Style, Stunts, and a Tiny House

Inspiration and interestingness.

Lee Pace in The Fall

NOTE: If you’d like to hear me (not AI) read this to you, tap the play button above the image.

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I’ve shared this story before, and regardless of whether it’s true or just the stuff of photographic legend, it’s so good that I think it bears repeating every so often. The story goes that a photographer was presenting his portfolio to the great Jay Maisel. He asked Jay how he could take more interesting pictures, to which Jay immediately replied, “become a more interesting person.” It may sound trite, but I think it’s often easy for makers to become myopic in terms of the types of things that inspire them. Painters are often looking at other painters, photographers look at other photographers, musicians are often listening to other musicians, and so on. If you’re always looking (or listening) to what’s familiar, the odds of you arriving at something that’s unfamiliar (even if it’s only unfamiliar to you), are pretty slim, which is why it can be helpful to look outside of your comfort zone for inspiration. I’m interested in almost everything so as you might imagine, my feeds are pretty eclectic. While I’ve gotten away from posts like this over the years, I think I’d like to jump back in and offer up an occasional look at some of the things that have caught my attention, and might catch yours.

Long Hot Summers — The Story of the Style Council (music)

I don’t care what Roland Orzabal thinks, other than maybe That’s Entertainment, I was never a big fan of The Jam. Maybe it’s a cultural difference, since much of the Jam’s music was largely about working-class life in England, but it wasn’t until The Style Council that I was able to really appreciate the brilliance of Paul Weller. And while Cafe Bleu is a masterpiece, I think I prefer Confessions of a Pop Group. It was probably their most experimental record and maybe that’s why I love it so much — it beautifully blends pop, classical, and jazz. The playing is exquisite and it’s all swirling around Weller’s sublime lyrics. I recently watched a terrific documentary about The Style Council that features a bunch of great archival footage as well as interviews with journalists, other artists like Boy George and Martin Freeman, and band members Weller, Mick Talbot, Steve White, and Dee C. Lee.

The Fall (film/television)

The Fall is a beautiful fever dream of a movie, directed by Tarsem Singh who really made his mark directing music videos, including Losing my Religion by REM. The film tells the story of Hollywood stuntman Roy Walker, played by the great Lee Pace, who gets paralyzed in a stunt that went wrong. If Lee looks familiar, you might know him as the Emperor from the Foundation series on Apple TV+. In the hospital, Roy meets a young girl called Alexandria who he tricks into stealing morphine from the hospital pharmacy by telling her a fantastical story so that he can take his own life after learning that the woman he loves has left him for the actor he was doubling. This terrific interview with Lee Pace popped up in my feed the other day. Apparently, it was done last year to celebrate the 4K restoration DVD and streaming on Mubi, which looks fantastic. I’ve got the standard DVD, but I may have to pick up the 4K version, even though it’s a little pricey.

A Tiny House in Tokyo (architecture)

I love architecture. For a while in high school, I even considered becoming an architect. The challenges of materials and spaces is something that has always fascinated me. When done well, a building can have a profound effect on how we feel when we see it, walk through it, or, in this case, live in it. Masato Igarashi is a Japanese architect living in Tokyo in the incredible home he designed and built for himself and his wife. The entire home is only 635 square feet, but thanks to the way Igarashi has arranged the various spaces, it actually feels much larger. The concrete home is a stack of seven “skip floors” — which means that the interconnected floors are all visible, avoiding hallways and stairwells — and uses materials such as wood and steel to define the character of the various spaces. It’s a brilliant, intentional space that uses light, verticality, and specifically chosen materials to create a wonderful environment for live and work.

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I love sharing what I find interesting and inspiring, but I’d also love to hear from you. What are some things that have caught your attention lately? Reply, leave a comment, or email me at talkback@jefferysaddoris.com.

Thanks for reading.

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