Drawing over pictures in Insta Stories is soothing… kind of like regular drawing, but for people with phone addictions. It’s a pleasure to have you, as per.
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Tonight’s newsletter is an ‘in conversation’ piece with a writer I very much admire. I apologise for using the term ‘in conversation’ because it’s like rancid milk in my mouth.
The phrase makes me recoil as it evokes a very specific scene I was privy to in the earlier years of my career. Picture a corporate showcase in an expo centre where two middle managers are circle-jerking themselves in a manner so shameless it makes Sexpo look like a Sunday service.
End scene.
Unfortunately, I do think it’s the best way to describe tonight’s newsletter. The tissue is therefore your inbox, but believe me, you’re mopping up pure gold with this one.
I’m interviewing writer, critic, designer and fashion icon Michael Sun, otherwise known as @michael.pdf.
The above picture is a great summation of Michael’s aura and work – he risks his life (and neck) for the vibe. I think he is one of the best culture writers in Australia and I get the feeling it’s not just because he’s to my taste. He’s witty and refined. He is a vulture of popular culture, scooping up a breadth of material and rearranging it to say something new, fresh. He’s David Sedaris-esque, if I dare say so. He can make anything entertaining and alive on the webpage.
I’m not saying that cos we’re mates. Our first one-on-one hang actually only occurred yesterday. It proffered content, of course.
please excuse my ragged, unbecoming nails. I ripped all my SNS off during a dissociative episode at a party last weekend. I was dressed as a Scene Queen so it made perfect sense, actually. Can we pretend that airplanes in the night sky are li–
Tonight, we are discussing how to find your ‘unique voice’ in text form.
This will be a veritable after-dinner treat for writers especially, though I believe training yourself to write the way you talk is priceless. It can make so many things more meaningful, from birthday cards to break-up texts (that’s always a really good time to flex on someone you’re about to hate, respectfully).
I’m asking Mista Sun about his favourite articles, writers and some food bits too. There are heaps of hyperlinks. Instead of letting them overwhelm you, I invite you to finish this newsletter before going back to cherry-pick what interests you. (That’s if I can be so bold as to tell you how to live your life!)
Keen for this one cos I think asking people who know about current, cool things is a shortcut to becoming cool yourself. Original taste is out for 2024!
Shall we, miloov?
WHO F: Firstly Michael, thank you for coming here tonight. I’m starting formally even though this was written over email. You know, ‘in conversation’ and all. Anyway, who the bloody hell are you? Describe yourself in your own words.
MS: After many years of therapy I have reached a stage where I finally answer this question without immediately passing out. I’m a writer and an agent of chaos (mostly the second). I am both a professional hater and a friend to all <3 I am also, of course, a loyal Froomesworld employee. I stay clocked on. I contain multitudes!!!! In the wise words of Meredith Brooks: I’m a bitch, I’m a lover, I’m a child, I’m a mother, I’m a sinner, I’m a saint, I DO NOT FEEL ASHAMED.
mikey 🤠 on Instagram: “4th annual year in selfies 💋”
January 24, 2024
INSPIRATION F: Straight to the meat and bones then. Who are your writing inspirations? Are there any long-form articles you love, or websites you go to for quality writing? For example, I’ve recently got really into The Atlantic which sounds basic but after absolutely reaming SMH and The Guardian it feels fresh and fun to me.
Personally, one of my favourite articles of all time is ‘I Was Russell Crowe’s Stooge’, a Walkley award-winning piece about a journalist whom Crowe tried to woo, all to get him to write a glowing review of his music. Similarly, I love this piece ‘I Recommend Eating Chips’ in the New York Times – the simplicity and turn of phrase in these is delicious! Anyway… yours?!
MS: I love that Russell piece so much. He is unmatched. There has never been and will never be another Australian like Russell Crowe. Jacob Elordi is literally screaming and shaking. Speaking of Russell — one of the most formative influences on my writing is my former colleague and the original agent of chaos: Brigid Delaney, who has had many, many run-ins with Russell Crowe. More than anyone should have in their lifetime. She wrote a recently concluded column in the Guardian called Brigid Delaney’s diary, which I read like a mantra. I aspire to live as deliciously and delusionally.
And that NYT recommendations column! Amazing. I have two that I revisit again and again: Paul McAdory on his pet snake, and Phoebe Chen on drawing floor plans of her childhood bedrooms. Both essays are life-changing, sublime. They’re so good they have me using words like ‘sublime’. I’m such a loser. Paul is also an insane (and insanely funny) essayist — I recommend his series in the now-defunct Astra Mag called Show Me Your Hole, where he searches for his “determinative wound”. Reading it feels like taking acid in a mega-church. I can’t say any more. Phoebe, meanwhile, is one of my favourite critics. I often revisit her pieces on two of my favourite films: her review of Ema in Artforum, and Memoria in the New York Review of Books.
I am aware this is turning into a syllabus-length reading list but please indulge me for two more recommendations! Here’s Oliver Mol on writing, not writing, and the blurred lines between coincidence and divinity; and Sophie Kemp on having bedbugs. They are perfect, hilarious, devastating pieces of writing.
ORIGIN STORY F: How did you become a writer? Doing stuff for The Guardian at such a young age is a feat… how did you get there? I think you are a breath of excellence and so young (I feel decrepit whenever I mention how young you are, but alas, it’s important!) (This one’s giving careers counsellor interrogation – answer as fun or serious as you wish.)
