Friday Fixations

What I'm Into Right Now

Happy Friday, my fellow suffering beings. Each week, I share two things I’m digging right now (books, TV shows, movies, music, and the like) plus one online video of nearly zero cultural merit.

• Style Wars. (On Peacock.) This week, I am recommending two movies I recently watched with my son. This first one is a seminal documentary about the NYC graffiti scene. When I was in junior high, my friends and I watched “Style Wars,” like, a thousand times. It inspired us to come up with our own tags and also to violate some local laws. (I did not share those stories with my son. I did, however, tell him that my tag was “Ace.”) Rewatching this film as a grown-up and also a Buddhist, I was struck by how the “pieces” the artists created on subway cars are kind of like sand mandalas, art that is destined to be destroyed. There’s a poignancy to the fact that these people labored hard and risked arrest, fully knowing that their work would soon be painted over, either by rivals or the authorities. That’s non-attachment.

  

• School of Rock. (On Paramount+). This Jack Black movie, which was made 20 years ago, holds up incredibly well. It’s extremely funny. And I say this, as somebody who has a hard time finding things to watch with his child, because most kid-friendly entertainment drives me nuts. But this one works on all levels. It inspired both of us to get back into drumming more regularly. Also, fun fact: a couple of the cast members recently got married.

• This is exactly my productivity routine.

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