What helped you get through this week?

Let's share some of the things that gave us joy over the past wee while.

I was floored. Flabbergasted. Well and truly blown away.

Seriously, thank you.

Last week, I put myself out there and admitted life had been a little tough lately.

It’s been that way for a lot of people. Almost everyone I know is trudging through some sludge, dealing with heavy stuff, going through it.

Right now, there’s a lot of big life stuff going on for a lot of people.

So I decided to do something about it. I opened up the Friday edition of this newsletter as a place to share good vibes only.

I wasn’t sure it would work, but it did! Your responses really helped kick my weekend off and made it a little brighter than it might otherwise have been.

I especially appreciated the person who shared this quote:

“A society grows great when old men plant trees the shade of which they know they will never sit in.”

It’s stayed with me ever since. I need to plant some trees, I guess.

A tree.

Anyway, let’s do it again.

Here’s the drill: this is a dedicated feel-good space, a place to share anything you’ve seen, heard, read or thought about over the past seven days.

If it’s given you a lift, got you through your week, prompted a smile or made your brain go ‘ahh’, I want to hear about it.

Here’s my contribution …

The (possibly murderous) Aussie larrakins in Last Stop Larrimah…

They drink, they fight, they possibly murder each other. Just 12 people live in the tiny Aussie town of Larrimah, a number that drops to 11 after the disappearance of fair dinkum Aussie cobber Paddy Moriarty. Who did it? Why? Also, how much beer can 11 Aussies drink? This HBO doc, screening on Netflix, reckons it has the answers.

Scoring a ticket to Sampha’s Powerstation show…

In 2017, Sampha played a magical Powerstation show so great it’s easily in my all-time top five. Good news: he’s doing it again! Along with his performance at Splore, you can also see Sampha at the Powerstation on February 23. The tour follows his excellent new album Lahai. I already got my ticket; I thoroughly recommend you do too.

Freaking out at the self-help bullshit in Bad Behaviour…

A self-help retreat sounds terrifying. A self-help retreat with Jennifer Connelly? The Jennifer Connelly? From Labyrinth and Requiem for a Dream? You know she’s going to snap in Bad Behaviour, Alice Englert’s debut feature. When it happens, it’s utterly shocking. Englert’s messy, complicated, and uneven film only gets wilder from there.

Re-watching The Cave…

In this excellent YouTube series, American hip-hop producer Kenny Beats invites artists into his studio to make a song up on the spot. Often it’s not the song itself that’s the most entertaining bit, but the cute/silly/fun/awkward banter between Kenny and his guests. Most of them are rappers, but here’s his fun season three episode featuring Benee.

Anticipating watching The Killer…

Bit bleak for a listicle about joy BUT this Netflix film comes from David Fincher, features Michael Fassbender AND the reviews are promising. “A bloody, fun, gritty movie about an angry assassin,” says Uproxx. It’s No. 1 on my weekend viewing priorities.

I also managed to get Limp Bizkit’s concert promoter on the phone to talk about this whole situation, so I guess I’m going to cover the show now (shh, more on that next week).

Okay, now it’s over to you. Share all of your good things (and only good things) below :)

---

This was a free edition of Boiler Room. If you can contribute to keep this thing going, please consider becoming a paid subscriber. The more that do, the more I can do.