Happy Saturday.
Our first essay this week is by writer and author of the upcoming book The Defiant Middle, Kaya Oakes. She reviews Patricia Lockwood's debut novel, No One Is Talking About This. Written prior to the pandemic, the book features an unnamed protagonist who becomes famous after one of her tweets goes viral. "The novel feels like 2019, recalling the kinds of conferences, TED Talks and internet influencer culture that required living life in the liminal spaces of airports and hotel conference rooms and the crammed, dim backrooms of bars," Oakes writes. It's a genre-bending work that explores how we live on and outside of the Internet.
Next, we've got a film review written by Jennifer Vosters, the writer of December's "In an age of institutional failure, 'Star Wars' is saving my faith." This week she reviews "Space Sweepers," a South Korean sci-fi film directed by Jo Sung-hee. "'Space Sweepers' is a tale of found family and the miracle of solidarity in a society consumed by disposability," writes Vosters. The film is currently streaming on Netflix.
Our last review is by a new NCR voice, Hanna Phifer. I follow Phifer on Twitter, and she's one of the funniest and sharpest thinkers on there. I'm constantly learning from and laughing at her tweets and I'm happy to introduce her work. She reviews "Malcolm & Marie," starring Zendaya and John David Washington. "The black-and-white film was written and shot during the early days of quarantine, a worthy yet ultimately unsuccessful feat," Phifer writes. The film "is an excruciatingly long and dull look into the couple's dysfunctional romance," one which ultimately fails to capture its audience. You can check out the film on Netflix.
I can’t wait to hear what you think of this weekend’s culture articles.
Thank you for reading and for all the emails you wrote me. I enjoyed reading about the shows, books, music and even coffee shops you love right now.
This week I loved an email from Teresa, who recently re-watched "The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society." If you've never watched the film or read the 2008 novel it's based on, the movie, without giving too much away, tells the story of a writer corresponding with a man on an island previously controlled by the Nazis, Guernsey, in the 1940s. In her email, Teresa writes that watching the film "in the context of the pandemic was a whole new experience. People have always had challenging, heartbreaking, excruciating experiences, and many of them took the lemons they were given and made lemonade. Those people on Nazi-occupied Guernsey Island during World War II had lost loved ones but they patched together a loving family from people put in their paths. It gave me hope."
You can send me your best and worst pop culture takes, your favorite songs and books or just say hello. You can shoot me an email at [email protected] or chat with me on Twitter.
What I’m Watching
In 2007, a show premiered on Nickelodeon called "iCarly." It starred Miranda Cosgrove as Carly Shay, a teenager who starts a live, weekly web show with her friends, Sam and Freddy. If you want to imagine the show's energy, which 14 years ago felt unique, you could combine the fun, unpredictability of TikTok with the production value of some of today's most popular YouTube vlogs. Every Friday night, Sam and Carly host, and Freddy records and produces the series. They feature something new every week. Kids who squirt milk out of their eyes or play the trumpet while jumping on a pogo stick; bagpipe-playing teachers; the truly nonsensical yet impressive art of Carly's 26-year-old brother and guardian, Spencer.
Their web show, also named "iCarly,"—"You know, 'i,' Internet, 'Carly,' you," as Freddy adorably proclaims in the pilot—quickly becomes a phenomenon and we watch the kids navigate adolescence and Internet fame. The show isn't perfect (Wesley, is in fact, a good beat-boxer for his age!) but totally worth binge-watching, for the whole family. If you start it this weekend, tweet at me.
(BTW: "Firefly Lane" did not get better, but I finished. And the anti-climactic cliffhanger still got me and I cannot wait for season two.)
What I’m Reading
I love essays about music almost as much as I love music itself. I want to learn how to write about music as well, so I'm learning from some of my favorites. This week, I'm reading Go Ahead In The Rain: Notes To A Tribe Called Quest by Hanif Abdurraqib.
What I’m Listening To
This week, I'm listening to "Homegrown" by VanJess. I love the sound, kind of '90s but still 2021, and I love when sisters create art together. The R&B duo is made up of sisters Ivana and Jessica Nwokike. Check it out and let me know what you think.
See you next weekend.
-Olga
