, always with the same three rotating presenters, all significant journalists themselves (Aaron Lammer, Max Linsky and Evan Ratliff). The Longform archive is phenomenal, though not necessarily names familiar to UK readers. But if you’re into essays, non-fiction, investigative journalism and podcasting, this is a who’s who of outstanding writers. First I only listened to the names I knew — but soon it became an essential listen, even if I didn’t know the subject. I’ve also built long-term parasocial ‘relationships’ with these three bros, so I’ll hugely miss this show.
potato gem
Major British potato producer QV, based in Spalding in Lincolnshire, has gone into administration, with 200 people losing their jobs.
This year’s spring weather is also raising alarms right across the potato-sphere, for a difficult harvest.
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get in touch
email: chris@christt.com
Instagram: @cjthorpetracey
always there
Try my music newsletter Double Chorus
Listen to Refigure podcast, the bitesize DIY arts review show I make with Rifa. We’re on series #7 and there’s a new episode every fortnight (roughly), just search “refigure” where you get podcasts.
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Purchase my book of complete annotated lyrics Buried in the English Earth which is still (just about) available via the Border Crossing shop.
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Look after yourself and your people.
All my love,
Christopher
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