Guest Contributor #7: Andy Fox

Guest contributions are back! Here's a librarian, musician, a co-worker of mine! Something wild - we likely played a show together in DeKalb way back in the day before we knew each other.

1. What is a movie that you think people should know about that speaks to you?

While by no means an obscure hidden gem, Joel and Ethen Coen’s Inside Llewyn Davis (2013) is a film that speaks to me and I think everyone should see it. As a big Bob Dylan fan, Greenwich Village in the early ‘60s is one of those storied, legendary scenes that I’d give my right pinky to be able to experience for a week or two. The film captures the era and setting so evocatively, that it's almost as if I’m getting my wish every time I cue it up (having not been there, I am merely speculating).  

All of the music is beautiful, period-accurate, and it’s nigh impossible to believe that Oscar Isaac learned to play and sing specifically to play the titular role (this may not be true, but I’m not looking it up). Several of Isaac’s solo acoustic performances are genuinely, heartbreakingly beautiful, particularly in light of the fact that the character recently lost his duet partner in tragic circumstances before the events of the film. 

Inside Llewyn Davis’s cast is uniformly terrific, and John Goodman in particular gives one of the funniest most peculiar performances of his career. Additionally, I’ve always been a Carey Mulligan “stan” (for the lack of a better word), and the way she masks her deep hurt through anger is deeply affecting. 

Without giving away too much, the film’s theme that we are all caught in a holding pattern, bound to repeat the same mistakes and experience the same disappointments ad infinitum, in large part due to our inherent flaws and inability to learn and change, resonates deeply. This is my favorite Coen Brothers film, and I love most of them. 

2. What is a favorite song that made you excited to explore a band / artist's career further? What is it about that song that resonates so strongly?

I often listen to music around six hours a day (yeah, it’s a problem) so discovery followed by frantic catalog exploration happens frequently. My memory isn't the best, either, so I’ll discuss my most recent personal discovery, Squirrel Flower’s “Alley Light” off 2023’s Tomorrow’s Fire. 

I actually heard Squirrel Flower’s “intheskatepark”, a 2-minute shoegazey guitar pop confection about budding queer love and getting too high at a skatepark, a couple of months ago. The song is a banger, but there are plenty of these types of songs shuffling around the algo these days, so I threw it on a playlist but didn’t explore SF much further. 

However, last week I heard “Alley Light” for the first time (thank you algorithm!) and lost my shit. Like the best Lucinda Williams songs, “Alley Light” chugs along at a pace somewhere between a steady mid-tempo rocker and torch ballad as Squirrel Flower (the stage name of  27-year-old Ella O'Connor Williams) sings of a budding love/infatuation for a girl whose blue dress looks beautiful in the alley light.

The singer would love to take her out on the town, but sadly all her favorite places are closed (pandemic-related? did they lose their vax cards?). The ascending vocal melody of each couplet reaches a high note that gives me goosebumps. This happens often, so “Alley Light” has a remarkable goosebumps-per-song ratio. Also, the reverb-y guitar tone is aces. 

I’ve always been drawn to “[finding] love in a hopeless place” [see answer below] type songs, and “Alley Light” is the platonic ideal of the genre. As a plus, the obligatory Spotify video loop playing throughout the song depicts Williams resembling a 1986 Paul Westerberg with long, unkempt dark brown curly locks, half in shadow, lighting a cigarette with a blowtorch. So yeah, this is for me.  

The rest of Tomorrow’s Fire is excellent, as well, hopping musical modes in the characteristic of a twentysomething artist who grew up with the entirety of recorded music at their fingertips. There are heavy rockers, like the aforementioned “in the skatepark”, as well as plaintive fingerpicked acoustic ballads, such as the album’s final two songs, “What Kind of Dream is This?” and “Finally Rain.” Admittedly, I haven’t delved beyond this album, yet, but I have every intention to do so.  

3. What does your perfect comfort meal consist of?

Discounting the boring (yet accurate) answers of pizza and spaghetti, I’m going with Kung Pao Chicken. Not the typical gloppity, weakly spicy variety found at your typical hole-in-the-wall American fast food restaurant, but the kind I fell in love with during the 5.5 odd years I spent living in China. 

I’m not at all a stickler for “authentic” food, but the real deal Kung Pao chicken is far superior to what you get around here. No bell peppers, dark syrupy goop, or (god forbid) baby corn, the legit Sichuan Kung Pao is the perfect blend of bite-sized chicken cubes marinated in Xiaoxing rice wine, honey, cornstarch and black vinegar, stir-fried with aromatics, dried chilis, sichuan peppercorns, peanuts, and finished in a light, tangy vinegary sauce. 

The dish is a flavor explosion but also an endurance test. The heat from the peppers and the characteristic numbing effect of the peppercorns lends it the “mala” (ma meaning “numb” and “la” meaning spicy) sensation for which Sichuan/Chongqing food is famous. Walking around certain parts of Chengdu, Sichuan’s capital city, can often make your eyes water. There I saw 4-year-old kids wolf down pepper laden dishes that the average Chicagoan would not go anywhere near. I was lucky enough to find an excellent recipe by Food Genius Kenji Lopez-Alt and cook the dish whenever I’m homesick for China and/or in the mood for violent indigestion. 

4. What is something that moves you to tears (film, song, book, anything)?

I have never cried in my adult life, but if I were to do so these are the media/moments that arouse such feelings:

The Replacements - “Answering Machine”

Rihanna -  “We Found Love (Chuckie Extended Remix)”

The final minutes of the Six Feet Under finale

Boygenius - “Stay Down”

The part in Royal Tenenbaums where Chas says, “I’ve had a rough year, dad.”

The scene where Paul Newman plays banjo and sings “Plastic Jesus” in Cool Hand Luke (I had to fight to show no tears when we all watched this together in Junior year English Class)

The part at the end of Lincoln when the 13th Amendment gets passed (please don’t tell anyone)

Many moments in Gilead by Marylinee Robinson

Andy Fox is a librarian at the Chicago Public Library and an Aries. Before working for CPL, Fox was a librarian at St. Augustine and lived in Guangdong, China for over five years. During that time, he traveled extensively through East Asia. He is allergic to cats.

All guest contributions available here: https://5years.substack.com/t/guest