MEDIA HORDE
Shirley Manson

“I am a basketball
freak! One day when
I was in the studio
recording Beautiful
Garbage, I was flipping
through channels to
kill time and saw Tim
Duncan from the San
Antonio Spurs taking
free throws. I was like,
‘That man has
an amazing face.’
So I carried on
watching, and the
Spurs just captured my
imagination. They’re
a ragtag bunch of
weird, scrappy players,
and then there’s the
Goliath figure of
Tim Duncan, who
seems completely
unflappable. I was
attracted to his
serenity because I’m a
firebrand and he’s like
cool, calm water.”

“Dirk Wears White
Sox, by Adam and
the Ants, was a great
album. I couldn’t buy
it, because my pocket
money was cut off after
my parents caught me
smoking, but my best
friend and I hung out
with these posh boys
who had great record
collections. They
turned me on to Adam
before he got crazy and
dressed up as a pirate.”

The guide to how entertainers entertain themselves. This month: The Garbage frontwoman acts out on

Terminator: The Sarah

Connor Chronicles.

“After I see anything of [artist] Tracey Emin’s, I feel like weeping at her feet in gratitude. She had an exhibition here in L.A. last year called ‘You Left Me Breathing,’ and it was amazing. I’m going to sound ghastly sexist here, but Tracey is very emotional and in a very unwieldy way, and that often makes men uncomfortable.”

“My sisters and I
watched Star Trek
faithfully for years. I
wouldn’t call myself a
Trekkie, but I wasn’t
just mildly interested,
either. I remember
being intrigued by
Scotty. Obviously, we
were very proud that
there was a Scottish
character on an Ameri-
can TV show. I think
it’s something Ameri-
cans can’t understand,
but coming from a tiny
island where there is
no real film industry, it
was mind-blowing.”

“I’ve been reading a
lot about grief because
a dear friend of mine
recently lost her
husband. I just finished
Rob Sheffield’s book
Love Is a Mix Tape,
and I thought he did a
beautiful job of articu-
lating pain and loss in
a very restrained way. I
like the idea that music
can be a soundtrack
for suffering and still
be uplifting.”

“When I was ¹⁵,

Siouxsie Sioux was
everything I wanted to
be. I went to see her
once, and one of the
boys I was with threw
a leather necklace that
he’d made onstage,
and she picked it up
and wore it. I swear to
God, I think I swooned.
That was my physical
connection with
her—it was like she
had touched me.”

“I thought Into the
Wild was an exquisite
film. What appealed
to me was the mystery
of it—that sometimes
you can’t understand
why people do things.
I love that nothing was
fully explained. That’s
how life is. We’re led
to believe that we have
answers to everything,
and we don’t.”