Adam Steiner discusses with Ivan six things which should be better known.
Adam Steiner is a swim-teacher, freelance journalist and author. When not saving lives he sits dreaming about all the books he will never write.
He has written several books of music criticism: Into The Never: Nine Inch Nails And The Creation Of The Downward Spiral, Silhouettes And Shadows: The Secret History of David Bowie’s Scary Monsters (And Super Creeps) and Darker With The Dawn: Nick Cave’s Songs Of Love And Death. He runs the Disappear Here poetry film project – 27 x collaborative poetry-films about Coventry Ringroad – and now curates the Living With Buildings poetry film series, screening experimental films about people, poetry and place.
1. Being There, Jerzy Kozinski: movie and book – so this is a great example of late/last great art – Peter Sellers was very attached to the story and was determined to make the movie, so he had do more pink panthers for the studio to back him.
2. Lifeguards / Swim Teachers – under-appreciated, under-sexed, underpaid its one of the hardest jobs out there – sitting in a chair dreaming, not doing anything, but people always take it for granted – it’s nothing job but highly trained, loads of responsibility – get paid the same as shelf stacker in a supermarket
3. 40 – So we’re always told that 40 is the new 30 etc – but it’s a dangerous, difficult age, one of the most common life periods for people to break down, particularly male suicide – it’s a weird time for guys, putting on weight, feeling slower, losing muscle mass, losing hair, suddenly feeling less ‘potent’ or over the hill, and its the turning point towards older age.
4. When Biographies Become Biopics: Will Self said writers reading biographies of other writers is basically lit-porn – so we get caught up in a life narrative that often informs the work but steers us away from the original. for example, one of my favourite movies is Love Is The Devil, a movie about Francis Bacon’s relationship with George Dyer.
5. Real Dictators podcast – This is my go to ‘easy’ listening podcast, particularly when really ill I can just leave it on in the background and absorb. It’s narrated by the inimitable Paul McGann of the McGann Brothers. The style is relatively sensational, like a thriller novel, but actually very thoroughly researched, so they have expert talking heads discussing the countries involved. It’s very dark material overall, but I feel it’s good to know the background history of the 20th and 21st centuries, our Western democratic complicities and compromises where we can afford the choices to make a stand or do nothing and let bad things happen–for a variety of reasons – as it happens…
6. Charity shops… the ultimate form of social progression. In London charity shops are a mecca for the undiscerning buyer- you discover things you would never actively seek out in your Westfields etc. particularly for clothes, move beyond jeans, buy trousers, get designer stuff without the hassle of browsing, find great books, CDs are cheaper than downloads, even cool vinyl. Where we are sometimes going wrong is that certain chains overprice items, seeing designer labels and placing them alongside the pricing models of Vinted et al – this defeats the purpose of accessible culture.
Better Known 