July in Lists
Books, movies, music....and more!
Dear Reader, I hope this finds you happy, healthy, relaxed and maybe even tan, if that’s your thing. I’m six weeks out from foot surgery and will soon be able to transition from Aircast to sneaker, which actually makes me kind of nervous, and it will be still at least a couple of months until things allegedly feel normal. In any case I’m thoroughly over all of it.
Below is a survey of what I’ve been up to this month, or more accurately what I’ve been “consuming,” as I’m still spending a lot of time in lounge mode.
I always think, “who wants to read another list?” But actually I love reading lists and I will read any list you put in front of me, so if you have your own July lists to share, please send them my way.
And while I have you, a note on typos: a faithful reader recently told me that he found several typos in my last (several?) post(s), and while typos are a sad fact of life and happen for all kinds of reasons (like, I don’t have an editor and I’m generally horrible at spelling), I do want to say, in my defense, that my laptop barely works and many of the keys stick and lag. If you’d like to buy me a new laptop, please feel free to Venmo me at @margaret_welsh_2. Just kidding…unless….
Last Five Books I Read
Hellfire, Nick Toches
A re-read which I loved even more this time around. Rightfully considered one of the greatest rock bios ever written, Hellfire is about Jerry Lee Lewis, one of the meanest, nastiest, and most singularly American artists to ever do it. Toches is so good it pisses me off. More shocking than any of Jerry Lee’s antics is the fact that he went on to live for several decades after the book was published, and even outlived Toches by a few years.
Tits & Clits 1972-1987
An anthology of the underground comic, founded by Joyce Farmer and Lyn Chevli. Feminist readers could never quite decide whether it was revolutionary or counter-revolutionary, because it was arguably both. Farmer’s artwork in particular is stunning, and I was charmed to learn that Chevli’s interest in writing was primarily motivated by a desire to make a lot of money, which is the sort of delusionary ambition that women don’t normally admit to.
A Way of Life, Like Any Other, Darcy O’Brian
Another re-read, and one of my favorite selections from Alana Johnson’s Covid-era book club, Darcy O’Brian’s 1977 hilarious autobiographical novel begins in the lap of Hollywood luxury, and then both his actor parents go bust. Wry and cutting but written with deep affection.
God’s Little Acre, Erskine Caldwell
Suggested by Matt Wallenstein for our sporadic long-distance book club, Caldwell’s 1933 novel about a gold-and-sex-obsessed farming patriarch and his dysfunctional collection of children and in-laws was greeted with “decency”-related legal challenges and faced bans as recently as the 1950s. Of course I have plenty of profound observations from my reading, but I’ll save them for the book club. While we’re on the subject, go read Matt’s Substack.
King of Ashes, S.A. Cosby
Screen-adaptation-ready crime fiction, about a trio of siblings forced to out-maneuver a group of hyper-violent drug dealers, with tragic, bloody results. I kept thinking of Titus Andronicus. Not really in my normal genre wheelhouse, but hard to put down.
Last Five Movies I Watched
Maddie’s Secret (2026)
A melodrama in the grand tradition of the Hallmark Original Movie, John Early plays Maddie Ralph, a food “content creator” who’s viral success triggers an eating disorder relapse. Early rides a tricky line, achieving something that is simultaneously over-the-top and finely drawn. Not a perfect movie (not that that’s any kind of metric), but in the words of my bf, “kind of genius.”
Art School Confidential (2006)
I saw this on a date when it was released in 2006, and there was something wrong with the projector, so every other reel was sort of squished, and they gave us free passes afterword. Anyway, much funnier than I remembered, and would make a good art-school-skewering double feature with Todd Solondz’s Wiener-Dog (2016)
Blue Heron (2025)
Sophy Romvari’s debut feature is a quiet, watchful piece of autofiction which follows a family through their day-to-day lives as they struggle to handle the oldest sibling’s erratic and dangerous behavior. The narrative moves forward and back through time, then and now, observing the ephemera of family life — fun and boredom and fear and frustration and joy— allowing the viewer to share in the visceral sensation of memory.
Ghost World (2001)
It should be no surprise that Thora Birch as Enid was a “load baring” figure for me as a young person. As a weird 18-year-old who thought she was smarter than everyone else, Enid was both aspirational and cautionary. I’ve been thinking a lot lately about how annoying I must have been in those days, which made me hesitant to rewatch, but as with many of my various recent rewatches, re-experiencing art as a different person can be profound. Enid’s underlying insecurity and sincerity is clearer now, in a way that makes me more forgiving of my past self.
The Invite (2026)
Is it worth sitting through the tedious, one-note marital bickering and Olivia Wilde’s inscrutably “stressed out” facial expressions for the third act’s heartstring-pulling (if almost entirely unearned) lesson in love and freedom? No. Awful.
Heavy Rotation Perfumes
Lolitaland
Sweet and sticky and mildly effervescent, like cream soda left in the car on a hot day.
Hungarian Fronds
I’ve been dying for a full bottle of this, and recently got an insane, un-pass-up-able deal on one via Mercari. I am NOT allowed to buy perfume for a LONG TIME. Herbal, chamomile, medicinal, almost savory. Weird but wearable.
