Good things: Spring ‘25
“What comes out of the end of your pen is only as good as what you feed into your brain. It is important that you are feeding your brain with lots of good things.”
Design writer Katie Treggiden said these words to me when I interviewed her back in 2019. The idea of filling your brain with good things has stuck with me ever since.
Katie continued: “I watch a TedTalk every lunchtime, I listen to Radio 4 a lot and I make sure I am going to lots of creative events that have nothing to do with what I am working on. It’s those weird little connections that sometimes make a brilliant piece of writing because you are able to make a leap that perhaps someone whose brain isn’t full of all that good stuff couldn’t make.”
We were chatting specifically about the writing process (I was interviewing Katie for my dissertation about design journalism) but the concept can be transferred to any creative discipline. Your head has to be well stocked with creative inspiration for your hands to be able to make whatever it is you enjoy making. You have to stay curious to stay creative.
While most of us intend to feed our minds a healthy diet, it can be tricky to make this a priority - especially in a social-media-crazed world that encourages us to feast only on short-form content. It takes a little more effort to seek out a long-form article to read or a thought-provoking film to watch. It can be hard to get into the habit of spending time getting lost in a good book rather than doom-scrolling on a small screen, no matter how much better for us we know it is.
Getting into healthy head habits might not be the easiest option but it’s worth it. It’s important to invest time and effort in filling your brain with good things - you will reap the rewards at the other end of your creative process.
Good things to watch
In this new series, I’ll be recommending a long list of good things to feed your brain with; including films, books, articles, short stories and much, much more. After all, what are Headless Friends for if not trustworthy recommendations?
Let’s start with things to watch. Whether you have a few minutes or several hours to spare, here is a selection of good moving-images to entertain your eyes with…
Maurice’s Bar
Short film ✹ 15 mins ✹ A former drag queen on a train to nowhere. A night in one of Paris’s first queer bars. Worth watching for the gorgeous illustrations alone.
Sing Sing
Film ✹ 1 hour, 47 mins ✹ Colman Domingo and a group of formerly incarcerated actors telling a story about the power of art. An alternative, nuanced perspective of life in prison. (Sing Sing is the subject of this issue’s Queer Film Club.)
My Old Ass
Film ✹ 1 hour, 29 mins ✹ A girl comes face-to-face with her 39-year-old self during a mushroom trip on her 18th Birthday. What would you say to an older you? Or a younger you? Would they be as cool as Aubrey Plaza?
YouTube Video ✹ 22 mins ✹ Furry Little Peach shares a breakthrough about creative self-care. Colourful sketches coupled with deep thinking about art, fear and self-worth.
Nickel Boys
Film ✹ 2 hours, 20 mins ✹ Two Black teens trapped in an abusive reform school in the 1960s. Shot entirely in first-person (but not in a nauseating way). The most unique, immersive and impressive film I’ve seen in a long time.
The Adventureds of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert
Film ✹ 1 hour, 44 mins ✹ A 90s queer classic. Two drag queens and a trans woman travel across the Australian desert. A few outdated lines of dialogue and questionable casting aside, it’s aged well. So has Guy Pearce.
The Importance of Being Ernest
Play (available to watch at home) ✹ 3 hours (including interval) ✹ A classic reimagined. National Theatre + Oscar Wilde + Ncuti Gatwa + camp costumes + a big, sexy opening number = very, very good.
Short film ✹ 4 mins ✹ Kevin Atwater. A queer kind-of-love story. Inspired by a song of the same name. Years of a messy relationship explored over just a few minutes of music.
YouTube ✹ 3 mins ✹ Just a few minutes of actor Josh O’Connor talking about how much he loves pottery and why. If that doesn’t make you happy, we are different kinds of people.
YouTube Video ✹ 5 mins ✹ I’ve become addicted to watching home tours. This is the best one I have watched / the one I would most like to live and work in.
His Three Daughters
Film ✹ 1 hour, 41 mins ✹ Natasha Lyonne, Carrie Coon & Elisabeth Olsen play daughters returning home to say goodbye to their dying father. Crying, laughing and shouting ensue. Delivers a lot more than you expect from a Netflix film they didn’t even promote, mainly thanks to stand-out performances from the trio of leads.
Marcel the Shell with Shoes On
Film ✹ 1 hour, 30 mins ✹ You will expect this to be a film about a shell with shoes on. You won’t expect to get so emotionally invested in the shell and his quest to use online fame to reconnect with his long-lost family. But you will.
Big Boys
TV show ✹ 3 seasons ✹ 2 young men / big boys. One gay, one straight. A discussion about mental health, a gay coming-out story and bucket-loads of 2000s nostalgia. All hilariously delivered. Based on writer Jack Rooke’s real life. The third and final season was recently released. Many reviews say it’s ‘perfect’. I agree.
The Intouchables
Film ✹ 1 hour, 52 mins ✹ A French comedy-drama. Based on a true story. A rich old man hires a mischevious young man to be his carer. They become soft besties. As heartwarming as it is hilarious.
