Now Playing: November 2019

We hope you’re loving our November issue! We can’t get over our incredible contributors and their impeccable tastes. Get to know them a little better with Now Playing: an overview of what they’ve been watching these days, and how it relates to their writing.

Michael Hammerle

I am currently watching Cast Away — it is a part of my writing ritual. The film is so quiet and that is key. It is one of the few movies sustained almost entirely on natural sounds. Anyway, it works for me. I always write with the T.V. on like a fireplace. I never feel alone when I write because of films and television. I spend more time finding things to watch then I do watching things. I justify spending that time because I write notes about my projects at the same time. I have a fear that what I watch will show up in my writing. Zemeckis' work is often quiet, doesn't employ conventional storytelling, and it keeps me company almost like the blank page isn't so blank.

”I know what I have to do now, I've got to keep breathing because tomorrow the sun will rise. Who knows what the tide could bring?” — Chuck Noland (Cast Away). 

Abigail Oswald
I recently watched a chronological edit of the movie Memento. The original cut, if you haven’t seen it, tells the story in a reversed, fragmentary sequence intended to reflect the protagonist’s inability to form new memories. It’s fascinating to me how a simple structural reorientation can offer such a different viewing experience. It’s a movie that really changed the way I think about storytelling. Plus, Guy Pearce looks great in a suit.