MEDIA DIET
By:
July 12, 2026
A weekly series exploring the media “input” of a group of people — HILOBROW’s friends and contributors — whose “output” we admire.
Gordon has been a valued HILOBROW contributor since 2013. His first post was on the topic of LORD OF LIGHT. His most recent contributions to this publication include: BLACKADDER | WALKER | THE CONFORMIST.
Brooklyn…
HILOBROW: What forms of media do you “take in” the most regularly/frequently, during a typical day or week?
GORDON DAHLQUIST: My main established news source is The Guardian, which I read pretty thoroughly every day. I’m also a charter subscriber to Defector.com, ostensibly a sports site but with great coverage of arts and politics as well. I read the London Review of Books on the subway in and out of Manhattan. We also subscribe to the New Yorker, but — something about the ever-measured tone in these awful days, less egregious than the NYT, but still — I find I’ve stopped reading it. I listen to each episode of the Guardian Football Weekly.
HILOBROW: What work of literature (old or new) would you recommend to someone trying to make sense of today’s world? Explain why.
GORDON DAHLQUIST: For me it’s Gerald’s Party, by Robert Coover, a book I would absolutely push on more people if only I could predict whether or not they’d find it (and in turn me) appalling. Like so much of Coover, it’s a tour-de-force of cringe-filled, very dark, dubious hilarity — and I can’t think of a better portrait of how appetite and self-interest relentlessly undermine the social contract.
HILOBROW: What’s the best movie you’ve seen recently?
GORDON DAHLQUIST: I was lucky enough to recently see Tsai Ming-Liang’s Goodbye, Dragon Inn projected at The Metrograph. I’d heard about the film for years but never seen it, and — so dominated by silence and ambient sound — I doubt I would have appreciated it half as much outside of a theatre, where it was absolutely immersive. It’s the amazing — hilarious, heartbreaking, wondrous — story of the final show at a derelict movie house in Taipei: King Hu’s 1966 wuxia epic Dragon Inn playing for a tiny audience of mostly single men there to cruise. Durational and wry — the urinal scene could almost be from a Chaplin short, the ticket girl’s leaden climb to the projection booth a scene from Wavelength — as if one could imagine In the Mood for Love without dialogue, plot, glamour, or soundtrack, yet somehow a similar emotional resonance.
HILOBROW: What’s the best movie you’ve ever seen?
GORDON DAHLQUIST: Probably Kubrick’s Barry Lyndon. That he could combine control-freak spectacle with a routinely improvised script is an insane achievement. Maybe Ryan O’Neal was just playing himself — he’s still brilliant.
HILOBROW: What’s the best TV series you’ve seen recently?
GORDON DAHLQUIST: This is cheating, but we were lucky enough — also at The Metrograph — to see the entirety of Twin Peaks: The Return projected over a single weekend, 9 hours each day. To say I emerged in a daze is an understatement — I drank the whole thing in, bowled over by the sprawling dramaturgy, the radically swerving tone, and the incredibly open performances. It’s the masterpiece of a genius.
HILOBROW: What music — genres, particular artists and songs — do you listen to during a typical day?
GORDON DAHLQUIST: I listen to music on headphones while I work, mainly to form a barrier between my thoughts and the outside world. As such, if I find a good spell of productivity I tend to listen to the same things again and again — for days, weeks, longer. A couple of years ago a film editor friend turned me on the Houston trio Khruangbin, and to my great shame and enjoyment I’ve been listening almost exclusively to them ever since when I work. Maybe it’s the dreamy basslines, but I find them incredibly conducive to writing. My favorite is probably their Live at Sydney Opera House, where things stretch out a little. Away from writing it’s more of a mix — evenings at home involve a lot of early Bill Evans Trio, Miles Davis, and Thievery Corporation’s Saudade record.
HILOBROW: What music did you love as a teenager? Do you still listen to it today?
GORDON DAHLQUIST: High school in the Pacific Northwest in the ’70s meant discovering punk and new wave as they arrived — Elvis Costello, Gang of Four, Sex Pistols, Clash, Cars, XTC. But because it was the Pacific Northwest, all of this sat on a bed of very loud arena rock — The Who, Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin — and because I grew up listening to my big sister’s records, all of that sat on a bed of The Beatles. I retain an affection for most of it, but with the exception of The Beatles (hello, 13-minute Helter Skelter Take 2!) my actual listens now are pretty sporadic.
HILOBROW: How do you use social media, these days?
GORDON DAHLQUIST: I’ve never had any presence on social media. I have an account on BlueSky and follow a handful of people there, mostly writers, but posting is not for me.
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.