Kind of a hard question to word, but is there anything in your life you have recommended to other people but no one’s ever gotten into?
I love podcasts and have friends who still thank me for getting them into this one or that one. But I’ve never gotten anyone to listen to My Brother, My Brother and Me. I don’t know if the name is unappealing or the concept but people seem to bounce off immediately.
So what can’t you get people into and why should we check it out?
Gormenghast, a series of novels which are “fantasy” but contain no magic. The setting is genuinely a fantasy setting, with massive, fantastical castles, all empty and decaying.
It’s the story of a royal family, and the heir to the throne, who does not wish to be an heir to the throne.
Also, that’s to say nothing of the third book, which sends you on a major twist and goes from fantasy to science fiction…
Underrated trilogy, Gormenghast by Mervyn Peake.
Also, Dead Man, a film by Jim Jarmusch. I’m not a big fan of Westerns, but this “acid western” is one of my favorite movies of all time. Somehow simultaneously a funny buddy movie and also a deep treatise on death and belief.
Gary Farmer gets to say his iconic line that I still love to hear to this day: “Stupid fucking white man.”
Farmer would go on to cameo in another Jarmusch film, Ghost Dog: Way of the Samurai to repeat the same line.
I watched the Gormenghast miniseries on the Space Channel many many years ago and eventually read the books. They were interesting. Not something I’d want to revisit, but definitely weird.
I still have never seen the movie, but Dead Man has a great soundtrack by Neil Young. Guitar Solo, No 5 is my favorite track if you just check out one:
https://youtu.be/tThoCkzEr_s?si=AnREMldp8g5nFiZZ
The soundtrack is one of the best parts of the movie, and you’re right, it’s great on its own.