inspire

How do you find inspiration? Say you’re doing your holiday shopping and you’re struggling to find the perfect gift for that difficult person on your list — parent, partner, paramour. How do you let your mind drift to a place where the clouds part and you achieve a sort of awakening?

To be honest, I don’t always get there. But caffeine is usually a good place to start.

I’m Glenn Whipp, columnist for the Los Angeles Times and host of The Envelope newsletter, back in your inbox for the next few months as we sail through the atmospheric river of awards season. Climb aboard.

Cover story: The best six minutes in movies this year

(Bexx Francois / For The Times)

You might remember how much I love “Sinners,” Ryan Coogler’s audacious, genre-defying blockbuster that explores the intrinsic power of American blues music and Black life in the Jim Crow South within the context of a vampire horror movie.

So I was thrilled to talk with Coogler and his longtime department heads — a movie family that includes Oscar winners who have been with him since his 2013 debut, “Fruitvale Station” — for The Envelope’s first cover story of the season. There were a dozen different ways I could have gone with the piece, but our conversations kept coming back to the scene in the juke joint when young Sammie (Miles Caton) conjures spirits from the past and future onto the dance floor.

How did Coogler summon this scene? It goes back to that question I asked at the outset: How do you find inspiration?

For Coogler, “Sinners” began on Nov. 17, 2021, a date fixed in his mind because it was the day one of his favorite rappers, Young Dolph, was murdered. Coogler was devastated. And his mind drifted back to Nipsey Hussle, the L.A. rapper gunned down outside his South L.A. clothing store in 2019. Coogler was living in Los Angeles at the time, trying to get a “Space Jam” sequel off the ground.

“I felt like I had my heart ripped out, bro,” Coogler told me. “I have two younger brothers I’m really close with, and I remember reading an article in the L.A. Times about his older brother recounting what happened. It just broke me. And then I get the news that Dolph’s been killed in his hometown, and I just remember feeling, ‘I’m done with rap, man.’”

Later, Coogler spoke with his friend, “Black Panther” producer Nate Moore, lamenting that rappers who talk about their lives, beating the odds and escaping hardship, sometimes end up succumbing to the thing they thought they left behind. Moore isn’t a rap guy, but told Coogler that his favorite music, grunge, was just like that — in this case, artists addressing their struggles with depression and addiction and then, on occasion, overdosing or taking their own lives.

Toward the end of that day, Coogler was driving back from the set of “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever.” Passing through Byron, Ga., the Oakland native looked out his window and saw, for the first time in his life, a cotton field. During our interview, Coogler pulls out his phone and finds a video his sister-in-law shot of him taking it all in and picking a sprig of cotton. Coogler kept it, eventually putting it on his work desk at home.

“That was a part of finding ‘Sinners,’” Coogler says. “The other thing that happened was I started listening to grunge music, taking a break from rap. And as soon as I put the music on, I was like, ‘Yo, this feels like my uncle’s. It led me right back to his record collection.”

That uncle, James Edmonson, loved the blues. Coogler’s cousin, Edmonson’s youngest daughter, told the filmmaker about a Bill Withers’ song, “I Can’t Write Left-Handed,” written from the perspective of a Vietnam veteran. Coogler listened to it, and it reminded him of “Rooster,” the Alice in Chains song written by guitarist Jerry Cantrell for his father, who served in Vietnam.

“So I’m playing these two songs one after another, and I’m like, ‘These genres that you wouldn’t find next to each other at a Tower Records back in the day, they’re so close,’” Coogler says. “And studying the history of it, it’s people playing it different, but it’s the same idea.”

“And that’s when I realized I had to make ‘Sinners.’”

Coogler scrolls through his phone and shows a picture of the cotton sprig on his desk. He dedicated “Sinners” to his uncle, who died about a decade before it arrived in theaters.

“So many cosmic moments came together for this movie,” Coogler says. “I was always like, ‘All right. I just gotta make sure I don’t f— it up.’”

Arriving at Sale Sharks as part of a high-profile revamp, Holly Aitchison has made one big move this summer.

She is adamant she won’t be making a second.

“[England head coach] John Mitchell has made it pretty clear to me that I can cover different positions, but I am a 10,” she told BBC Sport.

“And I won’t be seen as anything else.”

A year ago, the question wouldn’t have been asked.

At WXV in Canada, Aitchison was the Red Roses’ starting fly-half, steering them to title-clinching victories over New Zealand and Canada.

Her playmaking and running abilities were a key part of diversifying England’s threat, ensuring that, come the Rugby World Cup in England, they would have more cutting edges than a bandsaw.

It didn’t turn out like that.

Zoe Harrison edged in front as first-choice 10, with Aitchison shifted into the centres or on to the bench.

An ankle injury in the run-up to the Rugby World Cup meant Aitchison struggled to challenge for her spot, only appearing in the knock-out stages and then being deployed as a midfield replacement in the semi-final and final victories over France and Canada respectively.

But the 28-year-old is resolute in sticking to her position and her philosophy.

“I want to dictate,” she said.

“Obviously I got that ankle injury before the World Cup, but we were definitely moving in the more expansive direction.

“That’s something that I champion, that’s what I bring as a 10.

“I want to inspire the backline, I want to play this brand of rugby that attracts viewers.

“In the men’s game, I think of players like Finn Russell – you buy a ticket to watch him.

“I want that kind of hype around players in the women’s game where we’re creating that style of brand that people want to watch.”

At Sale, she hopes she has found the stage to do that.

The team finished last in PWR last season, but they have invested and improved.

Aitchison’s England team-mate Amy Cokayne and Scotland wing Rhona Lloyd were also signed over the summer while England’s Morweena Talling and the United States’ all-action lock Erica Jarrell-Searcy are part of an exciting back five in the pack.

Sale co-owner Michelle Orange had earmarked this season, after the Rugby World Cup, as a chance to lure some of England’s players back to the north and strengthen a struggling team.

Aitchison, born and raised on Merseyside, was a top target.

“Holly was on my hit-list, not just as a poster girl for the Red Roses, but for the North West and women’s rugby in general,” Orange tells BBC Sport.

“She is a perfect fit coming in. We are so lucky to have Katy Daley-Mclean – one of England’s best ever fly-halves – heading up our women’s programme and Holly follows in her mould.

“I love Holly’s style, her sass, the way she puts herself out on social media and identifies with her fanbase, this is exactly who we want in our team to bring some extra X-factor and complement the girls we have already got.”