macro
- The Creative Independent
- everything changes by Mandy Brown
- Anna Havron’s blog
- Sue Hetherington’s daily blog
- Weekly Musings and Random Notes by Scott Nesbitt
- Nick Cave’s Red Hand Files
- Lisa Olivera’s Human Stuff
- Mandy Brown’s A Working Letter
- Oliver Burkeman’s The Imperfectionist
- Kat Vellos’ We Should Get Together
My media diet
I’m fascinated by the different ways we consume, interact and engage with different forms of media. Over the past few years I’ve become very aware of how I’ve adapted my own approach to suit my needs and save my sanity.
I’ve read a few posts where people have shared the what and how of their media diet and thought it would be an interesting activity (if only for me) to write my own…
Blogs
When it comes to reading blogs, RSS is my friend and I happily pay an annual fee to Feedbin. As with newsletters I try to be judicious with what I subscribe to and review the list regularly. When I do this I try to notice when I regularly stop reading and start skimming posts in a certain feed.
Here are a few blogs that keep me reading:
I also predominantly follow my micro.blog timeline via RSS (primarily on my phone). When it comes to the social aspect of micro.blog I switch to the app.
Books
For the last couple of years I’ve committed to reading only books that I already own. Before that the ‘to be read’ pile (or shelves in my case) was only growing. Now I see that I’m making a small dent. An occasional books slips through the net though — a gift, something for work or a loan from a friend or family member.
I mostly read in the mornings as I wake up with a cup of tea. I switched to this approach after I realised I couldn’t get past a few pages at bed time before nodding off.
News
I made a conscious decision to stop watching the news on TV in the run up to the Brexit referendum in 2016. I briefly went back during the early days of COVID but was soon reminded how very narrow the reporting is and how there’s so much pressure for news to be 24/7 that often we just end of watching the same features over and over. You can add to that the increasing feeling that much of what is reported as news these days is merely gossip. These things all contributed to the sense that for me watching the news does more harm than good.
My consumption of news is now filtered through other channels - often word of mouth - and then I make a conscious choice to engage with it or not.
Newsletters
I use a separate email alias to subscribe that allows me to set up a rule so anything sent to it skips my inbox and gets dumped in a ‘Newsletters’ folder so I can choose when I want to see them. Nevertheless it’s still easy for them to get out of control so I’ve recently cut my subscriptions down to what I consider the essentials ie those that I read in full every issue, including:
Lately I’ve discovered that Substack newsletters have RSS feeds. I prefer to read in my feed reader so I’ve moved most (I’m keeping some essentials in my email) Substack newsletters over there.
Podcasts
Here is where the overwhelm lies. So many podcasts so little time to listen.
I prioritise sports podcasts. Why? They’re time limited. Next the list I call ‘downtime’ which includes my other interests and hobbies outside sport; film, food and books. I mostly listen when I’m exercising, on the move or in the kitchen. They’re also my go to when I’m struggling to get to sleep.
Everything else, especially work-related stuff, is building up and up and UP. Sometimes I think about declaring bankruptcy…. but the FOMO is real!
Social media
I only access Twitter via Tweetdeck on my laptop. I don’t have the app on my phone and I have Hide Feed turned on in my browser to block my timeline and all the trending topics that do nothing but raise my blood pressure if I have to visit the website for any reason. Until the API was turned off I mainly followed a few private lists via Feedbin. Since then I’ve noticed my engagement has dwindled.
The two social apps I have on my phone are Mastodon and Instagram. I check these a couple of times a day each and post occasionally.
YouTube
I’m not one of those people who spend hours browsing YouTube or following breadcrumb trails from video to video. I go with a specific purpose in mind which is usually to watch a live sporting event, a recording of a live event that I missed or an instructional ‘how to’ video. I use lists to create a queue for watching things later. Anything over 15 minutes usually gets added to the queue and I then schedule time to watch these over a lunch break.
