Newsletter No. 13: 'Tis the season for Pee-wee, good books & more
All together now:
On the 12th day of Christmas, my true love gave to me ...
TWELVE lox-y bagels;
ELEVEN Moleskine notebooks;
TEN trippy comix;
NINE black eyeliners;
EIGHT ad-free podcasts;
SEVEN freelance contracts;
SIX '80s T-shirts;
FIVE Warhol wigs;
FOUR old Ray Gun mags;
THREE cool hats;
TWO new shows to binge; and
a signed Pee-wee Herman figurine.
Happy holidays, everybody! This week I'm busy gorging on dips at my parents' house, but I still wanted to check in. If you need to vent and/or wanna talk about an amazing gift you received, leave me a secret voicemail anytime at 929-515-1988.
11 things we're into right now ...
Some stuff that's jinglin' my bell (and yours) this week:
1. I got a few books under the tree, including Mimi Pond's THE CUSTOMER IS ALWAYS WRONG, the sequel to her 2014 graphic memoir, OVER EASY. It continues the odd, charming, drug-enhanced saga of when she waitressed at an Oakland diner in the late '70s/early '80s. I've loved Mimi's voice ever since I read her comics in Seventeen magazine way back when. She's a gift!
2. The other night some friends and I were talking about what shows we watch after a stressful, horrible, no-good day. My pal Maarika swears by BIG DREAMS, SMALL SPACES on Netflix, in which host Monty Don helps his fellow Brits create the tiny gardens of their dreams. Just typing that sentence relaxes me.
3. Speaking of Netflix, Kansas City-based reader Michael M. sent me a lovely text the other day recommending the new comedy series DERRY GIRLS. "It is set in Northern Ireland in the early '90s, focusing on four teenage girls and one's English cousin and sort of mentioning the terrorism," he writes. I watched the first ep, and he's right -- and not only is it funny, it has an inspired soundtrack.
4. Do you ever look at Artsy.net? Several culture sites have alienated me over the last couple years, but this one has posted some notable news and features lately, including a roundup of artists who died in 2018 and a piece about the relationship between art and psychedelics.
5. On the train ride down here, I blazed through Miranda July's 2015 novel, THE FIRST BAD MAN. I'm not sure what took me so long to get to it -- maybe the title and cover made me expect a really dark read -- but man, I couldn't put it down, and I still can't stop thinking about it. The story focuses on a 40-something woman whose life is changed when a 20-something woman crashes at her house ... but it's so much weirder, sweeter and more surprising than that.
6. PleaseKillMe.com has a fun interview with Bill Sullivan, a former roadie for the Replacements who has written a book about the experience. "Sometimes you just knew something was gonna happen, but you didn’t know what," he says. "You had to be prepared for a lot of things. I had a little table if Paul wanted to sit at a table with a bottle of wine and sing to a girl. I had pillows if Paul wanted to lie down onstage and sing lying down on his back. I never really knew what he was gonna do."
7. Matt Baume has posted a new episode of his CULTURE CRUISE series about the delightful camp and queerness of the PEE-WEE'S PLAYHOUSE Christmas special. Is there a better holiday tradition than watching Grace Jones, kd lang and Charo sing holiday classics alongside Chairy and Conky? I think not.
8. Another YouTube gem: Amy Sedaris gives a tour of her apartment. Highlights include her pet rabbit, a lampshade made of hair swatches and Todd Oldham.
9. My husband just got A DICTIONARY OF COLOR COMBINATIONS, which, as the title promises, features a bunch of pleasing color matchups from (long-dead) Oscar-winning Japanese artist Sanzo Wada. If you know any design enthusiasts, this small volume would make a sweet gift; it's fun to thumb through it and identify which colors make you feel a certain way. (I hate navy like Joan hates wire hangers! Gah!)
10. Despite my affinity for Johnny Knoxville, I'm afraid I can't recommend the movie ACTION POINT. However, it does feature Johnny Pemberton, an actor/comedian who does an experimental podcast I dig called LIVE TO TAPE. On it, you might hear him chatting with cool people, making prank phone calls or just experimenting with sound. (Sometimes I'll listen as I'm falling asleep, but then some insane noise will jolt me awake.) There are so many dang podcasts right now that I'm especially fond of the ones that avoid every trope and try to redefine what a podcast is *supposed* to be. Johnny certainly does that.
11. And oh, I had a piece in Decider this week about stream-able holiday episodes of '80s TV shows. (It's very on-brand of me.) Check it out if you wanna know where to see Dwayne Wayne in a Santa suit.
Found at my parents' house: a box of Band-Aids from 1981!
Happy holidays from 4-year-old Whit.
See ya next year!
Say hi anytime over at 929-515-1988, and hear my oft-changing outgoing message. Also, if you told your pals to subscribe at WhitneyMatheson.com or this page. I'd be super-grateful.
Thumpity thump thump,
*joins the professionals*
Hermey the dentist
"The only thing I've done consistently for decades is listen to music damn near every day. I am sure there have been days when I didn't listen to music, but I can't remember any of them at this moment -- they must not have been all that great." - Henry Rollins
"I'm compelled to paint nearly every day. ... It fulfills me creatively when I'm not doing music: It's something you can do by yourself, and it's totally yours." - David Johansen
"I write all the time. I do artwork that's part of a diary, and I write short stories to go with them pretty much every day." - Mark Mothersbaugh