Something Good #104: Pointing and Shooting
"My childhood memories are spotty, and largely coalesced around those images."
Something Good #103: All I Want to Do Is Read
The love of the diver for his world of wavering light.
Something Good #102: My Dr. Ruth Debacle
How not to get to Carnegie Hall.
Something Good #101: This Is What the KLF Is About
John Higgs on chaos, magic, money and the band who burned a million pounds, the KLF.
Something Good #100: Professor Crisps
"The train passed by the figure, hundreds of feet tall, holding a staff in each hand. It didn’t seem that anyone else on the train noticed it."
Something Good #99: Possessed
The strange spirit that brings things to life.
Something Good #98: Word Play
I started playing Chants of Sennaar on New Year's Eve, and for weeks it was almost all I could think about. Looking at my Notes app entries from the time, I...
Something Good #97: Inversions
A new era and a new home for our newsletter.
Something Good #96: Fierce Good Things
I have these vivid memories of my parents running interference for me as a kid when it came to certain gifts. I was a bookish and retiring child and their...
Something Good #95: It Hurts When I Do This
Patient says, “Doctor, it hurts when I do this.”Doctor says, “Then don’t do that.” — Henny Youngman The problem started in September, when I woke up with a...
Something Good #94: Holding Back the Dark
This is it. Your last chance to dance. There are only a couple of days left in 2023, which means the Do Something Good fundraiser for Doctors Without Borders...
Something Good #93: The Was That Year
The latest, and probably final, version. (Last-minute update: have just been informed the brick ink colour is no longer available, so this will not be the...
Something Good #92: New Traditions / Old Magic
First, an update. I’m thrilled to announce that the Do Something Good fundraiser for Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières blew past its initial...
Something Good #91: Let's Do Something Good
This is a proudly money-losing newsletter; always has been, hopefully always will be. But while I resist monetization, I’d like to do something good with my...
Something Good #90: Temples
Lately, it’s been hard to write. It’s difficult to overcome the feeling that nothing I can say will make any difference; that the most I can hope for is to...
Something Good #28 Revisited: Satoshi Kon - The Lost Interview
This month, the Criterion Channel is presenting a program of 14 “technothrillers,” which includes Satoshi Kon’s dreamworld fantasia Paprika, an exceptionally...
Something Good #89: From Saxony
I’m the kind of guy who, when invited to a film festival in a spa town in Central Europe, tends to say yes. Look, I’ll even go if you invite me to a festival...
Something Good #88: Irene From Forest Hills
Longtime readers and friends will know that I spent several years of my life poring over YouTube comments and collecting the most poignant I could find for...
The Something Good Index
This is the Something Good Index, a continuously updated list of everything mentioned in this newsletter. Above-pictured is the author, beardless in Budapest...
Something Good #86: Late Summer Recos
Some very fresh kittens we met. Hello dear readers. I hope you’ve been having a lovely summer. I myself have had a very filling few months—lots of reading,...
Something Good #85: Frame of Mind
For a long time, my friends and I were obsessed with a particular DJ mix we’d found online. Its exact origin and creator were, and remain, somewhat of a...
Something Good #84: More Good Hands
My hands holding volcanic soil on the Big Island of Hawaii. Recently, I brought up the feeling of being “in good hands” when experiencing a work of art for...
Something Good #83: Dangerously Prancy
The work of illustrator and animator James Braithwaite will be familiar to any regular reader of this newsletter, for he designed both the logos for...
Something Good #82: In Good Hands
I’ve come to trust a certain feeling that comes over me when I first make contact with a piece of art. The opening lines of a book; the first 30 seconds or...
Something Good #81: Deluged
This is what happened: last week we were in Toronto when an ice storm, the likes of which had not been seen in these parts since 1998, knocked Montreal...
Something Good #80: Barely a Book Club
A quick announcement: I’m starting a Something Good book club. This is a spinoff of the main newsletter, and everybody is invited, whether you are a current...
Something Good #79: Tropical Interlude
Winters are very long in Montreal. They manspread themselves into spring’s territory shamelessly; you can expect snowstorms in March, April, and sometimes...
