Better Than Friday - 108 (Patreon)

Good evening everyone, hope you're having a fine Friday evening. 

It's getting colder in the mornings here, a refreshing change from 115 degrees this summer. 

Coming soon is a patron-only review of Yukio Mishima's 'Death in Midsummer: And Other Stories'.

After that...

1. Next Up - The Trial by Kafka 

First time reading this, I'm very late to the game. 

Written in 1914 but not published until 1925, a year after Kafka’s death, The Trial is the terrifying tale of Josef K., a respectable bank officer who is suddenly and inexplicably arrested and must defend himself against a charge about which he can get no information. Whether read as an existential tale, a parable, or a prophecy of the excesses of modern bureaucracy wedded to the madness of totalitarianism, The Trial has resonated with chilling truth for generations of readers.

- Goodreads

2. The New Puritans

The censoriousness, the shunning, the ritualized apologies, the public sacrifices—these are typical behaviors in illiberal societies with rigid cultural codes. 

- From the article

I was just listening to lectures about Hawthorne's 'The Scarlett Letter'.

Maybe will do a review concerning these themes.

3. It's a Beautiful World 

Haunting me these days. 

This was shown as an example of a kind of 'found-footage' music video in a film class I was taking, and it's stuck with me throughout all these years. 

4. Laisser Tombes Les Filles 

Phenomenal 60's French Pop that was used in the film Death Proof, which I just saw for the first time. Pretty solid. 

I realized it was the same artist, Fabienne DelSol, who does the phenomenal "I'm Gonna Haunt You". 

5. Kill Your Idols 

A great documentary on New York No-Wave bands and their influence. 

Opened so many doors for me as a 15-year-old kid.

Perhaps one of the greatest No Wave bands of all time, maybe the No Wave band, is absent, and that would be MARS - Amazing. 

Like The Velvet Underground but terrifying.