the outlier №289
strivers
I’m Ben Mercer and welcome to The Outlier. This letter covers a lot of ground — taking in my move from pro rugby player to author and online man of letters — with reflections on books, interesting individuals, cross-cultural connections and the odd detour.
I’m sorry I didn’t write last week but I was away in Cannes! I’ve enjoyed summing up the experience in a weird way below.
My friend took me along with his new business which was great as I wasn’t on some mad program of events, and while it was apocalyptically hot (41 degrees on the beach), I would do it again. The connections I made and the potential partners for my work have been really useful and I got to see a small piece of France I’d never seen before.
Come and vote (for me) in this month’s the boys book club selection election – which book will we read next?
Like me in Cannes, London has also begun to melt so I’m hawking JG Ballard’s The Drowned World. Oddly enough, on the way to a villa party we passed a sign to Super Cannes which is the title of one of Ballard’s other books, about the psychosis engendered by sterile, privileged modernity.
I love Ballard, a complete weirdo in his work but apparently unnervingly normal and fun in his personal life. If you like him, read Martyin Amis’ obituary of him and if you don’t know him, come and vote for his book below.
for your interest
strivers
I head straight up a hill to a private villa where a big Substacker is talking about her business. it’s exactly the kind of thing I need to hear.
Luckily I get a cab because the incline is steep and there’s a queue of people when I get there, all beginning to perspire in the mid-morning sun. When I get in, I catch most of the talk and stand in front of a misting fan, lightly dowsing me with water droplets while I guzzle iced water. I enjoy the talk and meet some interesting people around the coffee table on the terrace. One teaches at the UN and is a little bemused by the entire affair, carrying a heavy bag of academic papers and looking askance at the various strivers around him. He’s a striver too though.
I leave, passing the pool on my right and wonder if anyone will ever get in before walking down the hill into Cannes.
We’re waiting for the lift. Upstairs, an agency and a platform you’d know are throwing a happy hour and we’re off to hobnob.
The lift opens but it’s tiny and the people who get in first have no intention of squashing up. That’s ok. It’s too hot to do that and I don’t want to smell the failure of that guy’s deoderant.
While we wait for the next one, my eyes are drawn to a framed poem on the wall. It’s about a deep dark hole and is clearly meant to draw some kind of sexual connotation from the too small lift that’s just left us behind. Obviously it’s terrible. Even stranger, I think someone has been paid to compose this specifically for the hotel, a sort of sad disconnected sex work for a struggling poet somewhere.
The next person in line is a girl with bright blue hair. We ask her what she thinks to the poem and we all laugh about it. By the time we reach the top floor, we’ve made friends.
It turns out this girl is a singer in a massive metal band and has almost a million Instagram followers. Besides the blue hair, she’s remarkably low key.
Later, at the hilltop villa, we meet a magician who by follower count, is one of the 100-200 most famous people in the world. He’s also really lovely company.
On the way down from the villa, we share a car with some strangers, one of whom recounts an experience using AI where it tried to convince her to do multiple editing jobs at once and ended its sentence by saying, ‘Total dynamism.’ We all laugh.
Opposite me is a man who tells everyone he’s a CMO of a big business and has a lot of stock options which could make him eye-wateringly rich one day. He is the kind of guy who would actually say total dynamism.
Downstairs in the Palais there’s a whole floor of creative work that’s been nominated for awards at the festival. I go down there to peruse it, while also availing myself of the sharp chill of the air conditioning which sweeps across my sweaty shirt, sucking it dry.
Some of the work is beautiful, the photography witty and smart. Some of it is hypercompetent but a little sad, so much talent in service to the trite. Some is really funny, like Doritos pretending to be the Brazilian Ronaldo’s hair from the 2002 World Cup. Most people here won’t even look at it.
antibes
I’m so glad we stayed in Antibes. It was worth the commute to the festival to be a little out of the mix and I even got a couple of hours to myself one morning to peruse. If you find yourself there, check out Nomads Coffee, Antibes Books, Boulangerie Veziano, the used books in the marketplace and don’t be like me and actually visit the Picasso Museum. It’s a place I’d definitely go back to.
a book
My reading efforts are being spread very thinly right now but if you want something light touch but acerbic and funny for a sunny day, try Anna Brook-Mitchell’s Motherfaker (amazon / independents). A woman fakes a pregnancy to escape her humdrum life in Guernsey and chaos ensues. It’s a debut novel from an established tv writer who does great inner monologue, and while it gets a little obvious later on, I laughed out loud enough times to not mind.
a listen
I didn’t realise people were quite so feral about Phoebe Bridgers, whose music seems too lowkey for that kind of attention, but I do love her stuff and she’s got a new song.
a quote
When I take a tumble in any of my middling endeavours, I know to blame myself and keep it pressing.
– Chris Black
lastly
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I’ll see you next time.