Attaquer le Soleil Marquis de Sade
It was this and Eau De Protection that secured my devotion to Etat Libre d’Orange, but I’m cautious with this one because of its only note, labdanum, a gunky resinous and leathery scent that also suggests paint and glue. Hardly the most challenging or perverse perfume in existence, but, as the name suggests, a good jumping-off point for would-be olfactory sickos.
Sun
Recently my hot-weather go-do, the syrupy, animalic Sex and the Sea Neroli, has felt stifling, and this, launched in 1989 by Jil Sander, is a great stand-in, its amber and over-ripe fruitiness tempered with orange blossom citrus and softer, if slightly dated florals.
Afternoon of a Fawn
An arid, astringent scent which I’ve been on rainy days as a counterbalance. The star of the show is immortelle, a Mediterranean shrub which is related to the daisy. Some say it smells like a walk in the woods when the leaves are falling off the trees. I think it smells like the dessert.
Five Heavy Rotation Albums
Spiritualized, Lazer Guided Melodies
Not proud to admit that I never “got” Spiritualized and was for many years content in the belief that it “wasn’t for me.” About a year and a half ago a portal opened via a chance encounter with “I Think I’m In Love” and J. Spaceman’s tortured cool-guy wordplay and grand, dense arrangements, previously irritating to me, suddenly made all the sense in the world. An obsession with Ladies and Gentlemen We Are Floating Through Space ensued, and I’ve been hyper-fixating my way through the catalog ever since.
Beth Orton, The Ground Above
Switching to Apple Music after over a decade on Spotify bumped me out of my algorithmic silo. It’s like I moved into an empty room and brought nothing with me but a handful of Kruder & Dorfmeister records, and now my landlord thinks I’m the world’s biggest trip-hop fan. I could have sworn I’d never heard a note of Beth Orton’s music until Apple said “hmm maybe she likes folktronica?” and offered up “She Cries Your Name,” sending me back 30 years to when my radio was always tuned to Pittsburgh’s independent music station, WYEP. Unfortunately, I don’t really jibe with rest of Orton’s 1996 debut, Trailer Park. Her new record, The Ground Above, however, has been on repeat all month. The textures of her unique voice have deepened and the disparate influences of her early work — not bad but jagged to my ears — have settled into a rich, dynamic soulfulness.
The Strokes, Reality Awaits
If you’d played this for me in 2003 I’d have been pretty bummed out, but then again when I was a child I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, etc, etc. Fun and funny and still The Strokes.
UTO, When all you want to do is be the fire part of the fire
The title of UTO’s 2024 record comes from Bill Callahan’s “Sycamore,” a contemplative stroll of a tune, rousingly anthemic despite its specificity and lollygagging pace. Callahan’s famously deadpan lyrics are presented with great tenderness, which I suppose makes him kin to this French electropop duo. Their lyrics are buried under layers of shimmery, psychedelic techno-fascia, but every time I listen some new little bit of poetry rises to the surface and then bounces around in my head. On their 2025 supplemental EP More heat to the fire part of fire, they cover Lucinda Williams’ “Broken Butterflies” and Dido’s “White Flag,” neither of which clear the originals, but are very cute nonetheless.
Big Youth, Screaming Target
Many years ago, my boss at the used CD store handed me a copy of Screaming Target and told me I should buy it. I liked that the artwork looked like the flier for a punk show, so I did. Greil Marcus once described the record as a “dub pressure drop.” Any worthwhile dub record sounds good on a hot day, but Big Youth, one of the genre’s best known “toasters,” sing-chants his way over hypnotic, minimalistic loops. It feels rather viscerally like a cool breeze ushering in a summer rainstorm.
Five Reoccurring Dream Locations
My parent’s basement, where I’m always doing laundry and it’s usually going wrong, water is everywhere, etc.
This huge four, sometimes five-story Victorian mansion that combines a number of real-world houses I’ve been in over the years. Recent site of a stress dream where I was trying to find a roommate but couldn’t keep track of who already lived there.
Ten Thousand Villages (??)
Mr. Rogers’ living room.
A food co-op that is sometime really small and sometimes huge and has amazing selection and great prices.
Five Things I Love about Friday Night Lights Season One, Which I Am Watching for the Third Time
Constant close-ups of all the actors’ wonderful faces.
Matt Saracen’s Livestrong bracelet, because of course he’d wear one! This show loves and understands it’s characters.
Various obscure-ish indie-rock/post-rock needle drops, which — in my copious experience of Texas and Texans in the mid-aughts — are exactly what a cool teenager in rural Texas would have been listening to.
Whatever brand of lip gloss all the girls are wearing
How all the parents/child combos are perfectly cast, and the actors were obviously coached to adopt familial mannerisms and facial expressions.
Five Benefits of Walking Around in an Aircast
Occasional special treatment.
Strangers saying things like “hope you heal quick!”
A guy across from me on the train pulled out a little notebook and sketched a picture of my boot.
It looks kind of cool if styled correctly.
Smiling and nodding in solidarity with other boot-wearers, who are everywhere once you start to notice.
the fact that you are are so into perfume is bizarre to me for some reason. love your lists. i have none. also, can't typos just be passed over in silence?
So satisfying to read and frustrating when it's over. Even more frustrating that it doesn't come with scratch & sniff!