"make it suntory time" (feb. 2025 recap)

laura marling, gaga, the grand dame and The Usual Suspects

Before we begin! I will be playing a very big and cool live show this week alongside the insanely talented Maya Donovan at Cassette in Ridgewood, Queens on March 12th at 8:30pm. Come on out if you’re in the New York City area and want to celebrate Women’s History Month with bad jokes and sad tunes:

Ok now, onward!:

There’s something in the air right now where the gravity of the discord and chaos we’re facing in the world is making all minute inconveniences or snafus more aggravating than ever. Like on top of everything you have on your mind, someone blocks your entrance to the subway car during your commute, or you encounter a particularly inconsiderate customer at work, or your partner watches this week’s episode of The Traitors without you and suddenly, we’re all reacting to life with an anger typically reserved for acts of mortal betrayal.

If you’re me, then last weekend you accidentally spoiled one of the greatest movie plot twists of all time for yourself and haven’t stopped talking about how mad that’s made you for about 6 days straight. In fact, now you’re even writing on the internet about it.

At my core, I’m that kid who always snooped around their Christmas presents, an anxious little gift shaker. Now as an adult, when it comes to stories of any kind (movies, books, tv shows, etc.), I often fall victim to “spoiling,” where I stumble upon major plot points one way or another and ruin my experience with the work. As I described last week, I’m deep in my Winter Doldrums Side-Quests, and I’ve taken on the challenge of watching all of the movies that won the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay (hence this month’s playlist title’s Lost in Translation reference). I was on a flight last weekend coming home from a visit with my boyfriend Alex’s 96 year-old grandmother, and while scrolling through Delta’s latest seatback content offerings, I spotted one of the Oscar winners that I’d yet to watch, The Usual Suspects.

If you’ve never seen this movie, consider this your *spoiler alert* and keep scrolling until it looks like I’m talking about music. I urge you not to make the same mistake I did. If you have seen it, go forth and enjoy my plight.

At some point this month while researching what movies I still needed to conquer on my journey, I read a blurb on a “listicle” that said something along the lines of “The Usual Suspects also features an Oscar Winning performance from Kevin Spacey in his role as crime lord Keyser Söze.” I thought to myself “Ohhhh, this is where the Keyser Söze reference is from! I've heard of that character before and I should watch this movie now. Also, yuck Kevin Spacey.”

What I didn’t realize until my flight viewing was that the entire plot is centered around the fact that not only is Kevin Spacey’s character (and the narrator of the movie) Keyser Söze, but we’re not supposed to know that AT ALL until the last 2 or 3 minutes of the movie, which I very much knew THE ENTIRE TIME.

As we approached cruising altitude, I reached the scene about 10 minutes into the film where the five “usual suspects” are rounded up for police questioning and talking with each other in the holding cell while they await their release. At one point, one of the guys says something like “who’s he?” while gesturing towards Kevin Spacey and I thought to myself “well, even I know that’s Keyser Söze!” Only Gabriel Byrne’s character replied “his name’s Verbal Kint,” and I was like “huh, that’s weird.” Then, Kevin started chiming in and I thought “oh, now he’s gonna correct everyone and say he’s Keyser Soze,” but instead he just said “actually, my name’s Roger… but everyone calls me Verbal.”

I realized there was a problem afoot.

Somewhere over the eastern seaboard, as Alex and I paused to collect our complementary Biscoff cookies and ginger ales from the flight attendant, I turned to him and whispered “have you seen this movie before?” and he nodded. I said, “Is it possible that I know a significant plot point that I’m really not supposed to know?” He took a second to connect the dots, then shook his head at me and said “You’re such a little gift shaker!”

Have you ever seen the episode of Documentary Now! where they spoof the Original Cast Album: Company documentary and John Mulaney’s Sondheimian character mansplains a New Yorkese pronunciation of the word “ruined” to one of the actresses in the recording booth? He says it in one syllable like “rooned?” That’s what I did to my enjoyment of The Usual Suspects, I rooned it.

I mentioned to Alex last night that while writing this very newsletter, I even Googled “greatest movie plot twists of all time” and all over the internet, The Usual Suspects is regarded as having one of the best reveals ever. He correctly responded: “Don’t you see that your whole problem is that you’re spending time looking up stuff like ‘GREATEST MOVIE PLOT TWISTS OF ALL TIME??’”

ugh our poor grand dame!

I guess the moral of the story here is that I should try a little harder to have spontaneous experiences in life, even though it’s 2025 and I feel like these times call for extreme planning. Don’t shake your presents, just enjoy them. And if you watch The Usual Suspects for the first time and you know who the bad guy’s gonna be, it’s mid.

I did, however, successfully discover lots of music this February that both helped me survive the last full month of winter and generated some excitement for the spring releases to come.