Ungentle
Short film ✹ 37 mins ✹ An anonymous narrator recalls his life as a spy and gay man in late 20th century Britain. Slow-moving images of country fields, city streets and cruising spots. Words narrated by Ben Wishaw (!). A better listen than it is a watch - but still brilliant.
The Summer with Carmen
Film ✹ 1 hour, 46 mins ✹ A Greek film within a film. Two gay men sit on a nudist beach attempting to turn the Summer they spent with a stray dog into a movie script. A good amount of sex, plenty of arguing and lots of nudity. Cleverly structured and very hot.
Good things to read
Fancy something a little quieter? From novels about friendship to articles about feminism; here is a selection of good words that I’d recommend reading…
Such A Fun Age by Kiley Reid
Book ✹ A young Black woman in Philadelphia is wrongly accused of kidnapping while babysitting. A novel investigating race, friendship and privilege with wit and heart. A well-deserved bestseller and Booker Prize nominee. ✹ “I don't need you to be mad that it happened. I need you to be mad that it just like... happens.”
“A quiet shift is taking place”: On being a creative in the age of content by Matthew Prebeg
Article ✹ It’s Nice That ✹ “Social media can prompt creatives to compete and view others as opponents, when in reality, we can forge digital communities where authentic connections are valued and successes are celebrated.”
Play For Laughs by Nic Marna
Short story ✹ 831 Stories ✹ “I’ve been told I walk like a New Yorker. Weaving through traffic, on a mission, and always miles ahead of anyone trying to keep up. I would argue I just walk like a gay person.”
The 9 things you need to write a novel by Toby Litt
Article ✹ The Writer’s Diary ✹ “An idea can be an area of mess or confusion in your head, or a line of remembered real-life dialogue, or an enticing title, or an exquisite memory, or a feeling of dreadful foreboding. It’s something, in other words, that haunts you.”
The Rachel Incident by Caroline O’Donoghue
Book ✹ An Irish woman looks back on the chaotic start to her 20s and the lie that changed everything. Perfectly captures the messy emotions of early adulthood with humorous hindsight. A surprisingly gay page-turner. ✹ “I was twenty and I needed two things: to be in love and to be taken seriously.”
I have friends, I definitely have friends by Lucie Eleanor
Article ✹ Sublime Miscellany ✹ “At school, I walked around apparently with a huge neon sign above my head telling everyone else I was neurodivergent and queer before I even knew myself. It had been there since I was six or seven.”
Low energy habits to improve your mental health by Ayushi Thakkar
Article ✹ Milk & Cookies ✹ “The thing about low-energy habits is that they aren’t about changing yourself. They’re about meeting yourself where you are - in your tiredness, your messiness, your in-between moments -and making them just a little softer.”
Haley Mlotek on standing by your work
Interview ✹ The Creative Independent ✹ “A reason that romance has been such a feminine art form for so long - something that’s directed at women and femmes in pop culture - is because it speaks to this idea of having agency over your lack of power, really living inside of a decision that’s been made for you that you are compelled to follow through on, one that you can’t resist.”
100 things to support your mental health that aren't go for a walk and drink more water by Lauren McQuistin
Article ✹ Realistic Recovery ✹ “I usually tire myself out of an emotion once I’ve exhausted it and shared it with a safe person who will validate its presence and encourage its movement.”
Write like a girl by Florence Given
Article ✹ “The moment you allow yourself to be every single wildly contradictory thing that you are - instead of what you think you should be - you snap into delicious alignment and transcend into a world of joy you didn’t even know was possible.”
Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin
Book ✹ A platonic love story. Two best friends launch a successful video game company together. Decades unfold as their relationship becomes increasingly complex. More captivating than I expected a book about video games to be. I miss the characters like they were real people. ✹ “This is what time travel is. It’s looking at a person, and seeing them in the present and the past, concurrently.”
Other good things
Not all inspiration fits neatly into a category. Let’s finish with a collection of miscellaneous good things…
Artist ✹ Exploring male intimacy with colourful, painterly brushstrokes.
Resource ✹ A hand-picked collection of 10,046 out-of-copyright works. Free to use. New images added every week.
Collage series ✹ Stef Mosebach combines horse photography and hand-cut typography to celebrate queer terminology.
Photography series ✹ Alice Poyzer: “Special interests are common within the autistic community and, whilst they may differ from person to person, the joy they provide is one we all understand.”
Illustrator ✹ Taking inspiration from the harsh lines of brutalist architecture to explore soft subjects, including the Chinese queer experience.
Directory ✹ A curated directory of UK-based makers. Hand-made homeware, straight from the source.
Design studio ✹ A non-profit uplifting women and LGBTQ+ communities. Challenging norms. Creating a more equitable world.
Digital magazine ✹ Celebrating the beauty of sculptural chairs. Incredible pleasing.
Platform ✹ Dedicated to ending gender-based violence, discrimination and bias through education, art and storytelling.
36 good things - that should keep you going until next time. There will be a new edition of Good Things in each new issue of Headless Friends - but I can’t promise that each one will be quite so jam-packed. The first three months of the year are always the quietest, leaving extra time to indulge in cosy reading and movie marathons - and gather recommendations to share.
My head feels full - in a good way. Time to put my hands to work…