Knick Knacks (March 2024)
Things I've Saved Just For You
Knick Knacks is a monthly newsletter where I recommend things to my audience that are outside the bounds of movies and television shows. Recommendations typically include videos, music, social media accounts, podcasts, YouTube channels, and books. If you’re interested, you can subscribe to this Substack to get it delivered to your inbox.
Greetings, everyone!
It’s the 29th already.
I know it’s Spring now, but that doesn’t mean you can’t read Atomic Habits or do new good stuff or stop doing old bad stuff. It’s Easter season. Start new.
That’s what Spring is for, right? Between Easter, Holi, groundhogs, and just good old fashioned meteorology, the Northern Hemisphere associates this season with rebirth, regrowth, coming out of our dens and touching grass again. We’re warmer, we’re more rested, and we’re hungry for some movement in the fresh air. We even set our clocks forward one hour in the spring, seemingly just to get the fuck after it.
I also think any change in the seasons causes us to reflexively enter a new “mode”. Considering that seasonal changes are arbitrary, dependent on region, less and less noticeable due to climate change, and subject to your natural rhythms, we almost depend entirely on the social push for “spring-ness” in order to feel the things we’re meant to feel when winter ends.
This isn’t necessarily a bad thing. It’s merely a reminder of the gray nature of society’s constructs. It’s ok to enjoy the winter and to dread the spring, it’s ok to act however you act whenever you want to act that way during the year, and it’s also ok to embrace seasonality and allow the popular mood of the season to motivate you into positive change. That’s partly what my latest essay is about.
I myself am a complete contradiction, as I believe all people are, and I resist convention the same way cats resist water, even though I also make use of seasonality where it benefits me. If you tell me that Spring is for cleaning, I’ll reply that I’ll clean when or if I feel like it, on my time. I’m difficult like that. But if you suggest to me that I might enjoy having busy periods that are broken up by slow periods, eventually I’ll look into it and maybe it becomes my new favorite thing.
I took the Winter off writing my essays at the end of last year, and I was glad to have done so. I needed the break and it left me feeling refreshed to resume my writing when Spring came.
The whole point of this project was to write on a deadline, to endure the writing process daily, and to challenge myself to iterate on my opinions. I equated this with denying myself time off from this unpaid, challenging work. It’s not easy to do it, it’s even harder to do it well, and it’s unimaginable to do it for a living, as I one day desire to, for some reason.
But as long as I have control over my schedule, I want to enjoy it. I think 12 essays every year is more of me than most people care to digest. I’ve decided 6 is enough. So I’ve decided to take time off during the summer months as well.
So in the spirit of my own need for seasonality, I will be producing new writing in seasons. The Spring Season will be March, April, and May. The Fall Season will be September, October, November. This newsletter will continue to be monthly.
I fully appreciate the growth of this Substack and my new readers. I want everything I write to be worth your time, which I know is valuable, as is mine. I want to spend the Summer and Winter enjoying my children, catching up on personal needs, giving serious time to my long-term writing projects, sleeping, reading, and developing nonfiction stories.
I’m a malleable and constantly changing human being, as are we all. I am water and this is the container I currently fit into. As I continue to grow and change and experience life, my goal is to become a more complex, authentic individual for myself, for my kids, and for those with whom I share my ideas. Thank you for liking me enough to subscribe to this newsletter.
As is the purpose of this newsletter, I’ve compiled a few things that I’ve been enjoying lately, things that weren’t covered in my film and television podcast, and I’m recommending that you give them a look, because they’re great.
Listen
“4.5 Billion Years in 1 Hour” - Kurzgesagt – In a Nutshell (YouTube)
I finally watched the 2014 film Lucy, a movie which includes a look backwards at the birth of the universe. I happened to also watch this incredible hour of animation, timing out the 4.5 billion years of the Earth’s existence, with every second that passes representing 1.5 million years. Think of it like a simpler, more pleasant time-lapse of what the Earth would have looked like at every point in time of its entire life, complete with intermittent spoken information and some bitchin’ music.
Watch
“Civil War” Trailer (YouTube)
If there was one movie I might go see in theaters this year (other than Dune Part 2, which I loved, here’s the podcast), it would be A24’s “Civil War” directed by Alex Garland. Check out the trailer if you haven’t seen it already.
I’m deeply unsettled by the social and political division in America in 2024, and movies like this can sometimes serve as an escape from fear, an exploration of it, or both. Either way, I think America deserves to stare at itself in the mirror for as long as anyone will make it do so. I support art that encourages self-examination.
Civil War hits theaters on April 12th.
Read
“Atomic Habits” by James Clear
I actually read this in January, and some of February, so I held it for this newsletter. It’s not a super long read, I just broke up my reading sessions in order to internalize and reflect on the substance of this insanely good book.
There’s a reason Atomic Habits is as huge and enduring as it has been. It’s everything you could want in a good book in the self-help genre. It’s filled with great writing, no filler, and excellent takeaways for making yourself 1% better by making small, sustainable changes in your life. James Clear cautions against sweeping life changes that are difficult to maintain and instead on minor adjustments that are easier to track and sustain over a long time.
If you’ve never read this book, just buy a copy and chip away at it. You don’t have to dive into the 30 Days to Better Habits or the recently released supplemental material for this book (both of which I did and enjoyed), just get the book, read it, and allow it to change the way you approach self-improvement. It could be one of the best investments you ever make.
“3-2-1 Newsletter” by James Clear (Email)
You’re probably noticing a pattern in 2024. This is the third month in a row that I’m recommending an author’s book and then their periodic newsletter.
James Clear has been writing the 3-2-1 Newsletter for a long time. It’s short, it’s only weekly so it won’t overwhelm your inbox, and it’s filled with motivational nuggets and words of wisdom and insight in the form of quotes from Clear, from others, and a call to action for the reader every week. I enjoy it.
As always. my podcast, The HooperCast Movie Hour, is where we talk about film, television, filmmaking, storytelling, and also life. I think you’ll enjoy it. Today, we released an episode about the excellent work of filmmaker Mike Flanagan (“Midnight Mass”, “The Fall of the House of Usher”), so if you’d like to nerd out about him, join us!
As for my other essays, you can find it all right here, along with previous Knick Knacks newsletters. Check out my latest essay on Secular Lent, where I try to answer “does self-improvement require external motivation?”
Thanks so much for reading and I’ll see you next month!