Nobody, 2021 - ★
A waste of time. Should have stopped watching at the bus incident when I realised it was going to be unnecessarily violent.
Chungking Express, 1994 - ★★★½
I don’t quite know what to make of it. In the first half I felt like I had no clue what was going on and couldn’t make any real connection with the two central characters. And then it shifts and my experience changed completely. I wanted to spend more time with Cop 663 and Faye.
There’s a lot to love about the film making too, of course: the use of sound, the humour and the attention to detail.
BPM (Beats per Minute), 2017 - ★★★★
This has been on my list to see for some time and now it is certainly going to sit with me for some time to come. At times it felt like a documentary and at others a love story set against the realities of the 1990s AIDS crisis. By the end I was bawling my eyes out. Necessary viewing.
My Days of Mercy, 2017 - ★★
It's the chemistry between Page and Mara that makes this film. It's clear what the film wants to be but it fails to either unlock the complexity of the relationships (between all the characters) or explore the conflict between the opposing sides at the death row protests within its 100 minutes.
Blue Jean, 2022 - ★★★
I could feel the pressure building for Jean with every minute that went by. She's stuck. Questioning every action she makes. Justifying her choices as much to herself as the people around her.
It's a difficult watch at times and I found myself wondering what I would have done in her situation. It also made me recognise how lucky I am to be a generation or two on from this.
And yet, it feels so very relevant for this to be released now as we appear to be cycling round again.
A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood, 2019 - ★★★★
I'd put off watching this as I feared that not being familiar with Mr Rogers, and his place in US culture, would be a barrier. That I wouldn't get it. But it's not a biopic in the traditional sense, as summed up by Matt Singer in his review:
"the movie is less about Fred Rogers than about his spirit and lessons"
It's also, in a way, far more about Lloyd and I really felt I journeyed with him on his arc.
TÁR, 2022 - ★★★
I think it says a lot about my response to this film that I developed a bit of an obsession with her shoes. I did wonder if this was due in part to how the film starts - I felt like I was watching something in a language I couldn't speak with no subtitles. I couldn't understand the words so I focused on noticing the detail in what I could see, how the characters interacted, their body language and habitual movements. And I think that level of observation continued throughout the film.
I did struggle a little with the pace of both the beginning and end. The film starts slow and then wraps up in a flurry. Everything in the middle felt more like it unfolded more naturally.
I left the cinema feeling a little underwhelmed. I'd expected more drama, more tension, more divisiveness, more extremes, just more of everything really.
The Guard, 2011 - ★★★
Needed something that was entertaining but not taxing for a Saturday night after a day of sport. This fit the bill nicely.
I enjoyed the developing relationship between Gerry and Wendell. And that for much of the film we’re as clueless as Cheadle’s FBI agent over whether Gleeson’s Gerry is really smart or really stupid!
Uncut Gems, 2019
In summary: men shouting.
Not giving this a rating because I only made it half way. The prospect of another hour of the same noise did not fill me with joy.
Red Notice, 2021 - ★
Needed something mindless after a hard day working in the garden… this was certainly that.
The Farewell, 2019 - ★★★
The central relationship between grandma and granddaughter was enough to keep me engaged in this story. And I found myself on a similar journey to Billi, learning to appreciate the differences in familial, and particularly intergenerational, relationships between eastern and western cultures.
I’m a little bemused by references to the film as a comedy-drama. There’s humour in it for sure, but it’s bittersweet and I think to call it comedy is a stretch.
Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery, 2022 - ★★★
Ridiculous and entertaining. I think I marginally preferred this second outing for Benoit Blanc to his debut.
There were moments however where I was pulled out of the story and reminded these "disruptors" with their endless pots of money and huge egos are out there causing havoc in the real world.
Wedding Season, 2022 - ★★
A friend recently introduced me to the concept of “fake date” films and this one certainly fits the bill. One of the better films I watched in my pre-Christmas, cold induced rom-com binge.
