D&F 12/22/24
Happy Solstice! We're headed back towards sunny evenings, and I'm excited. Leading up to January it gets harder and harder to ride bikes after work, so I've missed it. Fortunately a glut of tv got me through dark nights since returning from Japan. A few quick recommendations:
- Stath Lets Flats: An unreliably funny show about letting agents (rental agents) near London starring a clueless English-Greek-Cypriot character named Stath. Part office comedy, part what-if-Ali-G-was-better. You might know Stath's sister from What We Do in the Shadows.
- Agency: An American adaptation of the French show Le Bureau about a spy returning from a long deep-cover operation. If you like Michael Fassbender, and slow-boil spy thrillers you'll have a great time.
- Ghosts: Another British comedy I ripped through—a woman inherits an old estate and it's haunted by the most ridiculous set of ghosts. When one of them pushes her out of a window, her near-death gives her the ability to see and speak to them. Hilarity ensues.
- Man on the Inside: equal parts funny and heartwarming, this follows Ted Danson's retired civil engineer character as he goes undercover at a retirement home to investigate a theft. Stephen McKinley Henderson rules it it as usual (from Devs, Civil War, and Dune). I didn't know what to expect, but it's a Mike Schurr show and it delivers.
If you're still feeling the creeping darkness in your soul, you can't go wrong with every single episode of Bob's Burgers.
Beyond media I've been baking and cooking quite a bit, and reminding Snorri that I still exist.
Let's get to the links:
Links
- There's weird coffee and then there's weird coffee. One is a potentially good idea for travel, and the other is an absurd man who refuses to learn the barest amount of pouring hot water on coffee grounds. Saltz is either a determined performer or an astounding idiot, but reading about his many individual cups of coffee poured-into aged 7-11 Big Gulp plastic cup habit killed me. I don't even care that he likes burnt-tasting coffee—what the actual fuck is he doing with his life.
- Returning from a lot of rural Japan travel, I thought a lot about this Aeon essay on Japanese Maximalism. Far from the idea of Japan as a land of Zen minimalism and designed-to-the-gills bars and homes, it's mostly just as messy and stuffed as the American suburban home, but much smaller. I love how shabby and aged many of the buildings in Japan are—if they survived the war, they're often lovingly maintained, but rough around the edges, and super charming.
For the nation of Japan is filled with spaces that are as meticulously cluttered as minimalist ones are meticulously simplified.
- If you haven't read the Murderbot series, I highly recommend starting with this excellent essay on its author, and then diving into her novellas before the tv show based on the series drops. Even it you're not a big sci-fi person, they're easy enough to understand and the characters are deep and weird.
- If you're keen to digitally unplug for your New Year's resolution, perhaps reconsider. Self-control and boundaries are hard, especially with platforms designed to suck you in, but I think it's possible to dip in and out of places where you chat with actual friends, and enjoy reading journalism and travelogues. There's probably no redeeming TikTok or Instagram though, for many reasons.
Closing
With rain pattering on my window, and another spy tv show starting on my tv, I'll bid you adieu until 2025. I don't think next year has many of us looking forward, but I do hope we can stick together and get through the next four years. I hope that by 2028 the left has learned how to actually run an opposition campaign and candidates that can say more than "yea we like cops and corporations too, please like us". Until then, I'll be riding up hills and cuddling with my cat, and I hope you do the things that make you feel safe and happy too, space cowgirls~