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Talkhouse

Dessa is a rapper, writer, and public speaker whose extraordinary career spans many genres. As a writer, she has contributed to the New York Times, the Star Tribune, the hit podcast Welcome to Night Vale, and literary journals around the country. She’s hosted radio and TV events, delivered keynote speeches around the country, contributed to The Hamilton Mixtape, and tried every dessert that was ever offered to her. Dessa has toured North America, Europe, Australia, China, and South Africa, both as a solo artist and as a proud member of the Doomtree hip-hop collective.
In August of 2019, <a class="c-link" href="https://slack-redir.net/link?url=http%3A%2F%2FTED.com" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">TED.com</a> featured a talk on heartbreak and neuroscience that Dessa delivered in Hong Kong. In the weeks since, her speech, titled &#8220;Can We Choose to Fall Out of Love,&#8221; has accrued more than a million views. Other recent career accomplishments include 2018’s acclaimed album Chime, a Super Bowl 2018 performance, in spring of 2019, she performed her sixth straight sold-out show with the Minnesota Orchestra at Orchestra Hall.  The Utne Reader called her simply a “one-woman powerhouse.”
(Photo Credit: Matthew Levine)

Dessa

Music

Three Great Things: Dessa

David Michôd is an Australian film director and screenwriter known for his films Animal Kingdom, The Rover and War Machine. His latest film, The King, will be distributed by Netflix and stars Timothée Chalamet, Joel Edgerton, Robert Pattinson, Ben Mendelsohn, Lily-Rose Depp, Sean Harris, Tom Glynn-Carney and Thomasin McKenzie. Michôd co-wrote the television series Catch-22, based on Joseph Heller’s celebrated novel, starring George Clooney and Chris Abbott. He was the editor of Australia’s Inside Film magazine between 2003 and 2006. He is a graduate of the University of Melbourne and Victorian College of the Arts School of Film &amp; Television. (Picture by Mirrah Foulkes.)

David Michôd

Film

Three Great Things: David Michôd

Formed in New Brunswick, NJ in 2005, Screaming Females are Marissa Paternoster (guitar, vox), Mike Abbate (bass), and Jarrett Dougherty (drums). Over six albums and more than a decade of music making, the band has remained deeply individual and steadfastly DIY. They have also grown into one of the most dynamic and devastating touring bands going today.

Screaming Females

Three Great Things: Screaming Females

Noah Hawley is one of the most accomplished auteurs and versatile storytellers working in television, film and literature. Lucy in the Sky, his feature film directorial debut starring Natalie Portman, Jon Hamm, Zazie Beetz, Dan Stevens, Pearl Amanda Dickson and Ellen Burstyn, is in theaters through Fox Searchlight from October 4. Over the course of his more than 20-year career, Hawley’s work as a novelist, screenwriter, series creator, showrunner and director has garnered acclaim – winning an Emmy®, Golden Globe®, PEN, Critics’ Choice, and Peabody Award – and passionate response from audiences. Also a best-selling author, Hawley has published five novels: A Conspiracy of Tall Men, Other People’s Weddings, The Punch, The Good Father and most recently the bestseller Before the Fall. He currently serves as executive producer, writer, director and showrunner on the award-winning anthology series, Fargo, and also the creator and executive producer on Legion, which just concluded its third and final season. Production on the fourth installment of Fargo, starring Chris Rock, begins this fall. Fargo: This is a True Story, a companion book to the first three seasons of the series and authored by Hawley, which will be released by Grand Central Publishing in October.

Noah Hawley

Three Great Things: Noah Hawley

Saul Williams has been breaking ground since his debut album, Amethyst Rock Star, which was released in 2001 and executive produced by Rick Rubin. After gaining global fame for his poetry and writings at the turn of the century, Williams has performed in over thirty&nbsp;countries and read in over three hundred&nbsp;universities, with invitations that have spanned from the White House, the Sydney Opera House, Lincoln Center, The Louvre, The Getty Center, Queen Elizabeth Hall, to countless villages, townships, community centers, and prisons across the world. The Newburgh, New York, native gained a BA from Morehouse and an MFA from Tisch, and has gone on to record with Nine Inch Nails and Allen Ginsburg and has performed in numerous film and television&nbsp;roles.

Saul Williams

Three Great Things: Saul Williams

Takashi Miike’s latest film, the gonzo yakuza thriller <a href="https://www.wellgousa.com/films/first-love" target="_blank" rel="noopener">First Love</a>, is in theaters from September 27 through Well Go USA. Miike’s first films were made direct-to-video in the V-cinema system, which was a way for Japanese studios to develop young filmmakers without using big budgets. A fierce filmmaker, Miike immediately became known for his energetic style and began to explore new genres and accelerate his output. He has since directed more than 100 features between the late ’90s and 2019. In his work, Miike can be seen perverting the Yakusa Eiga (mafia genre), as well as the burlesque comedy (Yatterman), the intimate drama (Visitor Q), the Western (Sukiyaki Western Django), the horror film (One Missed Call), the manga adaptation (Crows Zero 1 and 2, Ichi The Killer, Terra Formars), Tokusatsu Japanese-style super hero movies (Zebraman) and the action genre (Dead or Alive 1, 2, 3). Miike expresses the &#8220;do it yourself&#8221; attitude of punk culture in his films. After being saluted by Quentin Tarantino, his 2000 film Audition became critically acclaimed in the West.

