30 January 2018

Five...Plus More

A listing of recommends and things that have caught my attention lately...

1) The End of the F***ing World. Best show I’ve seen all year. It’s a mini-series on Netflix about two dour (and destructive) teens. Think reverse Moonlight Kingdom. With just eight twenty-five minute episodes, The End of the F***ing World is the perfect binge watch.
2) Miami Heat “Vice” jerseys. They’re beautiful, that’s all.

3) Shinsuke Nakamura. Somehow I went deep on WWE superstar Nakamura, a Japanese import who has the most interesting style and entrance music I’ve ever seen. While I haven’t paid any attention to pro wrestling since I was a teen, diving in on Nakamura — and his backstory and growing US fanbase — was a nostalgia call of sorts. Also, I did a little look see at Asuka, another Japanese import who just won’t the woman’s side of the Royal Rumble (which Nakamura did for the men).
4) Echo Fox. I have been playing League of Legends for about a year now. “Playing” is an understatement, but that’s okay. Originally my friend just got me on-board so we could follow the eSport, but now I crave hour long sessions of LoL. Anyway, I’ve thrown my support behind Echo Fox (based on logo alone), which just happens to be owned by ex-NBA player Rick Fox. League games are weekly and I’ve not only been following Echo Fox but also signed up for a fantasy team of LoL players because why not?
5) Danny Chau, “Chau Down: A New Orleans Food Diary.” It wasn’t the food talk that captured me, but Chau’s reflections about his immigrant family. Specifically this, from the beginning:
"My brother’s first meal in America was a piece of fried chicken. It was specifically the aroma wafting within the car that he remembers so fondly, the smell of something completely foreign. That was his first memory of the States, a Proustian moment so vivid even our cousin retells the story as though it were her own. My dad’s first memory of America was of the giant mosquito that bit him just as he opened the airport doors. Two generations, two different perspectives; one rapt by the newness of it all, the other acutely aware of the challenges ahead. I was two years away.”
6) Night Call. A new podcast from Emily Yoshida, Molly Lambert, and Tess Lynch, three ex-Grantlanders whose old podcast, Girls in Hoodies, was brilliant. Their chemistry is unparalleled. The debut episode starts with a discussion about shower rat and then segues into Paddington 2 and Black Mirror, which is exactly as to be expected from "a free jazz blend of pop culture theory, internet fascinations, and venture down a plethora of half-baked conspiracy theory rabbit holes."

7) The Girls, Emma Cline. I completely missed this 2016 literary hit, but have read it now and it’s great. Ostensibly set around the Manson Family murders, Cline’s multi-million dollar garnering debut book is better than expected and it’s really not about the salacious hook at all.

8) Jada Yuan. The New York Times was looking for someone to travel to their 2018 places to go, one per week for a year. They found her! Margot and I were speculating who the NYT might pick and Margot wasn't far off. Yuan is a half-Asian, a writer (mainly of celebrity profiles), and of a nice medium age. Let's all follow Jada on her adventures!