Well, you know, I would probably point us to a beautiful Pinot Noir from Joseph Swan up in Sonoma County. You know, it’s like the artwork of Andy Goldsworthy or anyone who delights in anything ephemeral. The charm in a bottle of wine, the craft, all the work that goes into it, and actually delighting in the fact that it’s perishable and goes away I find really helpful.

I’ll give two answers. I bought a new electric teakettle. I used to have all the stovetop kettles. Even though I knew it was vastly better, I underestimated how much better my life would be by having an electric tea kettle so I can have tea actually quickly and more or less on demand with very little fuss.

As a child, it was a yo-yo because I never could master the yo-yo, and it would drive me crazy. And the fact that I couldn’t master it drove me crazy.

Actually, this is quite random, but I love it. It’s a diffuser for aromatherapy oils. My piano is in my lounge and I have this diffuser on. I put different oils in. For when I’m practicing, I would put geranium in, for instance, which I love. I just find it relaxes me, but at the same time keeps me perked up enough to be able to work.

But here’s one I guess that’s more important to me. It’s not something I confess regularly. But every night before I go to bed, I pull out old issues of Archie comics and read them.

This professor was obviously on the jury, and I wanted to stay the faculty’s blessed son, and so I trusted external validation at this point in my life more than my own creative compass. So, like a lemming, I followed his advice. I spent the whole night undoing eight months’ work and recutting the film. And the next day, I presented this hacked up Frankenstein to the faculty, who absolutely demolished it.