Takashi Miike

Three Great Things: Takashi Miike

Chastity Belt’s energy is like a circuit, circling around the silly and the sincere. Tongue-in-cheek shit-shooting and existential rumination feed into each other infinitely.
Theirs is a long-term relationship, and that loop sustains them. That’s a creative thesis in and of itself, but isn’t that also just the mark of a true-blue friendship?
The band talks a lot about intention these days — how to be more present with each other. The four piece — Julia Shapiro (vocals, guitar, drums), Lydia Lund (vocals, guitar), Gretchen Grimm (drums, vocals, guitar) and Annie Truscott (bass) — is nine years deep in this, after all. It seems now, more than ever, that circuit is a movement of intentionality, one that creates a space inside which they can be themselves, among themselves. It’s a space where the euphoria of making music with your best friends is protected from the outside world’s churning expectations. It’s a kind of safe zone for the band to occupy as their best selves: a group of friends who love each other.
Their fourth record, Chastity Belt, comes out of that safe space. With the luxury of spending several weeks in the studio with Jay Som’s Melina Duterte, Chastity Belt was able to experiment. The result is their most sonically developed and nuanced record yet; one that’s not only a product of, but a series of reflections on what it means to take what you need and to understand yourself better.

Chastity Belt

Three Great Things: Chastity Belt

Negativland&#8216;s True False will be out October 25.

Negativland

Three Great Things: Negativland

Jason Mewes most recently made his directorial debut on Madness in the Method, which will be released in select theaters, on demand and digitally by Cinedigm on August 2, 2019, with a DVD and Blu-ray release to follow later in the year. In addition, he can be seen touring comedy clubs across the country with his solo show “A-Mewes-ing Stories,” where he shares stories about his life and encounters over the years. With cult fans following his controversial antics, Mewes has captured audiences with rebellious banter against his unspoken other half and longtime friend, Kevin Smith (Silent Bob). Since the beginning of the duo’s offbeat work together, Mewes and Smith have continued to build on their beloved character driven roles from the Jay and Silent Bob series. Mewes’ most noted film credits include: Smith’s award-winning Clerks, Mallrats, Chasing Amy, Dogma, Clerks II, Zack and Miri Make a Porno, and Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back. This string of cult hits all celebrated and continued Mewes’ infamous role as “Jay,” a bawdy, fast talking, and over sexed but very likable guy.

Jason Mewes

Three Great Things: Jason Mewes

As with so many artistic endeavors, Ada Lea’s debut album began as one thing and ended up as something else. The commonality of that process doesn’t make the story any less interesting, however, especially in the case of what we say in private — a beautifully colorful collection of profound pop songs that will be released later this summer via her new Saddle Creek home.
The Montreal, Quebec-based Alexandra Levy — who records and performs as Ada Lea — is also a painter and visual artist, and traces of her many creative abilities run throughout what we say in private. To her, music and visual art are different vessels for communicating similar ideas. Levy’s appreciation of female artists — including the writer Sylvia Plath, visual artists Frida Kahlo and Eva Hesse, and musicians Karen Dalton and Nina Simone — provides inspiration and guidance, informing her use of multiple artforms as tools for self-expression. Through all her work, Levy explores the concept of womanhood as it feels and looks to her, as well as love and how it transforms over time. She doesn’t shy away from exploring uncomfortable and painful emotions, either. With the brightness of love, strength, and hope contrasted with the darkness of loss, suffering, isolation, and abandonment, what we say in private is a varied and vivid record that constantly seems to shift in the light, bringing together all the intricate influences she’s collected over the years.
Levy delivers something very special on what we say in private. Bold and daring, but also gentle and vulnerable, the album finds new ways of presenting its vision from one inspired idea to the next, a big leap into the wider world with passion and exuberance.
(Photo Credit: Bao Ngo)

Ada Lea

Three Great Things: Ada Lea

Born and raised in the border city of Chula Vista, California, Jackie Mendoza blends the cultural influences of her hometown and her motherland of Tijuana, Mexico, creating eccentric pop, Latin-driven dance beats, and vibrant soundscapes. She’s been involved in music since she was young, listening to Latin-pop songs at family parties, and playing in bands in high school. It wasn’t until she took a course for Ableton in college that she discovered an avid interest in producing and making beats. Since then, Mendoza has been experimenting with electronic ukulele-based pop, expanding the sound to its maximum potential by layering it with beats while singing in both English and Spanish.
Mendoza’s LuvHz EP is a six track exploration of love and relationships through personal experiences and observations. She recorded the EP with Rusty Santos (Panda Bear’s Buoys), a collaborator that Mendoza quickly realized she had many parallels with. Both have lived in LA, NY, and Mexico and have an appreciation for Latin producers and Reggaeton artists, sounds that perfectly translated into Mendoza’s music.
(Photo Credit: Tayo Oyekan)

Jackie Mendoza

Three Great Things: Jackie Mendoza

Carlos Reygadas is a Mexican film director, writer and producer whose latest film, <a href="https://www.monumentreleasing.com/our-time" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Our Time</a> (Nuestro Tiempo) is currently in theaters through Monument Releasing. He studied law in Mexico City and later specialized in armed conflict law and the use of force in London. After quitting the Mexican foreign service, he made four short films in Belgium before filming Japón, which was presented at the Rotterdam and the Cannes Film Festivals in 2002, where it received a special mention for the Camera d&#8217;Or. In 2005, Reygadas premiered at the Cannes Film Festival his second film, Battle in Heaven, in competition. Also at Cannes, he was awarded the Jury Prize in 2007 for Silent Light and the Best Director award for Post Tenebras Lux in 2012.

Three Great Things