MS: First of all thank you sooo much for calling me young. I literally wake up every second morning with some mysterious physical ailment and it reminds me of my impending death :) Solidarity in decrepitude!
Honestly I feel so flustered by your description of me. I feel like when everyone sings happy birthday to you at a restaurant and you feel swaddled with love but then halfway through the song your eyes start glazing over and your mouth starts hurting and suddenly, to fill the space, you start doing things you have never done before like tipping a tiny invisible hat from your head (not speaking from personal experience or anything).
ANYWAY — to answer your question earnestly — I think I have always known I wanted to write about culture, because a) I was allowed on the internet without supervision at a very young age (much to my the chagrin of all around me); b) I didn’t have any actual talents like singing or dancing or acting; and c) I am super judgemental. The combination of all of these things led to the editor of my high school newspaper giving me a film review page where I mostly talked about my crush on Andrew Garfield, which is not that different from what I do now? I wrote wherever I could at uni, then worked a couple of truly traumatising jobs in ~ content ~ that I will not bore you with here. But the biggest influence on my writing and career has been doing Critics Campus at Melbourne International Film Festival; basically a week-long workshop where you get torn to shreds/mentored by the best critics in Australia/the world and you leave a completely different writer. I recommend this to anyone who is even slightly interested in film and film writing. It’s the mother I never had, the sister everybody would want, the friend that everybody deserves, etc. etc.
BEING HONEST F: We both walked out of the Barbie movie uninspired. (Sorry! I’d say ‘not sorry’ but I kinda am just sorry. Particularly on such SAVAGE Oscar nod day.) Our shared side eye was a bonding moment because the movie was pretty much universally adored. I felt like a social pariah for being so lukewarm on it.
It’s funny, in Australian culture especially I think there’s an aversion to honest critique and review because the industry is so small (Barbie was a billion-dollar movie and also American, but still). Why do you think we are so afraid of being honest? Do you ever second guess yourself when reviewing the works of people you’re tangentially connected to? (One could argue we’re both a few steps away from Margot Robbie, surely…)
the blades are my link
MS: You’ve hit the nail on the head — the industry is so small in Australia that there is a culture of fear around speaking out. Part of this is the way the culture ecosystem has developed: run largely by advertising dollars and labels and distribution companies who will take away access/money as penance for a less-than-lukewarm review. I try my hardest not to think about who I know when I’m critiquing something because it makes for worse critique, which is ultimately unhelpful to everyone involved — readers, artists, consumers. And also because I’m a bad person (see above) and if people hate me for speaking my mind then that is their prerogative! I do, however, love drama so I always welcome healthy disagreement. Margot Robbie DM me…
BOOK F: What’s the best fiction and also non-fiction book you’ve read in recent history? Do you read both types or do you have a proclivity for one? This feels like a loaded question given your piece in Liminal, where you bravely came out as a non-reader – “I am coming out as someone who does not read as an act of radical vulnerability … I am coming out as someone who does not read as an act of obfuscation. I am coming out as someone who does not read because I think about myself too much. I am coming out as someone who does not read because I would like to stop thinking.” – I’m glad to be perpetuating the idea that you are an avid reader regardless of whether you participated in this year’s scholastic book fair !! So, any recommendations?
MS: Unfortunately I can’t read five pages of a book without my brain immediately shutting down your commitment to my life-long con here. Fiction: I recently read Several People Are Typing by Calvin Kasulke — a novel entirely set on a Slack workplace that bottles all the tedium and performance of corporate life but then also sets it around a vaguely horrifying plot about an employee whose consciousness has merged with Slack and is now desperately trying to escape. Perfect three-hour read (inclusive of 15-minute couch nap). The best non-fiction text I’ve read recently is Jemima Kirke’s perennially applicable Instagram stories. I think you guys might be thinking too much about yourselves!!!!!
DISH F: Do you have a signature dish you make for people when they come over? I would love for you to share it with us, be it an original creation or something I can hyperlink :)
MS: Whenever, wherever, I will always have one of two things prepared: gildas (chuck an anchovy, a green olive, and a pickled guindilla pepper on a skewer) or radishes with a heart-attack-inducing mound of good butter and flaky salt on a plate. Yes I know everyone (myself included) declared small plates OUT in 2024. But I can’t help it. I have an addiction.
If I truly love you I will make this spanish tortilla — which requires a bit of finicky work and risking it all on a mandoline. It’s worth it!
FINAL QUESTIONS F: Anything you wish to ask me? I haven’t spoken in a while.
MS: This is a question my partner asks everyone and now I have stolen it off him. Lucinda, are you a stalactite or a stalagmite?
F: Woah. Umm. After Googling what that is, I have been reminded that they are the icicles that grow in caves either from the ceiling or floor. I find it so funny when people call the outside ground the ‘floor’, alas. I would say I’m a stalagmite. I like the idea of growing from the ground, as opposed to ‘dropping off’ as a stalactite might. My choice also kinda looks like ‘vegemite’ and I’m really into it at the mo. Nummies with white bread and heaps of avocado (not mushed but rather chunkily sliced). Actually popping off to have it for dinner right this minute, 7:55pm Wednesday 24th Jan.
Thank you, Michael, for your heartfelt company contribution.
Froominda.
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Just came here to say ‘I was Russell Crowe’s stooge’ is also my fave piece of Australian longform journalism!! Seminal. Still think about it.