All the excellent nonsense I was happy to endure during MAY

Another month of gobbling culture and then chucking up a recommendation right in the middle of the good room

This section of the newsletter is the equivalent of when a toddler comes bumbling into the room, grimy fist stretched out towards you, something wet and warm and maybe even wriggling, clutched tightly and ready to be released into your own dubious hands.

Bec and I are the toddlers. Our recommendations are the handful of dogfood we’re giving you. You must go “oh thaaaaaaaanks”.

Rebecca Recommends:

THE BIG PICTURE 

I’m sorry to keep talking about Depression as if it was a seven month European vacation I went on and now I speak with a slight accent, but it’s been quite hard to recommend things while depressed. I mostly recommend…not feeling a combination of complete emptiness like life is over at the same time as extreme body anxiety and being unable to cope with literally anything? I am feeling on the upwards swing now finally, but I felt not great! I say all this to lead me to a recommendation.

For some reason during this time I couldn’t really focus on movies or television or reading, and I couldn’t sleep, so the only thing I did was listen to podcasts. I lay down sobbing and listened, I walked around sobbing and listened. I love podcasts and listen to them quite a lot already, but this levelled up. I think it worked because listening to conversations occupied enough of my brain that I would be engaged and have to concentrate enough to be distracted, but it didn’t require me to look or think or focus. I had my regular fave podcasts, like Who? Weekly, but it wasn’t enough hours for the amount I was feeding into my brain. So with the Oscars coming up, I asked around for a good movie podcast, and was directed to the The Big Picture podcast. 

This pod is part of The Ringer network, which is a sports/culture/entertainment website, and in news that might shock and fatally kill some people - it mostly features heterosexuals, and a lot of men. They cover heaps of movie reviews and news and interviews, but my fave episodes are the ‘draft’ episodes, where Sean Fennessey, Amanda Dobbins and Chris Ryan choose a year and do a draft pick. The main reason I like the pod generally is that they all very much know their shit when it comes to movies, and have knowledge and strong opinions, but they also do not take themselves too seriously and it’s never about knowing the most about movies, which many podcasts and Americans could take a lesson from! I wish there was more diversity overall, but for a podcast you and your straight boyfriend can both listen to, this is the one.

TASKMASTER 

I can’t remember if I’ve recommended this before here, but I’m recommending it again, and you can eat it up like a good little piggy! The current season of Taskmaster UK airing on Binge is absolutely wonderful. Often when I watch Taskmaster, I have different relationships with the contestants. There are five each season, and I am usually indifferent to one, and actively dislike one (100% of the time an obnoxious straight man). This current season airing has none of that. I like…nay love…every single contestant. They are all a delight in different ways, and their interplay in studio is some of the best I’ve seen. They mostly suck at the tasks, but who cares! Mae Martin is so hot!

The recent Australian season of Taskmaster was also very enjoyable! With this sort of show format, with new hosts, it’s going to take a few episodes to settle into the in studio portion, but they did! The tasks were great, and it had some of the funniest moments in history, such as Danielle Walker making Tom Cashman cry with laughter at a password task. 

Also as a fun bonus, if you listen very very very very carefully, in one of the episodes my voice appears briefly for one split second! My good friend Nina Oyama is a contestant, and she called me for a task. She’s delightful and I’m not biased, get on the Taskmaster train.

CHA CHA CHA

This year my girlfriend Freya and I watched Eurovision together for the first time. She was only introduced to it when we met, a fact she now laments around the house. “I can’t believe how many years I missed out on Eurovision” “My life begins now” etc. We had a great time, but when it was over, we were changed women. There is one song that has taken over our household, and one little Finnish man who has taken over our lives. It’s Käärijä - Cha Cha Cha.

Before you listen to this wonderful, catchy song, by this extremely sexy (we all think so, he is our boyfriend) man, also know that if the lyrics were subtitled, you would know he’s singing about drinking Pina Coladas to help social anxiety.

I recommend you listen to this every morning to pump you up for the day, as my girlfriend and I have been doing. We have discussed learning the song in Finnish so we can sing along better. We are normal. Those have been my recommendations.

Patrick Recommends:

Dimension 20: A Crown of Candy

How did I catch public transport or take my filthy little depression walks before the era of Dungeons and Dragons podcasts? Imagine having to dwell with my own disgusting thoughts, or listen to the deranged music of birdsong????

Anyway, I’m a narrative bitch, but weirdly I hate audiobooks? So, the storytelling/ improvisation/ gameplay mixture of DnD podcasts (or videos that you can listen to like podcasts) like The Adventure Zone or Critical Role is uniquely enjoyable to me - all the joy of being deeply invested in a story, but designed for short form consumption.

Dimension 20 is my all-time favourite example of this. You can watch their shows on YouTube, or the Dropout app, but they also provide audio only. Most D20 shows are told by comedian and improviser Brennan Lee Mulligan, who has such an instinctual and nuanced grasp of narrative, as well as a deep understanding of game play, I am continually blown away. The cast of each game are brilliant improvisers and storytellers themselves, and continually tread the delicate line between being very funny and goofy, but also taking the narrative stakes seriously. Have I died with laughter during one episode and then found myself surreptitiously wiping away tears on 15 minutes later? yes.

The strength in each of these shows is that each performer invests in their characters fully, and thinks deeply about the authenticity and choices their characters would make. It leads to brilliant storytelling. The DnD format provides both structure to how the story is told, and enthralling elements of chance - all it takes is a random dice roll for the story to go off the rails, or in an unexpected direction. You can HEAR when Brennan himself is completely shocked by the twist that the mechanics have added to his carefully planned narrative.

They have a LOT of different shows/ campaigns to get through. My favourite are the urban fantasy adventure Unsleeping City, and my intro to D20, Fantasy High, which is an absolute delight. I am currently listening to A Crown Of Candy, a game of thrones style medieval fantasy where everyone is various foods. I put off listening to this one for ages, because I don’t love whimsy in my fantasy, and I thought it would be impossible to maintain narrative stakes when the characters are a talking muffin or using a sword made of liquorice. Of course, I was incredibly wrong, and it’s brilliant - with some machinations that genuinely made me gasp like an early Game of Thrones twist.

I just love this entire show/ situation so much. It’s also very queer - there’s some really gorgeous moments in Unsleeping City, where the gender journey one of the players is on is reflected/ explored through their character too, and it’s really affirming and lovely. DIMENSION 20!!!!!!

This 1D TikTok

Everything about this TikTok is very funny. All the elements are NECESSARY - the one direction video clip, the big piece of pita bread, the Borat voice singalong… culminating in a perfect moment of slapstick humour. No notes.

@itstylerbitchHELP @lifealert

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This article in Vanity Fair about the toxic culture on LOST

I was never a huge Lost fan, but I remember discourse around the show was one of the first time I realised that TV could be culturally dissected like a film, and indirectly led me down the terrible path I’m on. Regardless, I found this Vanity Fair article REALLY interesting, and amazingly written. It’s worth getting to the end - I think it’s a very potent snapshot of how normalised racism and racist behaviour can be, and an illustration about how racism can infect an entire show.

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Those are our recommendations! We also recommend: having a chill time.