Archive - Slow Players

Slow Players #13: "Terror Makes the New Future Possible" (DeLillo)

Hello, Last week, I took off for a few days. Sam and I drove up the coast to Cambria, looking to get away from this infernal heat, unplugging our…

Sep 10, 2023 •

Matthew Specktor

July 2023

Slow Players #12: "The Only Tonic for The Light" (Tolkin/Altman)

Hello! Some years ago, I worked for a studio. This was in the days when movie studios didn’t put all their eggs into franchise baskets, when they were…

Jul 16, 2023 •

Matthew Specktor

December 2022

Slow Players # 11: "The Smell of Earth Was Decayed, Eternal" (Hazzard, Olubas)

Hello! I’ve told this story before, but I suppose I’ll tell it again. I met Shirley Hazzard in the fall of 2000. I’d been hired to adapt her novel, The…

Dec 4, 2022 •

Matthew Specktor

July 2022

Slow Players #10: A Margarita Hangover at Three in the Afternoon (Passer/Thornburg)

Hello, This newsletter has been enjoying its semi-planned summer hiatus, exactly as I hope you are too—wherever you are, allowing for the fact this…

Jul 4, 2022 •

Matthew Specktor

December 2021

Slow Players #9: "You're playing against yourself." (Eve, Joan, Jonathan, etc)

Hi, Lately I’ve been thinking about the ways writers find to dislike one another. Admittedly, a strange thought at the end of a year in which I’ve been…

Dec 30, 2021 •

Matthew Specktor

October 2021

Slow Players #8: "Which Kennedy?" (Penn)

Hello, You ever find yourself in one of those positions where you want to watch, and re-watch, the same movie repeatedly? I did that last weekend with…

Oct 5, 2021 •

Matthew Specktor

August 2021

Slow Players #7: "Hollywood Boulevard's a Bozo No-No" (Lyne)

Hi: Greetings from what feels like a quintessentially neo-noir situation. Having been evicted from my apartment for a few days thanks to some water…

Aug 1, 2021 •

Matthew Specktor

March 2021

Slow Players #6: "You Always Want to do One Thing--Or You Want to do Nothing . . ." (Clair Noto)

Hi: (If you’re in a hurry this morning and would like a tl/dr quick shot on today’s Slow Players, click here. I have a book imminent! It’s exciting! You…

Mar 5, 2021 •

Matthew Specktor

December 2020

Slow Players #5: "You Have to Hate Yourself For Quite a While" (Terry Castle)

Hi: Last week I was in the grips of an emergency. Not an emergency emergency—myocardial infarction, car crash, where-the-fuck-did-I-put-the-Narcan? type…

Dec 13, 2020 •

Matthew Specktor

November 2020

Slow Players #4: "Making Art to Make Music to Make Art To" (Parfitt)

Hi: It’s cold now in Los Angeles. Those of you who are elsewhere may scoff—or, more likely, be gazing out the window at a climate anomaly of your…

Nov 14, 2020 •

Matthew Specktor

October 2020

Slow Players # 3: "A Radiance That Does Not Know What to Do With Itself"(Broyard)

Hi: Yesterday I was doomscrolling (is there any other kind of scrolling to do at this point?) when I found myself through a series of lily pad hops to…

Oct 11, 2020 •

Matthew Specktor

September 2020

Slow Players #2: "Things We Loved but Could No Longer See" (Mann)

Hi: Like most of us, I’ve been watching a lot of movies lately. Quarantine makes me want, more than anything, to rub up against the screen—or rather, to…

Sep 12, 2020 •

Matthew Specktor

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