Hello there,
Here are some things I've watched and read recently to help distract from the end of the Olympics and the news.
Watch
While TV options are a little dire at the moment, I've found a bunch of things to watch lately that I've really enjoyed.
If you're in the mood to laugh, try Nada on Hulu. It's sort of like an Argentine Curb Your Enthusiasm, but less cringey, except for the fact that Robert DeNiro has an absolutely unnecessary supporting role. Also, check out Wicked Little Letters on Netflix, a weird British comedy based on a really bizarre true story that took place in post-WWI England.
If you're in the mood to be inspired, watch Swan Song movie on Amazon Prime, a documentary about the National Ballet of Canada. Not all of it is inspiring — some of it's quite bleak — but it gives you a real appreciation of the amount of work it takes to put together a single ballet. I also really enjoyed Mountain Queen (Netflix), a documentary about one of the first female sherpas to climb Mount Everest. A lot of it, though, is about how a woman so incredibly brave and capable lost so many years of her life to domestic abuse, and how she finally broke free.
Finally, if you need to have a good cry, try Daughters (Netflix), a documentary about a program that allows incarcerated fathers to spend time with their daughters at a dance held in prison. It’s really moving, but ultimately devastating.
Read
I just finished Everyone Who Is Gone Is Here, which is one of the best nonfiction books I’ve ever read. It's an incredibly deft tale that weaves together Central American history, US immigration policy and politics of the last four decades, and incredibly moving profiles of refugees and the people working to help or harm them. It's almost 500 pages long and I finished it in three days.
While the writing wasn't very good, I enjoyed The Ballad of Jacquotte Delahaye, a fictional retelling of one of few famous female pirates of the Caribbean who may or may not have existed in real life. It seems ripe to be made into a movie or TV series.
See the full list of recommendations.
Follow
I recently stumbled across a bunch of accounts that help English speakers learn other languages, and the most creative one is Japanese with Gohan, in which a rice ball with eyes and a mouth teaches Japanese. It's weird, and I like it.
Do
I'm not a huge podcast person; it takes really compelling storytelling to draw me in. In the Dark is an investigative crime podcast, which at this point are a dime a dozen, but it's actually run by serious investigative reporters. Season 2 was one of the most extraordinary investigations I've heard or read in any format, and while avoiding spoilers, the impact of the reporting was more than most journalists could dream of. Season 3 started recently, and it's about a massacre of Iraqi civilians by US Marines during the Iraq war. Given *waves arms around* everything happening at the moment and since then, it initially seems like an odd choice. But I promise that it's really compelling, extremely revelatory, and absolutely infuriating.
Until next time,
Rachel