Four recommendations from the past month. One film, one book, one album, and one place. Not the best of September, simply four things I think are worth your time.
Film
Beginners
(2010)
Mike Mills · Director
We tend to think about the models of love we inherit in childhood as though they are fixed. Beginners asks what happens when that model is rewritten once you are already an adult. As Oliver watches his father embrace love and life anew after coming out at 75, his understanding of his parents' marriage begins to change — and, with it, his understanding of his own capacity for intimacy. A deeply humane film about the possibility that it is never too late to revise what we think we know about love.
Book
Faith, Hope and Carnage
(2022)
Nick Cave and Seán O'Hagan · Authors
Warren Ellis and Nina Simone's Gum eventually led me here: an extended conversation between Nick Cave and journalist Seán O'Hagan about art, faith, grief, love, and the ways each changes over a lifetime. I went in knowing relatively little about Cave, and his music never quite clicked as I tried to listen alongside the book. The conversations did. His insistence that he has no time for cynicism has stayed with me — particularly coming from someone whose life and work have been so profoundly shaped by loss.
Album
Carry On the Grudge
(2014)
Jamie T · Artist
Few artists trigger British nostalgia in me as quickly as Jamie T. The announcement of his new album sent me back to Carry On the Grudge, the record that marked his return after nearly five years away. I still remember how strange and captivating the lead single, "Don't You Find," sounded when it arrived: slower, darker, and more restrained than the Jamie T I knew. The album now carries two kinds of nostalgia — for the music itself, and for the version of myself who was so excited to hear it for the first time.
Place
Bagel Joint
Greenpoint · Brooklyn
Queues seem to be part of the operating model of New York's fashionable bagel shops, which makes me especially grateful for my local favorite. Bagel Joint has plenty of character without making breakfast feel like an event: excellent bagels, inventive schmears, and combinations that borrow from flavors including miso, gochujang, and wasabi without feeling gimmicky. And if you are lucky enough to get a bagel while it is still warm, don't overthink it.
