Aaaah, what’s happened to the sky? It is a strange blue colour, not at all like the familiar flat grey. And why is some of it on fire? It is so warm! We feel the urge to shed some of our many layers of heavy woolen clothing and go cavorting in the fields. Time to air our flabby palps—Sumer is ybloody here!
In this week’s episode, tea and beer and cocktails because why not tis the season. Now is the time, outside in the sunshine is the place. This is The Cut.
The Music Desk was mightily amused by this piece on Swedish steel manufacturer Sandvik, who interpreted the phrase ‘heavy metal’ in a very different way. In collaboration with speed demon and notorious guitar smasher Yngvie Malmsteen, they set about the construction of the world’s first unbreakable guitar. Interestingly, there’s little mention of how it plays and sounds. Its credentials as a tool you could use to knock down a house seem to be beyond dispute, though…
https://news.3deo.co/the-unbreakable-guitar
In other ‘guitar as weapon’ news, a great interview emerged with Kevin Shields, leader of My Bloody Valentine, one of the loudest bands on the planet. They played at such a volume that the structural integrity of some of the halls they played in was weakened. As their records finally make the move onto streaming platforms, Shields reminisces about how he found his brown sound…
https://www.theguardian.com/music/2021/may/27/my-bloody-valentine-kevin-shields-band-killing-songs
A fascinating film/comics crossover next, as we explore one of the great movie might-have-beens. David Fincher was at one point going to adapt Brian Michael Bendis’ Torso for the big screen—a twisty, tangled tale of an uncaught serial killer in the 1930s which would have made a brilliant companion piece to Zodiac. We really want to see this one now!
A Brief History of the Serial Killer Movie That Was Supposed to Be David Fincher’s Follow-Up to ‘Zodiac’
Writer, activist and all-round clever-clogs Cory Doctorow recently celebrated twenty years of his blog with a really interesting post on—well, blogging. More precisely, the way a well-kept and annotated site can serve as a way of thinking in public. An element of that has crept into Excuses And Half Truths as we’ve been working on The Cut, although without any sense of orderliness. Cory sees his blog as a neatly-set out chest of drawers. Ours is more like a big pile of crap at the bottom of a cupboard.
https://doctorow.medium.com/the-memex-method-238c71f2fb46
Ta-Nehisi Coates is coming to the end of his extended run writing Black Panther comics for Marvel. His stint has been enormously influential, informing the approach the Cinematic Universe took in bringing T’Challa to the big screen. Ta-Nehisi joins Polygon for a long, absorbing chat about his work on the book and what comes next. Wakanda Forever!
https://www.polygon.com/interviews/22454722/black-panther-comics-ending-ta-nehisi-coates-interview
Slowly, slowly, bars and restaurants are opening back up. As they do so, we need to remember how to behave when we’re out and about. There are a lot of skills to relearn. As food writer Alicia Kennedy points out, there’s a big difference between hospitality and hostilpality.
https://www.aliciakennedy.news/p/on-cost
We try to stay apolitical here at The Cut—it’s just not worth the grief. We’re happy to take a stand on subjects with a clear and obvious moral grounding but otherwise, we choose to keep things relatively light and fluffy. We’ll keep our views on the monarchy to ourselves too, thanks. Howevs, we can’t resist sharing this bit on a power struggle amongst elements of the Italian House of Savoy. It’s delightfully ridiculous. Oh, maybe we are making our views on royalty known after all…
It was only last week that we discovered the lyrics to Sheryl Crow’s breakout hit “All I Wanna Do’ were largely taken (with permission) from a poem by Wyn Cooper. In this long read for Poets Org, he muses on the differences between lyrics and poetry, how he dealt with a whiff of fame and what happened when Buddy decided he wanted a piece of the action…
https://poets.org/text/words-and-music-three-stories
When you think of tea-drinkers the image springing to mind is of India, China or us Brits. However, there is a small corner of Germany where coffee is barely touched and a nice cuppa has a ritual all it’s own.
https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/tea-in-germanya
The Situation has been tough on all of us, ignoring common boundaries of race, religion and class. We’re all coming out of this one changed in some way. One group who don’t get much recognition for the punishment they’ve faced in these difficult times are the journalists who have reported on them. How do you cope when you have to not just face up to Covid, but dispassionately show us the effects?
The COVID Reporters Are Not Okay. Extremely Not Okay.
This next piece will make you a bit sad and angry, but it’s important. Misogyny in industry is a known, provable and toxic part of the workplace which we’re only just starting to confront and tackle. As the craft beer sector grows and more women decide to become a part of it (we shouldn’t forget that historically, in the times before pubs, women were the brewers) they’re facing the same old crap from self-entitled, fragile-egoed men. Charlotte Cook’s article for Beer52’s Ferment Magazine is an essential read if you love craft beer and want to support an industry which has had more than its fair share of knocks over the last eighteen months. The Cut believes and stands by women brewers. We’d be idiots to take any other stance.
https://www.beer52.com/ferment/article/958/misogyny-craft-beer
Finally, let’s lighten the mood a little with a cocktail or two. In the spirit of Cory Doctorow, we’re putting this list of great frozen drinks up so we can remember them later. But we love to share. Time to get out in the sunshine and enjoy something boozy and slushy, we reckon. Who’s with us?
https://www.theguardian.com/food/2021/may/31/get-slushed-10-delicious-frozen-cocktail-recipes
Crowded House are back! Dreamers Are Waiting is their first album in eleven years and it’s a doozy. Rich, textured and many-layered, the record is deeply rewarding. This is a hefty dose of the Crowdies’ singular blend of domestic psychedelia from a band that is now very much a Finn family affair (apart from Neil and his two boys, brother Tim co-wrote a song and matriarch Sharon is on backing vocals). We’re giving you Playing With Fire as our Exit Music, but there isn’t a duff track on the album. Grab your frozen beverage, find somewhere green to lounge and turn this up.
See you next Saturday, sunshines.
EXCUSES AND HALF TRUTHS 