NO NONSENSE #36

Hey dolls,

We hope this email finds you excellently. We’re back with another bi-weekly recommendations newsletter, with plenty of books, TV, films to tide you over this weekend. Let’s go!

Hatti Rex – Contributing Editor

Music: Stereo Type A – Cibbo Matto

Sliding this 1999 album in because it’s proper Spring vibes, track ‘Flowers’ especially.

Book: The Chain by Chimene Suleyman

Recently I met up with a friend who mentioned that a guy she was seeing in the pandemic was called out by hundreds of women online, for taking thousands and thousands from them in order to fund his lifestyle whilst lying about his identity. Think Tinder Swindler on a budget. Turns out one of the women wrote a book about it, titled The Chain, because all of these women have been connected via one man’s terrible actions. I can barely put it down, what an arsehole.

Shadie Shafik’s TikTok

I’m not usually one for recommending age gap marriage content stay at home wife Shadie is the biggest legend currently on the app. At first glance it seems like she’s a sugar baby taking this older man for his money but the longer you watch you can actually tell that they do genuinely love each other in their own weirdo way, plus she’s hilarious and takes the piss out of all the hater comments. She’s in on the joke and she’s having a laugh about it. Deffo one to watch all in one go and hungover.

Lauren O’Neill – Copy Editor

Music: Chaos for the Fly by Grian Chatten

I’m having a weird thing at the moment where, spurred on by their new music (specifically the song “Starburster”), which basically sounds like mad trip-hop style rap-rock, I have really come around to the idea of Fontaines D.C. This is a big deal for me because I don’t really like their previous music and in fact at points over the last few years would constantly and loudly talk about hating it, but the new song got me interested, and as a result I stumbled upon the frontman Grian Chatten’s solo album from last year, Chaos for the Fly. It is an incredibly soulful, beautiful collection of songs with really moving instrumentation – some songs are carousing, with horns; some are simple, just with guitar – that sometimes recalls the Pogues, who I love. I am really glad I have come upon it. Perhaps you might like it too!

Sihaam Naik – Editorial Fellow

Film: Problemista

I've been obsessed with SNL and Julio Torres ever since I saw his iconic sketches when he was a writer. His new film with Tilda Swinton is so imaginative and witty with his signature deadpan humour. Must watch!!

POSTPOSTPOST issue #1

I love going to MagCulture and picking up zines – this time around, I got POSTPOSTPOST, and I absolutely love it. It's got some postmodern essays, interviews, and conversations about pop culture in a postmodern world. Also, the cover's got Madonna. Stunning.

Cardamom

An elite overlooked spice... I make sure my masala chai is full of cardamom because it's got such a great earthy flavour. Cardamom brown sugar buns are my new favourite dessert- and they're also so good in rice dishes. I can't believe I'm including a spice in my weekly favour I'm feeling very Arrakis coded.

Gina Tonic – Senior Editor

Book: Breasts and Eggs by Mieko Kawakami

I’m not finished on this yet! (No spoilers please!!) But the novel is split into two books and the first one has really stuck with me as I read through the second. It’s a great musing on how our relationships with our parents and families affect us, especially when growing up.

Music: “Take Me to the River” by Lorde

An underrated one from the Talking Heads cover album and I can’t stop blasting it on my trot to the bus stop in the morning!!

Culture Editor: Misha M-N

Book: Perfume: The Story of a Murderer by Patrick Süskind

I was watching the Alexander McQueen documentary the other day in eager anticipation of the upcoming Galliano film, and one of the sequences about McQueen’s inspirations was about the incredible book Perfume, a 1985 historical fiction thriller about a man who kills women to preserve their scents so he can mix up the perfect perfume, and I immediately had to find my copy and start rereading it.

I remembered loving it as a teen and it still holds up, a perfect amount of grim nihilism, karmic justice, physical exploration of a metaphysical world, and of course, orgiastic descriptions of scent and what it makes you feel. I’ve never read a book that so thoroughly investigates one of the most ephemeral senses and keeps you hooked with every word. Top points to the 2006 film of the same name by Tom Twyker, starring Ben Whishaw and Alan Rickman, another absolute triumph, swapping the book’s careful description for the best kind of expressive creative film making. Great score, great cast, big orgies, both allegorical and real. Five stars.

Book/Film: Fight Club and Invisible Monsters by Chuck Palahniuk

I had a very fun time rewatching Fight Club for the first time in at least a decade on MUBI (due to leave this week) and I think it still holds up. Brad Pitt is the hottest he’s ever been, fab styling on him, Helena Bonham Carter looks great but has a terrible and inconsistent accent, and Edward Norton holds it all together with ease. God I miss when we were allowed to have ugly film stars, bring them back! (Sorry Ed lol).

The thing I liked the best though was being much more of an adult and being able to see past the anarchic teen appeal of my first viewing and actually understand the politics and historical context of this 1999 thriller. Having also read more of Palahniuk’s work, it also allowed me to see some of the layers of wry campness in the writing, the arch humour, the multifaceted anarcho-nihilism. I’m not a teen edgelord anymore, but the film can still speak beyond that.

In watching, it reminded me of my favourite Palahniuk book Invisible Monsters, which was meant to be his first book but was pushed back for being “too disturbing” because it was about disfigured models and trans women and drag queens killing people and burning down houses. If you ever liked Fight Club, even fleetingly as a wannabe teen film bro, you should read Invisible Monsters, the bitchy femme version for gays, it’s better. Also, the chapters are non-linear, designed to be opened anywhere and read at will, in imitation of the way women can flip forwards and backwards through magazines. Genius.

Pizza
God, pizza’s nice innit. Honestly, I just love it. Nothing better. Will never say no. Can be dressed up and fancy, or down, dirty and delicious. Accessible price points. Accessible ingredients. Order one, have one in a restaurant, buy one from a shop, make your own. I was on holiday in Italy recently and I ate a pizza every day. One day I actually had two, one for lunch and one for dinner. It was the best day. It’s summer (almost), it’s warm (kinda), birds are chirping (sometimes), have a pizza (yes please). Have an Aperol spritz first. Have an Aperol spritz, and a little bowl of crisps, maybe a little antipasto or something, then a nice big delicious fresh pizza. Any toppings you like. Go on, treat yourself. La Dolce Vita.