Something Good #78: Back to the Hotel Thermal
An recent New York Times story about how the spa town of Karlovy Vary is faring now that the Czech government has barred Russian tourists from entering the...
Something Good #77: Reconstruction of a Motion Picture
Recently I discovered a screenplay that does not exist for a movie that does. Let me explain: There was a movie I saw one precious time. It meant something...
Something Good #76: Breaking News
Hello and Happy New Year! I hope you are all happy and healthy and refreshed, caught up on your reading and movies and such, or at least one of the above. (I...
Something Good #75: Tidings
In February of 2019 we took a trip to Joshua Tree National Park. The weather was weird; a freak snowstorm in the middle of the desert. I’ll never forget the...
Something Good #74: Games and Zines and Artificial Things
An interview with author Jim Munroe
Something Good #73: 49 Hours in Madrid
You have been invited to Madrid to present your film at a festival. You will be there for a mere two days. Here is what happens. Your plane lands at 8am. You...
Something Good #72: A Brief Chat
The atmosphere I’m hoping to cultivate. I admit that my first experience with the new Substack Chat function was not a happy one. Last week, I got an email...
Something Good #71: Harnessing the Power of the Unconscious Mind
I took this picture a week later on the Big Island of Hawaii. Seems appropriate somehow. About a decade ago, I was invited by my friend Sheila Heti (who has...
Something Good #70: My Ghost Stories
Back when portable computers were still a novelty, my dad gave me his used Toshiba Libretto 50 CT. This was, for the time, an astonishing little device....
Something Good #69: Mixed Feelings
I made something for you. This week’s Something Good is a playlist. It’s called Mixed Feelings. Some of the songs on it are new favourites, others are old...
Something Good #68: Once in a Lifetime
I have nothing to say about the Queen, but I haven’t been able to shake an observation I heard on a history podcast I listened to a few days after her death:...
Something Good #67: On Partying
Pictured: the author, freshly tonsured for a conceptual Halloween costume, and partying Here are some parties I would have liked to have attended: 1. In...
Something Good #66: The Smoky Something Good
A little over a year ago I decided that this newsletter deserved a cocktail of its own. I reached out to my friend Michelle Marek, now of Gia, and asked if...
Something Good #65: Durant's Meatballs
Lately I’ve been interested in things that are incomplete, unfinished, abandoned. There are many works of art we know only in fragments. It is almost...
Something Good #64: Literally the Least I Can Do
The view from the Nevada desert. From the very beginning, I envisioned this newsletter as my antidote to the daily, even hourly cycles of outrage and dismay...
Something Good #63: A Desperate Letter From Rosemont Metro
I thought I could get ahead of the storm. I was in a videoconference, at work, when everybody's phone started screaming. Thunderstorm alert. Tornadoes. Stay...
Something Good #62: Minds Forever Voyaging
One of the decisive turning points in my life occurred at some point in the mid-1980s when my dad brought home a used Apple II Plus computer and installed it...
Something Good #61: Light Sleeper
For as long as I can remember I have been pursued by a demon. I’ve always put off bedtime for as long as possible. For most of my adult life, until the...
Something Good #60: Hot Tickets
Last week I shared the happy news that You Can Live Forever will have its world premiere at Tribeca in June. For my readers in New York City and thereabouts...
Something Good #59: A Big Announcement
As readers and friends may know, for the past eight years my friend Sarah Watts and I have been working on a feature film called You Can Live Forever—a first...
Something Good #58: The Lizzie McGuire Movie
At some point in the fall of 2002 I found myself wandering around the city of Rome by myself after having spent a couple of weeks shooting an experimental...
Something Good #57: The Persistence of Memories
Where and when do you think this photograph was taken? Answers below. When last we met, I shared some of my persistent memories, or as I regrettably dubbed...
Something Good #56: Amygdalar Earworms
I took this photo in Buenos Aires 16 years ago. I think about the dogs in it all the time. When discussing Citizen Kane—something he did often—Roger Ebert...