The April Archive

The soft April night is looking at my windows and caressingly winking at me with its stars. I can't sleep, I am so happy. (Anton Chekhov)

some recommendations based on what i’ve been reading, watching and using in the month of april.

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to read —

• The Post-Office Girl written by Stefan Zweig. (1982)

(you can read my review here)

She feels borne along, carried by the wind. She was a child the last time she flew like this. This is the beginning of the delirium of transformation.

The post-office girl is Christine, who looks after her ailing mother and toils in a provincial Austrian post office in the years just after the Great War. One afternoon, as she is dozing among the official forms and stamps, a telegraph arrives addressed to her. It is from her rich aunt, who lives in America and writes requesting that Christine join her and her husband in a Swiss Alpine resort. After a dizzying train ride, Christine finds herself at the top of the world, enjoying a life of privilege that she had never imagined. But Christine’s aunt drops her as abruptly as she picked her up, and soon the young woman is back at the provincial post office, consumed with disappointment and bitterness. Then she meets Ferdinand, a wounded but eloquent war veteran who is able to give voice to the disaffection of his generation. Christine’s and Ferdinand’s lives spiral downward, before Ferdinand comes up with a plan which will be either their salvation or their doom. Never before published in English, this extraordinary book is an unexpected and haunting foray into noir fiction by one of the masters of the psychological novel.

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(articles corner)

• David Lynch Tells GQ His Secrets to Happiness written by Chris Heath.

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• Alice e Alba Rohrwacher intervistate da Isabella Rossellini.

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to use —

1. SABLE, fABLE by Bon Iver.

2. Mango Satin Ballet Flats.

3. DON WEST by Don West.

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to watch —

• The Fly directed by David Cronenberg. (1986)

Somehow I get the feeling you don’t get out much.

When Seth Brundle makes a huge scientific and technological breakthrough in teleportation, he decides to test it on himself. Unbeknownst to him, a common housefly manages to get inside the device and the two become one.

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• Sacramento directed by Michael Angarano. (2024)

Anger is just sadness with nowhere to go.

When free-spirited Ricky suddenly reappears in father-to-be Glenn’s life, the two former best friends embark on a spontaneous road trip from LA to Sacramento.

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• Wild Strawberries directed by Ingmar Bergman. (1957)

You know so much, and you don’t know anything.

Crotchety retired doctor Isak Borg travels from Stockholm to Lund, Sweden, with his pregnant and unhappy daughter-in-law, Marianne, in order to receive an honorary degree from his alma mater. Along the way, they encounter a series of hitchhikers, each of whom causes the elderly doctor to muse upon the pleasures and failures of his own life. These include the vivacious young Sara, a dead ringer for the doctor’s own first love.

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• Nun or Never! directed by Heta Jäälinoja. (2023)

A nun digs a man up from the ground and loses her grip on everyday life. Can secrets and harmony coexist?

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(youtube corner)

• I Bought a Dead Woman's Book Collection by Black Lit Geek.

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• Stanley Tucci Breaks The Rules With Hasan Minhaj, Laufey, & Dr. Anne-Marie Imafidon by Rolling Stone

  

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• Ben Affleck’s Closet Picks by Criterion

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