Nº94: Sammi Gale
The curator and editor talks writer's block, cinema fatigue and his new poetry pamphlet.
We’re back with Sammi Gale. Read on to find out what he’s into, and if you’re new here, hit subscribe for secret recommendations every week.
Sammi Gale is a curator and the Editor of Plinth. He writes for GQ, the i Paper, Little White Lies and more. His poetry and short stories have appeared in Datableed, The Toe Rag, Prototype and more. He collaborates with Jack Bartrop as Fffirst Time and writes Letters from Godot. His poetry pamphlet Port Folio is published by Broken Sleep Books.
☞ META-MMENDATION: Recommendations are the kind of social more I bet Oscar Wilde has a single-eyebrow-raising quip about.
A speedy google says I’m in the right ballpark:
I always pass on good advice. It is the only thing to do with it. It is never any use to oneself.
This rings true when a friend says, ‘Oh my god, you HAVE to watch this’. Nothing is more likely to make me avoid watching this. I’d much rather that ‘HAVE to’ slid out of view, five seasons in, feeling like the first pioneer to plant his flag in a little show called Mad Men.
Of course, I’m constantly recommending things to friends and no doubt giving them the unwanted chore of them. Ideally, advice would arrive like Nurofen Express — instant hit, no ick. You feel very Smug Mary of Poppins on those rare occasions when you dig out ‘just the thing’ from your bag of tricks, at exactly the right moment.
So here is my list of specific situations with their Twin Flame recommendations:
☞ FOR MEDITERRANEAN HOLIDAYS (BONUS IF IT’S GREECE): Hot Milk by Deborah Levy.
☞ CINEMA FATIGUE: Watch Border. Don’t look up anything about it beforehand.
☞ ANNOYING PROBLEM AT WORK: Savage Lovecast. Listening to Dan Savage’s sex advice podcast, even the most polymorphously perverse of us will find some kink they’ve never had to navigate before. For some reason, your worry about the spreadsheet feels pretty casual and petty after listening to a smorgasbord of dilemmas you’ll probably never need to noodle over. Your boss might be being a little demanding, sure, but one worry you might never have is whether you’ve safely kicked a man in the testicles — and hey, if you do, you’ll be well-instructed. The world is massive and full of wonder.
☞ WEEKNIGHT MEALS: Anna Jones’ Easy Wins.
☞ ANXIETY: SSRIs. You are totally allowed to have the lovely helpful drugs alongside the lovely therapy.
☞ WHEN SOMEONE IS FLEXING ABOUT PRESTIGE TELEVISION YOU HAVEN’T SEEN: counter with The Ghost Inside My Child, your favourite show, in which parents convince their daughter she’s possessed or that their five-year-old is a reincarnated pioneer who wiped out a Native American tribe.
☞ INDIAN TAKEAWAYS: Under-order. Shh… There, I’ve said it. One rice between two. Or none if biryani IS the rice. Let’s not get silly out there.
☞ WRITER’S BLOCK: Set a timer and write 17 words in one minute. 17 is a smidge over the most comprehensible/comfortable sentence-length (for e.g., the New York Times has an average of 15 words a sentence), so you find your mind lurching forward ever so slightly while still being direct. Plus, maths-wise, if you were to do this every minute for an hour you’d have over 1,000 words. I normally stop after 17 though.
☞ PORT FOLIO: I will be reading from Port Folio on Wednesday 30 July online, reserve tickets here. Keep an eye out for more news soon on an irl launch party @galesammi… The reading will also feature:
Meier (reading from After the Parting)
Peter Hughes (reading from Drawn)
Richard Skinner (reading from Undercurrents)
Sammi Gale (reading from Port Folio)
Mary Mulholland (reading from the elimination game)
Luigi Coppola & Mark Shuttleworth (reading from Even God Gets Distracted Sometimes)
♪ LISTENING TO: My taste is probably stuck in 2014 but I blame Spotify. Daffodil - Jamie xx
☠ HATES: Being told off. Liquorice.
Thanks Sammi! Follow Sammi here! Follow @fffirst_time @brokensleepbooks @plinthuk
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