HTSI Editor’s Letter: Back to School with Sofia Coppola and Thom Yorke

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Welcome back after what I hope has been a quiet August and a chance to reset before the fall surge. (We’re also sorry if he holidayed in the UK, where he endured an unnecessary amount of rain.) This weekend’s edition offers a small start to the upcoming season. In this back-to-school issue, we focus on names and projects that will give you a taste of the cultural scene.

Full disclosure: I’ve been obsessed with Sofia Coppola ever since I saw the virgin suicides, her first film, in 1999. In a film landscape dominated by Tarantino, Soderbergh, and other ultra-masculine directors, Coppola’s world, by contrast, was wonderfully feminine, quietly subversive, and very small. Since then, the industry has become more focused on women; i write this as Barbie It has become the highest grossing film of this year. I consider Coppola the essential progenitor of this new landscape: besides, I am crazy about his personal sense of style. We talk about his eighth film, priscilla, in Paris, shortly before the SAG-AFTRA strike. In an age where independent filmmaking is so difficult and financially demanding, it was a pleasure to meet someone who I think of as an auteur.

Just as Coppola inspires a certain kind of interest, Thom Yorke inspires the kind of ardor that is often exclusive to teenage fans. As the lead vocalist and songwriter for Radiohead, he is considered one of the most significant voices in rock music, as well as having composed a large number of independent soundtracks, songs and scores. This issue examines another vein of his limitless talent: in an exhibition with his friend Stanley Donwood, The Crow Flies, Yorke will show his paintings for the first time. The works, which depict imagined landscapes, were painted as a duet for Radiohead spin-off group The Smile. They were produced in Yorke’s garden studio, where the couple took turns wielding the brush. Donwood is meticulous and obsessive, the complete opposite of the more “explosive” Yorke.

Elsewhere in this multitude of independent voices, we meet painter Mandy El-Sayegh and beauty entrepreneur April Gargiulo. the sayegh uses printed material (including FOOT newspaper) to create hybrid pieces that viewers can read as a forensic study of his personal and political life, or simply absorb in a more abstract way. This year he has opened three solo shows: a look, he says, into the “inside of his head.” She is especially proud of how her work represents a journey for her family from “abject poverty” to “bourgeoisie.”

Meanwhile, Gargiulo has used his experience in the family winemaking business to create Vintner’s Daughter, an award-winning beauty brand. The beauty of Vintner’s Daughter is not in its massive offering, but in how, with just two products in its 10 years of existence, it has maintained a steady 30 to 35 percent annual growth. Gargiulo has taken the fundamentals of viticulture and distilled them into a completely different realm. As he launches his third product after a four-year period of research and development, she explains whywhen it comes to running a real business, you have all the time in the world.

@jellison22

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