MEDIA DIET
By:
October 3, 2026
A weekly series exploring the media “input” of a group of people — HILOBROW’s friends and contributors — whose “output” we admire.
Lisa Jane has been a valued HILOBROW contributor since 2017. Her first post was the series CHICKEN LIT. Her most recent contributions to this publication include: RUMBLE FISH | PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE | SORCEROR.
Los Angeles…
HILOBROW: What’s the best TV series you’ve seen recently?
LISA JANE PERSKY: What dropped my jaw? Noah Hawley’s Fargo (every season) is full of horrible and glorious surprises and scenery-chewing performances that are completely believable. Steven Conrad’s Patriot proves that cheerless glee can be a pleasurable thing. He also gives Kurtwood Smith the role of a lifetime: just, wow. Sally Wainwright’s Happy Valley: A crime drama where the women do the work. Wainwright, equally appreciated by both sexes, writes for women. It’s appropriate to call this show “epic.” You’ll want to see what accomplished an actual increase of community police officers in the UK. Following these riveting hours enrobed in existential dread, I know you have room for Joe Brumm’s family of adorable, animated Australian Cattle Dogs and their assorted dog friends. Bluey, named for the family daughter, is an accurate depiction of every — even the most benign — childhood family interaction. Each event is as warm and fuzzy as looking back on your own family (related or hand-picked) life, but decades later, after you’ve had some time to forgive. The episodes are minutely crafted, coming in at only 7 minutes. Bluey at the top and always as the palate cleanser Bluey is also a bastion of hope, the opposite of Industry, the Ted Lasso of cartoons. We’re lucky the second golden age of television landed in time for and during the worldwide misery of Covid.
HILOBROW: What’s the best movie you’ve seen recently?
LISA JANE PERSKY: Köln 75. This film is the true story of ballsy, teenage Vera Brandes, the person responsible for a Keith Jarrett gig that resulted in the now legendary powerhouse performance on a sub-par piano. It happened in — as if you didn’t know — Cologne, Germany in 1975 in front of a packed house at nearly midnight. If not for Brandes’ intuition, good taste, and enthusiasm for an artist of measure, we’d never have heard the bestselling solo album in the history of jazz. The film is also stunningly accurate in its portrayal of a time when young people believed in the magic of one another, the ability to make events of magnitude happen on a shoestring, and even to make change in the world, despite bureaucracy and conservativism. Buy it online if you can. It deserves far more box office than it received.
HILOBROW: How do you use social media, these days?
LISA JANE PERSKY: I follow over-many, wildly different accounts on Instagram, thereby confusing attempts to stake me to a ceaseless parade of wrong-side-up bats. I hit “like” on a lot of things. This space is made for the capricious. I want surprises there, like the performance art of @thegoddessboys, image resources like @visualatelier @anonymousworks, fashion from @nakullax. AI in photography is disconcerting. I’m still mad that the night sky on Mars doesn’t look like what @echoesofunboundcuriosity depicts. @NealKShah has helped me get through the relentless caregiving required by my 95-year-old father, and made it less lonely. I put him in at #1 right now, though I look forward to not needing him, should that day ever come.
HILOBROW: Do you subscribe to any magazines or newsletters that you’d strongly recommend?
LISA JANE PERSKY: I started eating magazines when I was an infant — and it took. I ate LIFE and LOOK and House and Garden. I have a small collection of vintage magazines that I add to. My latest acquisition is Cosmopolitan’s “Greenwich Village Issue: Breeding Ground of Ideas” dated December 1963. Sad to say a recent goodbye to Maggot Brain, which we so cherished around our house. I’m not cheffy but I like to bake, so NYT Cooking. The Cream Scones recipe: my gawd it’s good. Make it right now and eat it hot. Any and everything All Night Menu by Sam Sweet who isn’t from, but ‘gets’ L.A.
And of course, HILOBROW!
HILOBROW: Share a media “input” of yours that wasn’t listed above.
LISA JANE PERSKY: I listen to podcasts. I don’t watch them. I grew up listening to radio. Listening is good. If I were to watch, I’d have to stop doing whatever the yapping is playing to help me get through. Thanks, fave nerds: Hidden Brain, with science journalist Shankar Vedantam; Space Time, with Stuart Gary; Science Quickly, with Rachel Feltman from Scientific American because “Science! As deep as any ocean,” and much exciting news there.
Also: Consider public transportation as media source. Wherever I am, I ride to find the tone and tenor of life there. I also include Herb Lester Maps: a favorite way to enter a city, a world. Superb graphic design and punchy writing lead you to places here, there and imaginary wheres.
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 | & many others! Visit the SERIES INDEX.