MEDIA DIET
By:
August 28, 2026
A weekly series exploring the media “input” of a group of people — HILOBROW’s friends and contributors — whose “output” we admire.
Rani has been a valued HILOBROW contributor since 2018. Her first post was on the topic of KNEE-HIGH BOOTS. Her most recent contributions to this publication include: SUMMER | LED ZEP | EASY LIFE.
Brooklyn…
HILOBROW: What forms of media do you “take in” the most regularly/frequently, during a typical day or week?
RANI SOM: I used to read the New York Times and The Guardian on the daily but do so less frequently now because of their occasional forays into giving space to anti-trans opinion in the name of “fairness.” Increasingly, I’ve had to tune out the news as stories continue to be written and broadcast with the thinnest sliver of a critical approach to the current US regime. I’m sickened that reporters continue to maintain a facade of ‘objectivity’ in the face of the unmitigated lunacy in Washington. (And Jerusalem, Moscow and New Delhi.) Having said that, I will tune into the BBC (who, granted, also continue to grant a platform for transphobic voices) and NPR (less so,) when I wake up, as my wife is getting ready to go to work and the bathroom is not yet free. My aural medicine, seemingly free from political taint, is the BBC’s Shipping Forecast, a weather report covering several bodies of water surrounding the UK, all with alluring and poetic names: German Bight, Fastnet, North Utsire and South Utsire. The Utsires sound to me like two ancient Norse giants guarding the North Sea, a comforting image in a time of graft and rot.
HILOBROW: What are your reading habits?
RANI SOM: I love to read in bed, just before I start to drowse. Right now I’m reading The Deception Well, a 1997 SF romp that I bought for a dollar from the paperback shelf of a Hannaford supermarket in Glens Falls, NY. I also read books when I take the subway in New York — my commute from Park Slope to Long Island City, for a freelance architecture gig in the 2010s, afforded me a luxurious 45 minutes of reading time. When I’m traveling, I love to pick up a newspaper at the airport and pore over articles that I normally wouldn’t pay attention to. On my recent trip to San Francisco, where I’m writing this response, I bought a weekend edition of The Financial Times, a thick and beautifully formatted paper, touching on world affairs, bougie finance and real estate, vacuous fashion and style trends, and very English cryptic crosswords.
HILOBROW: What music — genres, particular artists and songs — do you listen to during a typical day?
RANI SOM: When I sit down to draw at my desk, I’ll put on BBC6 Music for three hours, a station that plays an eclectic mix of old school stuff from my teenage years, contemporary sounds (sprechgesang post-punk, dance music (drum + bass, EDM, hyperpop,) ’60s tunes and if I’m lucky, a My Bloody Valentine song. In the afternoon I’ll sometimes switch to Akashbani Kolkata, a Bengali-language radio station playing a lot of old records that I remember from visiting India and that my parents used to put on at home in Manhattan. If I need soothing, I’ll cue up a Ravi Shankar LP. I still have my dad’s old Shankar collection: The Sounds of India, At The Woodstock Festival, Concerto for Sitar and Orchestra (with the London Symphony Orchestra and Andre Previn.) As afternoon flirts with evening, I may listen to other South Asian sounds: ghazals by Jagjit and Chitra Singh, Mehdi Hassan, Nayyara Noor and Tina Sani.
HILOBROW: What music did you love as a teenager? Do you still listen to it today?
RANI SOM: My brother, who lives in London, influenced my taste in music from an early age. The first records I remember him bringing home to New York: The Clash’s first album, The Specials’ eponymous debut, The Jam’s All Mod Cons. I fell hard for The Jam and idolized Paul Weller — his rich and complex lyrics, the force and kinetic quality of the music, their mod fashion sense. But I can’t listen to them anymore, maybe because I felt I OD’d on them as a teen. What stays with me: Kate Bush’s entire oeuvre, a lot of ska and 2-Tone, and many records from the Goth canon. Just last week I went to see two tribute bands, on the occasion of Ian Curtis’ birthday: Voodoo Dolly, four African-Americans covering Siouxsie and the Banshees, and Dead Souls, who were channeling Joy Division. I’m usually wary of the very idea of tribute bands but I couldn’t help myself and I had a grand time, dancing through the darkness.
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