“I really thought for a second it was all going to be okay.”
Spoilers below.
Promising Young Woman plays its trick three times; twice in the opening twenty minutes, and a third time in the film’s final act.
It is first deployed on the unsuspecting man ferrying an intoxicated Carey Mulligan back to their flats under the guise of chivalry, before further plying her with drink and attempting to fuck her. The turn is a satisfying one, with Adam Brody’s faux concerned nice guy slowly revealing himself as an opportunist predator, only for Mulligan to snap out of her performance as his head dips between her legs. She’s caught him out, a well…
Thoughts on Beyond the Black Rainbow (2010)
Spoilers below.
As a child I’d spend hours in my local video store reading the backs of boxes I was far too young to rent, films like Maniac Cop, Hellraiser, and The Evil Dead. I’d read the blurbs over and over, and construct entire narratives from the stills accompanying the text.
The most vivid of these was Wes Craven’s The Serpent and The Rainbow, likely due to the particularly gruesome images on the back cover; a screaming white face reaching out from a coffin chief among them. Every Saturday, while my parents browsed through cop dramas and crime thrillers —…
Mixtape #104, feat. Andrew W.K., KISS, Meat Loaf, and more…
This is a reissue of my weekly Mixtape newsletter. This edition was sent out to subscribers on February 4th, 2018.
Side A
1. Music Is Worth Living For by Andrew W.K.
2. Mighty Wings by Cheap Trick
3. Jump by Van Halen
4. The Touch by Stan Bush
5. Bat Out of Hell by Meat Loaf
Side B
6. Summer Of ’69 by Bryan Adams
7. Free Fallin’ by Tom Petty
8. Dreams by Van Halen
9. Rock And Roll Dreams Come Through by Meat Loaf
10. …
New year, new platform.
So, friends, we come to the end of the side. On Sunday I sent out my last Tinyletter.
I started my weekly newsletter, Mixtape, in January 2016 with a simple promise: subscribe and I’ll send you a new hand curated ten track playlist each week, with a Spotify link. After 103 editions over the last two years, my little newsletter has grown to over 1000 subscribers. It’s been great fun, and I’ve enjoyed sharing music with friends and strangers alike. But it’s time for a change. Mixtape and I are moving to a new home. …
“In dreams until my death, I will wonder on.”
Who knows what took Chris Cornell, in the end. What voice or vision proved too much. I’m not going to sit here and try to name his demons. At 52, Cornell had been in three of the biggest bands of the past 4 decades. He’d seen friends fall to depression, to drink and drugs, addictions he had his share of.
But he got himself sober, found a good place. He had a family. He was working, and he was working at it. The thing with depression is that it’s always there…
Come for the murder, stay for the story.
Reminisce with me. It’s October, 2014, the world is not entirely ablaze, and if you own ears and an internet you’re either listening to the Serial podcast or are about to spend much of the next year wilfully ignoring people telling you to listen to the Serial podcast.
The show is a phenomenon, quickly becoming the most downloaded podcast of all time and defining viral audio for the internet age. It will be the water cooler convo de jour well beyond it’s initial 12 week run.
When Season 2 of Serial debuts…
The art of the score.
The best soundtrack to most novels is just the pleasing rustle of pages turning. But in the streaming age it’s not unheard of for authors to share a playlist to accompany their books. If nothing else it’s a fun bonus for the avid fan, and might even give the reader an insight into the thoughts and intentions of the author. Or just how bad their taste in music is.
My debut novel, Johnny Ruin, is about a man who takes a road trip through his own mind with Jon Bon Jovi. …
Adventures in publishing, crowdfunding, and getting dressed.
UPDATE: My debut novel, Johnny Ruin, met its funding target in just 9 days, and as of March 22, 2018, is available in all good bookshops. You can buy it here, or read about why I crowdfunded it below:
The Wednesday after Blue Monday — Blue Wednesday, if you will — I was having a typically somber pity party on the couch when my email pinged. My agent. “You’ve been offered a deal for your novel. In Germany.”
I paused Netflix, read it again. My agent is nothing like Estelle from Friends, but if it helps, picture Estelle from Friends, blue smoke, blue rinse, smoker’s larynx (Welsh accent), saying: “You got the part, kid.” Cough, splutter, grin.
The Germans — specifically the publishing house Hoffman und Campe — were offering an advance…
I made 52 playlists in 2016. Here they are.
Every Sunday for the past year I’ve sent out a ten song playlist via TinyLetter. That’s 520 tracks, 2037 mins. Or, you know, thirty-four hours.
That’s enough to help get the party started this New Year’s Eve, and heal the hangover the next day.
Spotify links below. See you in 2017.
January
#1 I Am Gonna Make It Through This Year
Upbeat indie: My Morning Jacket, Mountain Goats, Modest Mouse.
#2 We Lie Beneath The Stars At Night
Electronic indie: The Naked & Famous, M83, Bloc Party.
Liner notes on a year of playlists
The first mix tapes I made were actual tapes, on cassette. Sometimes I made them for other people; crushes, girlfriends. Often I made them for myself. Songs to drive to. Songs to write to. When I got a car with a better stereo, I made mix CDs. I even made a few mix mini-discs, but those were impossible to share. Nobody had a mini-disc player. These days, like much of the world, I use Spotify. With access to some 30 million songs and without the space limitations of magnetic tape or shiny disc, Spotify mixes often swell to several hours…
Dan Dalton
Writer. Carpenter. Author of Johnny Ruin. Margate, UK.
