Agent Palmer

In October 2023, the iconic Sydney Opera House had a birthday festival to celebrate the 50 years since it opened its doors to the world.

The Sydney Opera House website, under “Our Story,” explains why this building should be a little more celebrated than most in their short three paragraph history, which is honestly one of the more accurate and succinct art building histories I have ever read.

I often get people asking me what I’m reading. Perhaps it has something to do with talking to authors on my podcast or other creatives who also read. Either way, I find myself talking about books quite a bit.

When asked about Gracie: A Love Story by George Burns, I described it as perhaps the most romantic book I have ever read. And that was when I was only about a third of the way through it.

National Champions is an interesting, if not ill-timed, feature movie released in 2021 based on the play of the same name by Adam Mervis. It’s a well written brief that encompasses all of the arguments for and against paying collegiate athletes.

What makes this ill-timed is that the relief valve of the NCAA’s NIL deal was enabled the same year the film came out. In fact, the NIL rules went into effect in January of 2021, while this film was released almost 11 months later in December of that year.

Chuck Klosterman is a master of the absurd in the simplest way. He’s truly outdone himself in “Raised in Captivity,” a book full of short stories that read like longer versions of his HYPERtheticals, which are questions intended to start insane conversations.

The front cover boasts this book as “Fictional Nonfiction,” but you could easily argue about what order that should be in or even about what each of these short stories are about. That’s what this book does. And it will get you thinking.

Promise. It’s quite a word. It can be a declaration that one will or won’t do something. It can be legally binding. It can be a reason to expect something or an expectation of success. It can also be a pledge.

It’s a versatile word, and because of that I decided to see what a variety of artists could make of a promise by creating a playlist.