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...
Something Good #55: Campbell River Tropicália
In the last edition of Something Good, I asked you what you had been enjoying lately. Reader Matt Law wrote back with a letter that was so thoughtful and...
Something Good #54: A Short Update
A picture I took in Buenos Aires in 2005. Briefly: It continues to be 2022. Things keep happening: dumb things, dismaying things, but also, occasionally,...
Something Good #53: Never Happened
In 2013 I threw a big New Year’s Eve Party, staggered home at about 4AM, and woke up in China. (I was going to China with my dad and the flight left at about...
Something Good #52: What Life Is Less Without
View from the DJ booth, Casa del Popolo, 2005 I recently had the idea to create a playlist of songs that mean something to me. I delineated the following...
Something Good #51: 19 Faces
The opening of Ingmar Bergman’s 1975 screen adaptation of Mozart’s The Magic Flute consists of eight minutes of faces as the opera’s overture plays. The...
Something Good #50: Only Nice Things
Attention: this one has a lot of video embeds and would probably be experienced better in the web view. Click on the headline above to go to there. Lately...
Something Good #49: Our Year in Review
Hello. Have a seat. I see you’re wearing something cozy—a turtleneck sweater, a cardigan. Corduroy. Flannel. Good, good. Have a mug of hot glühwein. Get in...
Something Good #48: A Holiday Gift for You
Years ago, back in the Greater MP3 Era, I would often make mixes for friends, an extension of my teenage mixtape habit, only digital. (I also had a mix-CD...
Something Good #47: The Salamerta Generation
A version of the following story first appeared in the much-missed publication The Awl. First of all, I just want to thank everyone for writing in with all...
Something Good #46: An Undeniably Attractive Offer
So: Last week I mentioned that I had printed up a run of Something Good zines, to be sold at the Expozine small press fair here in Montreal, based on an...
Something Good #45: Something Paper
This weekend is Expozine, an annual Montreal small press/comic/zine fair which I’ve wandered in and out of for years. A few weeks ago, my friend the writer...
Something Good #44: The Contents of My Fanny Pack
Those who know me well know that in anticipation of embarking on any major life venture, I always buy a new pair of shoes and a new bag. This usually happens...
Something Good #43: Requiem for a Strip Club (Revisited)
Actual photo of the Santa Claus Parade passing Club Super Sexe; photographer unknown This weekend brought the unhappy news that the abandoned building that...
Something Good #42: Jackets Required
This month, while I’m off shooting a feature, friends and guests have been filling in here at Something Good. For this week’s edition, I received an...
Something Good #41: A Lost Children's Story from Vienna
I’ll be off shooting a feature film through early November. Until then, I’ll be alternating guest-written posts with some dives into the SG archives. The...
Something Good #40: Disco Mom
This month, while I shoot a film, I’ve asked some friends to take the reins of Something Good. My first guest was author Sheila Heti; then film writer Ariel...
Something Good #39: Sorry!
Hi! I’m off shooting a film at the above local (I’m on the right). There will be otherwise no Something Good for this week. No #nojacketsrequired. No bonus...
Something Good #38: The Secret History of Syncretic Software
I’ll be off shooting a feature film through early November. Until then, I’ll be alternating guest-written posts with some dives into the SG archives. The...
Something Good #37: Cocktails du Cinéma With Ariel Esteban Cayer
For the next couple of months I’m going to be off shooting a feature film. I will be pretty darn busy during this period so I’ve asked some friends to take...
Something Good #36: The Institute for the Study of 3:32pm, April 10, 1954
I’ll be off shooting a feature film through early November. Until then, I’ll be alternating guest-written posts with some dives into the SG archives. The...
Something Good #35: Sheila Heti on Limerence
For the next couple of months I’m going to be off shooting a feature film. I will be extremely busy during this period so I’ve asked some friends to take the...
Something Good #34: Admiring Feelings of a Graceful Lady
In less than a week, full-time pre-production begins on You Can Live Forever, a feature film I have been working on with my friend Sarah Fobes for many, many...
Something Good #33: What Is My Face?
This week’s newsletter is a movie. In 2019 I was invited to New York to take part in the Imagine Science Film Festival’s Symbiosis competition. The idea was...
Something Good #32: My Life Aquatic
This is my aquarium. There are many like it, but this one is mine.My aquarium is my best friend. It is my life. I must master it as I must master my life. In...