Highlights include:

“It’s All Too Much” is an underrated psychedelic George Harrison number from the Yellow Submarine soundtrack that will support your building ennui and the idea that yeah, it is all too much, but maybe for a second it can be too much in a good way like the Yellow Submarine cartoon, or Lisa Frank stickers, or the movie Everything Everywhere All At Once.

I bet you’ve already been listening to “Abracadabra” by Lady Gaga after the music video drop at the Grammys, but in case you haven’t, you need to drop what you’re doing and watch this:

As I write this, I’m listening to Gaga’s new album MAYHEM, and if you don’t like it then I’ve decided that you must not like fun and more generally, things that are enjoyable (but then again, I’ve spoken to two of my most trusted music confidants today who both are on the fence about it, so this assertion may be rooted more in my overall obsession with my fellow Upper West Side Italian-American Princess Stefani Germanotta).

The two newest ethereal dream folk Perfume Genius singles (“No Front Teeth” and “It’s a Mirror”) are both so good that I don’t really know what to do with myself until the full album comes out on March 28th.

I think Blake Mills’s now ubiquitous production aesthetic shines brightest on his collaborations with Perfume Genius, where his ideas can expand past his virtuosic knowledge of the guitar into crafting Hadreas’s luminous, ever-evolving art pop domain. In recent years, Mills has developed such a recognizable guitar sound on his more indie folk-focused work that I find it all difficult to distinguish from one another. Perfume Genius helps break Blake out of his guitar hero-boygenius shell.

That said, I do love Blake’s wholly guitar-centric Laura Marling album:

This record’s success production-wise comes from the balance between Marling’s unadorned acoustic guitar playing and the vast string parts that swirl around it. For the most part, it maintains a commitment to the natural beauty of what she brings to the table. I guess what I’m trying to say is I’m over is that thing where Blake Mills whams in on a track out of the blue with that one overdriven guitar sound he does, you know what I’m talking about. Like on this song (which I overall do like, I’m just making a point!):

Again, that’s a very insignificant critique in these trying times, especially regarding an artist that I like, but that’s what’s coming out of me this week.

Last February, Caroline Polachek blessed us all with a song called “Spring is Coming With a Strawberry In The Mouth” on the “Everasking” expanded edition of her sophomore solo release Desire, I Want to Turn Into You. It’s a textured, epistolary electronic track ushering in the changing of the seasons with interweaving synth lines and a hyper drum beat.

This February, I found out that that song was originally written and released by an Irish electronic music duo and theatrical project called Operating Theatre and is regarded as one of the best sleeper hit Irish pop tracks of all time:

Part performance art, part 80’s experimental pop group, Operating Theatre produced wide-ranging works throughout their short tenure together. I’ve been enjoying their mildly menacing instrumental music that sounds like it might be the soundtrack to a manic video game, like this…

…and also their dramatic, electro-pop opera songs like this one:

I also fell madly in love this month with England’s own Judie Tzuke, an 80’s pop songstress for the ages, with the suavity and range of Rickie Lee Jones set to synth-heavy, infectious beats.

I was going to single out favorites again here, but just listen all of Ritmo — it will not disappoint.

Now, if you haven’t been watching The Traitors…

…you’re missing out on some truly entertaining competitive reality TV. It’s a who’s who of the who’s nots of all your favorite reality franchises (Bachelor Nation, Survivor World, Bravo Land, The Big Brother House, you name it) all competing in a Scottish castle to win up to $250,000 in a game that’s essentially Mafia for adults (shout out to my friend Hannah for that comparison).

Alan Cumming hosts, popping into each scene in an entirely new and fabulous designer kilt. Dolores from The Real Housewives of New Jersey lets her Irish-Italian rage steer every strategic decision she makes (story of my life!) and pretty much never knows who the actual traitors are. Tom Sandoval from Vanderpump Rules is even kind of likable? It’s a great watch.

February also marked the end of Season 9 of The Real Housewives of Potomac, which I feel is one of the greatest television programs ever to air. Oh, you don’t believe me? In the spirit of spoiling, in this year’s season finale, newcomer cast member (and former QVC personality) Stacey Rusch hosts a fashion show to raise money for a rescue dog organization with her actor “best friend” T.J. (who’s basically her boyfriend but he’s saving himself for marriage and she’s in the midst of a divorce so they’re technically not “together”). Of course, there’s formidable drama afoot before the girls hit the runway (Stacey tells Wendy that Karen told her that she shouldn’t trust Wendy and a confrontation ensues, Gizelle wears a dress that Stacey told her was too flashy for one of her event guests to wear, Mia is just there, etc.) but the episode will forever live in infamy from its climax. After each housewife struts out in a fancy gown holding a dog for adoption, one of the event DJs sets off a celebratory smoke machine bang, spooking each and every one of the rescue pups and causing them to defecate uncontrollably throughout the event space. The season ends with Grand Dame Karen Huger throwing up in disgust in a nearby trash can. If you need an escape, escape here.

With that, February 2025 is in the books. Here’s to spring training baseball, hope springs eternal! Much love, xoxo.