At least for many of us here at A Damn Fine Cup of Culture, the days have become much shorter and the nights colder and darker – which means it’s a perfect time to get stuck in new series, books or films. What have we been watching, listening to or reading lately?
Welcome to Six Damn Fine Degrees. These instalments will be inspired by the idea of six degrees of separation in the loosest sense. The only rule: it connects – in some way – to the previous instalment. So come join us on our weekly foray into interconnectedness!
I have a strong personal belief when it comes to criticism of art of any kind: critics have to make a distinction between disliking the thing they’re criticising, whether that’s a film or a book, a game or an album, and that thing actually being bad. This doesn’t mean that they have to put every criticism down as a personal dislike: a good critic should be free to think, and state, that this movie or that novel is actually bad. But any critic, or indeed anyone uttering criticism, that seems to think that if they dislike a work it must obviously be bad? They can go take a long walk while I unfollow them and remove their sites from my bookmarks.
Welcome to Six Damn Fine Degrees. These instalments will be inspired by the idea of six degrees of separation in the loosest sense. The only rule: it connects – in some way – to the previous instalment. So come join us on our weekly foray into interconnectedness!
I’m a little jealous of all of you who misremember scenes in movies, because I have a hard time remembering detailed scenes of anything. It’s gotten particularly bad the older I turn. There are books I’ve enjoyed where, four months later, I can’t recollect whether I actually read them or was just planning to.
Apart from, you know, becoming decrepit, this is probably a function of how differently I approach reading. These days, I use books to complement and enhance how I feel. I read whodunnits* because I explicitly want to surround myself with mystery and light humour. I read sci-fi to be wowed by the infinite expanses of the universe. I read ‘found family’ stories to satisfy my craving for connection and so on. I regulate my mood with fiction, and I am very picky about what I choose. I’m no longer reading in order to be surprised.
Continue readingThe year is almost at its 2/3 mark, so this is us getting in a few more shortcuts before we enter that final third, which always tends to accelerate more and more quickly until we blink twice and it’s already Christmas… Here are some thoughts on what we’ve been watching and reading recently.
Welcome to Six Damn Fine Degrees. These instalments will be inspired by the idea of six degrees of separation in the loosest sense. The only rule: it connects – in some way – to the previous instalment. So come join us on our weekly foray into interconnectedness!
What if. What if hell were a university campus. In R.F. Kuang’s most recent bestseller, Katabasis, grad students Alice and Peter battle their way through eight Dantean circles to bring back their deceased advisor, the charismatic Jacob Grimes. One of their recurring discussions: they have no idea what circle he could be in. Greed? Violence? They are all too petty, too small for a man of his brilliance, for an academic visionary of his magnitude. Sure, he stole his male students’ research and was handsy and vindictive towards his female students. And sure, he abused them all, but, you see, he abused them and in doing so he elevated them. Sure, he made them do things, but they did them willingly, hungering for his approval. Grimes was the sun around which they were in perpetual orbit. What even is a crime, when it serves the greater good, as surely the work of such a lone genius must?
And already we’re almost at the halfway point of the year. What have we watched, read and enjoyed recently? (Hint: For most of us, it’s not the heat.)
While we do post articles about video games occasionally, the medium is pretty much underserved by A Damn Fine Cup of Culture’s podcasts – but we are hoping to remedy this at least somewhat with this espresso podcast: our guest for April is Johanna Pirker, computer scientist and educator at Graz University of Technology and the Technical University of Munich. In 2025, Johanna published her book The Game is On (currently only available in German, but there are plans for an English translation – and a Thai version is in the works!), in which she talks about the revolutionary potential of video games. Join Matt as he talks to Johanna about her work, her book, and about video games, from Johanna’s earliest memories of playing Prince of Persia on her father’s PC to more recent developments in the medium and art form.
For more from Johanna, make sure to check out her website and YouTube channel. Also, we’ve previously written about two of the games Johanna brings up in the podcast: Journey and Dear Esther.
Continue readingWelcome to Six Damn Fine Degrees. These instalments will be inspired by the idea of six degrees of separation in the loosest sense. The only rule: it connects – in some way – to the previous instalment. So come join us on our weekly foray into interconnectedness!
I think many people remember the first time that they discovered music that really fired the imagination. Music that wasn’t just the signature to a tale, but an integral part of the experience. If you wanted to imagine the other worlds of a tale – just a few bars of a theme and your mind begins to inhabit a whole new universe.
Continue readingWelcome to Six Damn Fine Degrees. These instalments will be inspired by the idea of six degrees of separation in the loosest sense. The only rule: it connects – in some way – to the previous instalment. So come join us on our weekly foray into interconnectedness!
The past and the way it influences the present featured strongly in the last two instalments. Being from Vienna, I very much enjoyed and related to Matt’s dive into his trip to neighbouring Prague. I’m even a little sorry that I’ll now proceed to wrench this theme of past and present onto a completely different track.
Let me take you back to the year 2005 and a release that you probably missed because there was so much else going on.
Continue readingWelcome to Six Damn Fine Degrees. These instalments will be inspired by the idea of six degrees of separation in the loosest sense. The only rule: it connects – in some way – to the previous instalment. So come join us on our weekly foray into interconnectedness!
It’s one of those cinematic moments in history classes that high school students almost get to know by heart: on the morning of 28 June, 1914, Archduke Franz Ferdinand wakes up to meet with officials at the Sarajevo city hall on a tour to convince the sceptical Bosniaks that being freshly annexed by Austria-Hungary is actually a good thing. 28 June happens to be a doubly important date for both the next-door Serbs, who commemorate the defeat against the Ottoman Empire in 1389, and for the Archduke, heir to the throne, who celebrates his wedding anniversary with wife Sophie, who has joined him on the trip to Bosnia.
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