My Week in Media: March 12
Everything I read, listened to, and watched
Mom went to get Willa. Willa is a baby. Babies are okay. But they aren’t as good as chickens.
—Starla Jean: Which Came First: The Chicken or the Friendship?, by Elana K. Arnold
Good morning, friends,
How’s the time change treating you?
(If you’re in a place that does the time change, that is. If you’re not, what does it feel like to just, like, pick a time and stick with it? I don’t have strong anti-time change feelings, but I think I’d lean more towards abolishing it than keeping it.
[A discussion with Josh about the time change ensues]
Oof, I’d better watch out, or this day is going to end with me walking up and down our road banging on a drum and chanting TIME IS A CONSTRUCT to all the deer and turkeys.)
Speaking of turkeys. Major thing I noticed from this morning’s influx of wildlife hitting our yard: When male turkeys puff up and fan out to strut around displaying their gloriousness to the hens—who, from what I can see, absolutely could not care less, it’s endlessly hilarious—it happens so fast and so perfectly that they look like a speedy time-lapse of a parade balloon being inflated.
Reading
Early Readers
Starla Jean: Which Came First: The Chicken or the Friendship?, by Elana K. Arnold, illustrated by A. N. Kang
Starla Jean Takes the Cake, by Elana K. Arnold, illustrated by A. N. Kang
Adult
The Wall, by Mary Roberts Rinehart
Comics, Graphic Novels, and Manga
Sheets, by Brenna Thummler
Stepping Stones, by Lucy Knisley
The Dire Days of Willowweep Manor, by Shaenon K. Garrity and Christopher Baldwin
Spy × Family, Volume One, by Tatsuya Endo
Phoebe and Her Unicorn, by Dana Simpson
Watching
Television
Regular watching
Abbott Elementary, Inside Job (I’m so mad this one got cancelled, ugh)
New to us
The Other Two: It’s rare for a comedy to immediately grab us, but within even just a few minutes, we were all in on this one. Two struggling twenty-somethings living in New York are thrown for a loop when their thirteen-year-old younger brother goes mega-viral and is suddenly the It Kid. Molly Shannon as their mother is amazing, I’m always here for Ken Marino, the way that this show skewers the Fame Machine is smart and funny and depressing, but what’s really getting me (so far) is that despite a lot of underlying uncomfortable feelings, the family genuinely all love one another. It’s just, you know: complicated.
Also, Chase’s amazing viral sensation ‘Marry U at Recess’ prompted me to do a Dramatic Reading of the ‘Friday’ lyrics, and I wish you could have seen Josh’s face when I hit this verse:
Yesterday was Thursday, Thursday
Today is Friday, Friday (Partyin')
We, we, we so excited, we so excited (Partyin')
We gonna have a ball today
Tomorrow is Saturday and Sunday comes afterwards
I don't want this weekend to end!
Introducing old flash-in-the-pan pop culture to an unsuspecting audience is just such a joy?
Movies
The Case of the Bloody Iris
Giuliano Carnimeo, 1972
Also released under the titles ‘Perché quelle strane gocce di sangue sul corpo di Jennifer?’ (Why those strange drops of blood on Jennifer's body?) and ‘Les rendez-vous de Satan’ (Satan’s appointments), this one features the ever-gorgeous Edwige Fenech doing the frying pan/fire thing by escaping from a sex cult only to immediately move into a murder apartment.
I still don’t know what the end of this movie means, but that’s not all that unusual with gialli.
Listening
Art, Culture, and History
Listen to Sassy
ICYMI
Podcast Playlist
Scam Goddess
Decoder Ring (this episode about PBS specials and the rise of Yanni and John Tesh was the one that finally made me add this to my auto-download list)
TV/Movies
Again with This
Screen Drafts
How Did This Get Made?
Criticism is Dead
Office Ladies
I Saw What You Did
This Had Oscar Buzz
Books & Language
News
Audiodramas & Actual Play D&D
The Storage Papers
Midnight Burger (briefly covered here)
Short Stories, Storytelling, and Audiobooks
The Erl-King, by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (Nocturnal Transmissions, Ep. 144)
Improv Comedy and Gentle British Banter
And now to start a new list? What were your hits of the week?
Talk soon,
Leila