It’s been a summer of watching and reading. Here are some of things I can’t stop thinking about.

Clips abound, but have you ever watched the entire debate? It’s worth dropping everything non-essential.

James Baldwin Debates William F. Buckley

Remake by Ross McElwee

Ross McElwee, best known for the documentary Sherman’s March, hasn’t come out with a movie for 15 years. His latest film, Remake, reveals the reason, and it’s shattering. This film absolutely ruined me, but I’m deeply grateful that I got to “meet” Adrian McElwee, Ross’s late son, who died too young. I was profoundly moved by him, and this story.

Eno by Gary Hustwit

I’ve shared Brian Eno’s Oblique Strategies before, and lately I’ve been digging more deeply into his work. Gary Hustwit, an independent filmmaker, worked alongside a technologist to arrive at a generative film about Eno. Every time you watch it, you get a slightly different film. Rather than simply telling you about Eno's artistic philosophy, the film embodies it: you watch a documentary about Brian Eno while simultaneously experiencing the generative principles that define his work.

The Fact of a Body by Alex Marzano-Lesnevich

Being an artist often means grappling with your personal history in public. The most powerful memoirs don’t simply recount experience; they interrogate it from multiple vantage points: emotional, intellectual, psychological, even judicial. The Fact of a Body braids together true crime, memoir, and the law, creating a book that is both masterfully constructed and deeply harrowing.

Tell Me Everything by Erika Krouse.

Erika Krouse has a familiar face. People tell her things they maybe shouldn’t. When she’s offered a job as a private investigator, she decides it’s time to get paid for her face. When she’s assigned to a sexual assault case, she knows she should turn it down, but she doesn’t. What follows is a memoir of an investigation that grows into a national scandal, interwoven with the story of Krouse’s own childhood trauma and the complicated ways our past can call us toward the things we are most afraid to confront.

To Grieve is to Carry Another Time by Matthew Salesses

Alex Marzano-Lesnevich recommended this book on Instagram. I’ve read Salesses’ craft book, Craft in the Real World, which was fairly life-shifting for me, so I looked it up, and discovered it’s not out yet. So, I pre-ordered it, and so can you. It’s about the map that disappears when your partner dies, and the strange, painful, necessary work of finding your way again through unfamiliar channels.

Profiles in The Gentlewoman

The Gentlewoman is a biennial UK art and culture magazine, an offshoot of Fantasticman. Their website boasts a library teeming with profiles of incredibly inspiring women, a somewhat lackluster little shop, a club for events and adventures, collaborations with fashion houses and collaboration and of course, the actual magazine. But back to that digital library of phenomenal women. That’s where I’m focused.

My goal is to make my way through each profile, starting here, obviously…

And you?

What are you reading and watching? Share your recent delights in the comments.

Until next week, I will remain…

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