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Something Good #53: Never Happened
January 26, 2022
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
January 19, 2022
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
January 12, 2022
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
December 23, 2021
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
December 15, 2021
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
December 8, 2021
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
December 1, 2021
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
November 26, 2021
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
November 18, 2021
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
November 11, 2021
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)
November 3, 2021
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
October 27, 2021
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
October 20, 2021
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
October 13, 2021
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!
October 6, 2021
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
September 29, 2021
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
September 22, 2021
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
September 15, 2021
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
September 8, 2021
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
September 1, 2021
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?
August 25, 2021
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
August 18, 2021
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
August 11, 2021
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
August 4, 2021
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
July 28, 2021
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
July 21, 2021
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
July 14, 2021
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
July 7, 2021
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
June 30, 2021
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
June 23, 2021
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
June 16, 2021
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
June 9, 2021
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
June 2, 2021
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
May 26, 2021
(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
May 19, 2021
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
May 12, 2021
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
May 5, 2021
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
April 28, 2021
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
April 21, 2021
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
April 14, 2021
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
April 7, 2021
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
March 31, 2021
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
March 24, 2021
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
March 17, 2021
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
March 10, 2021
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
March 3, 2021
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...
Something Good #7: Dolores
February 24, 2021
“By the author of Pnin” I first came across comedian and writer Jamie Loftus when a friend recommended her podcast My Year in Mensa. Loftus joined the brainy...
Something Good #6: How to Travel Through Time
February 17, 2021
Hey. Time travel is possible. Allow me to show you how. There are actually a few different methods, some of which you’re already using. First, you are (most...
Something Good #5: Four Lives
February 10, 2021
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 #4: Candles and a Crossword
February 3, 2021
(See below.) It had been a long and shitty week. I was going on nearly a year without having entered a cinema, a restaurant, or even a friend’s home. The big...
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