Something Good #31: A Warning to the Future
How would you send a message to the future? How would you send a warning? This was the job assigned to Albuquerque’s Sandia National Laboratories by the...
Something Good #30: Some Good Advice
From Jacques Tati’s Playtime (1967) I have always loved reading advice columns. I grew up with Ann Landers in the Toronto Star (while I had heard of her...
Something Good #29: Midsummer Interlude
Summer! There’s nothing I can tell you about this season of plague, fire, bear-threatened Olympics (or whatever the hell is going on over there), etc, that...
Something Good #28: Satoshi Kon - The Lost Interview
In 2007 I had the chance to interview Japanese animator and director Satoshi Kon for the Montreal Mirror, the alt-weekly where I worked at the time, in...
Something Good #27: A Lost Children's Story
The story takes place in Vienna. The year isn’t entirely clear, but the sense is that we are in the waning years of the “nervous splendour” of the Austro-...
Something Good #26: A Séance for Houdini
One thing that can be good to do is to sift through ancient newspaper archives in search of stories and mysteries about your surroundings. I first discovered...
Something Good #25: What I'm Into
Me, into something. I’m into a bunch of stuff these days. Here are some of things I am into, followed by a short list of things I am not. Into: Melatonin I...
Something Good #24: The Something Good
This week’s newsletter is in liquid form. To mark the beginning of summer, I reached out to my friend Michelle Marek, pastry chef at the very excellent...
Something Good #23: Tropical Truth
In response to last week’s call for advice, requests for personalized recommendations, etc., reader Stephanie Marks writes: I’m taking you up on the offer...
Something Good #22: Some of My Favourite YouTube Comments
One of the many weird places this project took me [Note: The playlist below was designed to be listened to while you read this one. No big deal if not...
Something Good #21: The Secret History of Syncretic Software
I was going through some old photos recently—like, actual film photos, with the idea of finally getting around to scanning them—when I found one of the pope....
Something Good #20: Catching Up With the Potato Chip Professor
(l-r) Bret’s Paprika Fumé, Chèvre & Piment d’Espelette flavours At some point last week it suddenly became summer. I’m not interested exploring in the surely...
Something Good #19: A Gustatory Odyssey
For as long back as I can remember, my favourite film has been Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey (well, The Neverending Story filled that role for a...
Something Good #18: How the Seltzer Is Made
I used to be pretty into tap water. A cold glass of the stuff, straight from the city pipes, was my favourite thing in the world to drink, more than wine,...
Something Good #17: Four More Lives
Often when reading, researching or procrastinating, I come across a real-life character whose story fascinates or touches me in some deep way. When I can’t...
Something Good #16: Sacred MP3s With Cadence Weapon
One of my inspirations when I started Something Good was Rollie Pemberton’s Cadence Weapon newsletter, which is also the name he’s been producing music under...
Something Good #15: Unstuck in Time
Paul Nash, “The Menin Road” (1919) PJ Harvey’s Let England Shake, which I am pretty confident saying is my favourite album of the 21st Century so far, is now...
Something Good #14: Requiem for a Strip Club
I had never stepped into Bar EXXXotica, but I was always happy it was there. Situated on a pretty normal block on Avenue du Parc, alongside a bank, a couple...
Something Good #13: A Couple of Things That I Thought About for a Long Time
I have this habit of hearing about something interesting, or coming up with a good idea, and then not pursuing the topic for a long time. Eventually, I...
Something Good #12: The Institute for the Study of 3:32pm, April 10, 1954
I had been feeling guilty about having watched so few movies during 12 months of confinement so the other night I put on 2019’s Spider-Man: Far From Home. I...
Something Good #11: No Jackets Required
What you’re about to read may shock you. I don’t know how many books I have. Certainly in the hundreds. I like owning books! I always have more than I can...
Something Good #10: The Potato Chip Professor
Recently I interviewed flavour historian Nadia Berenstein for an upcoming podcast episode about the science of snacking. She said something about chips that...
Something Good #9: The Elevator Lobbies of the Hotel Thermal
I was once unexpectedly invited to attend the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival in my then-role as the film section editor of an alternative weekly. I...
Something Good #8: So Speaks Galactus
I tore through Abraham Josie Riesman’s True Believer: The Rise and Fall of Stan Lee in a nonstop marathon weekend reading session. At 400-some-odd pages, the...