MEDIA DIET
By:
June 15, 2026
A weekly series exploring the media “input” of a group of people — HILOBROW’s friends and contributors — whose “output” we admire.
Seth has been a valued HILOBROW contributor since 2017. His first post was on the topic of PEANUTS PAPERBACK. His most recent contributions to this publication include: THE ETERNALS ANNUAL | ENTERPRISE MODEL | WAR OF THE WORLDS.
Guelph…
HILOBROW: What forms of media do you “take in” the most regularly/frequently, during a typical day or week?
SETH: I collect old TV broadcasts with the commercials and station breaks still in them (there is a weird and obscure market for this out there if you can track it down). The ones I most collect are old broadcasts of movies. Most of this stuff is from the late ’70s or the ’80s or even the ’90s. During the time when people were recording tv on their VCRs (and were too lazy to edit out the commercials — thank goodness). I love the time travel quality these old broadcasts give. I grew up in a house where the TV was on from morning to night and I find the experience of that old commercially oriented television very comforting. So, having some random broadcast of a 1950s b/w movie, badly edited, scratchy sound, and full of old vintage commercials playing in the background while I am drawing in my studio gives me the coziest feeling imaginable. I know this sounds sickening but cut me some slack. This modern world genuinely stinks and I need some serious self care.
HILOBROW: What are your reading habits?
SETH: Because I work at home (basement studio) I have a very routine schedule and I can only read for pleasure in two time slots. The first is the most productive — lunchtime. I take a long lunch — easily an hour or an hour and a half. Same meal every day. This is when I notice how quiet the house is. While reading. Always fiction. I carry on (usually) with whatever book I am reading at lunch during my second slot — bedtime. This is the more fraught experience… since it always ends up with the book hitting me in the face. The last page read before this is always entirely forgotten (and must be read again the next day at lunch). Also, daily, I read nonfiction at the drawing table. In small doses. Takes me months to get through a book though.
HILOBROW: What’s the best movie you’ve seen recently?
SETH: Last week I watched Visconti’s The Leopard from 1963. All I knew about it was that it bombed in the butchered American edit but was well regarded in its original form… and I had only found that out by looking it up the moment before I watched it. Set in the mid-19th century Sicily. Period drama. As the narrative rolled out I expected it to follow a familiar pattern — probably about passing eras or about the shock of modernity and lost values… and I suppose there was some of that in there… but what most amazed me about the film was that it did not seem to be directly about anything specific. Yes, I could dredge up a handful of themes — easily — but nothing hitting you over the head. Remarkably understated. And lush art direction and cinematography. The later half of the film (taking place at the Ball) just rolled over you so slowly and luxuriously. I was left sated and maybe strangely sad. I’m still thinking about it.
HILOBROW: What’s the best TV series you’ve ever seen?
SETH: The Victorian Kitchen Garden. Made by the BBC in the 1980s. I saw one episode by accident late in that decade and just adored it. I never chanced on another one back then but I remembered the show and tried to track down videos (and later DVD) for years. Eventually, once I got a computer (this century), I found the complete series on DVD and have watched it a hundred times (and its sequel). It is a marvel of slow time. Very meditative and sweet. The two men, Harry Dodson (gardener) and Peter Thoday (biologist), refurbish a defunct Victorian walled garden over a year’s time and bring it back to life using only the old methods. This sounds pretty dull, I know, but it is not. I don’t even garden. Never have. Yet the tone and measure of the series is hypnotically mundane but also somehow kind of profound too. Harry and Peter are very charming. Very charming.
HILOBROW: Anything else?
SETH: We still get “the papers” every weekend. I like the physical quality of that. I’ll be sad when that experience comes to an end (which it surely will).
MEDIA DIET series: MATTHEW BATTLES | ADRIENNE CREW | HOLLY INTERLANDI | CAROLYN KELLOGG | MARK KINGWELL | FLOURISH KLINK | ADAM McGOVERN | CHARLIE MITCHELL | TOM NEALON | ANNIE NOCENTI | GARY PANTER | LYNN PERIL | JONATHAN PINCHERA | NICHOLAS ROMBES | CARLO ROTELLA | LUCY SANTE | SETH | MIKE WATT | JUDITH ZISSMAN | & more to come! Visit the SERIES INDEX.