Recommendations (March 2019)

(Newsletter March 2019)

I went deep on Aretha Franklin via this performance and this podcast. She was a powerhouse. A few bars of the song and Barack Obama was in tears.

The Elizabeth Olson documentary was very good, even if you know nothing about her or Theranos.

I watched Sharp Objects which was deeply messed up but wonderful. I haven't read the book and avoided the show for a long time thinking I didn't need to watch another procedural about two girls being murdered. But, the combination of Gillian Flynn (of Gone Girl fame) and Marti Noxon (who co-created UnReal and made 'To the Bone' ) made this much more than a rehashing of the same tired old tropes. (I also read 'Dead Girls' which examines some of those tropes but it wasn't great.)

I saw 'On the Basis of Sex', which wasn't as good as the RGB documentary. (I scoffed when the judge said that women can't grow beards! I don't have a Ronnie Drew beard but I've enough chin fluff to make any 13 year old boy proud!)

I watched Coco which is a kids movie, but was perfect for a Friday night after a long week. We all remember how much I went on about Zootopia after seeing that. Coco is this year's Zootopia! (I'm not the only one on the Coco train either.)

In terms of podcasts, I've been listening to Mary HK Choi's micro-pod on creativity and mental health. It's a unique format - off the cuff, 10-ish minute audio recordings of Mary talking about her wellbeing and her work. It's great.

The Dream, a podcast about multi-level marketing companies (MLMs), didn't initially draw me in. But once I started, I devoured the whole thing in a few days. It's about how MLMs are essentially ponzi schemes and how right-leaning lobbyists have been working to legalise them. Let's not forget, the President himself has headed up several MLMs. The intersections between these businesses (if we're going to call them that) and the self-improvement/positive thinking space has really stayed with me. They explicitly tie money making to self esteem and from there, it's a short walk to blaming vulnerable people for not being more successful. I'm getting enraged again just thinking about it. Also, it's a business story about (mostly) women. I don't think it would have been made if women weren't the journalists and reporters making decisions about what they wanted to cover.

I forgot to mention this last month but Franny's Last Ride is absolutely worth your time. It's just 10 minutes, but be warned, you will sob.

I've been finding it bizarrely meditative to watch Lizzy Hadfield try on all her pants. Her 'testing basics' series also looks good. If you want something more high brow, I give you Tah-Neshi Coates and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in conversation. Their section starts at 15 mins into the video, though I found myself watching most of the recording.

I also made buttermilk chicken after watching Salt Fat Acid Heat, and it did not disappoint. In terms of lifestyle 'hacks', I switched my phone to black and white mode, which makes the damn thing a lot less fun to play with. I've also downloaded 'Duck Duck Go' to stop google from spying.

I think that's everything. Thanks for reading,
Clare x