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It’s the best episode of the cycle
(besides makeovers – ahem – Tyovers): GO SEES!
Selfie Mail from Tyra says they’re gonna “take a walk in the real world” and everyone’s just like “thank god we get out of this house.”
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Local independent bookstores
help foster a sense of community, and that's what drew me to Little Shop of Stories in Decatur, Georgia.
The first time I walked through their doors during the Decatur Book Festival many years ago, I could see that this bookstore was doing more than selling Children's and Young Adult books. They were promoting a literary community in Decatur for children, adults, and even dogs (more on the dogs later). Little Shop of Stories is the type of bookstore that I walk into knowing I'm going to end up finding at least one or two things I have to buy. It's the type of place I recommend to friends whenever they're visiting from out of town and looking for something fun to do. Because, as corny as this might sound, it's more than a bookstore. It's a fun place to be.
This past weekend while I was in Atlanta visiting friends and family, I had an opportunity to sit down with Justin Colussy-Estes to talk more about Little Shop of Stories, what makes this store so awesome, and its connection to the Decatur community.
Othersode #12: Weekend at Area X / Annihilation
Join the squad as we journey deep into Area X for our long-awaited discussion of ANNIHILATION! In this episode, we tackle Alex Garland’s trippy adaptation of the Jeff VanderMeer novel, and we ask all of the important questions: What is this film “about”? How does it compare to the book? Does Alex Garland think all relationships take place primarily in bed? Was Oscar Isaac’s accent switch intentional, or is this a Nic Cage in Con Air situation? The answers you crave and more lie ahead… just try not to get any Shimmer in your ears.
Click through for table of contents and show notes!
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Riverdale is back, baby,
and the BSG team is back on it again. Well, Mary and Kelli are back, anyway, recapping this trash show until the cows come home.
Riverdale’s 27th chapter is entitled “The Hills Have Eyes.” If we’re to believe that this entire show is actually the novel Jughead is writing, does that mean he’s naming all of his chapters titles after movies? In that case, it’s even more of a gimmick than we thought. Here at BSG, we’ve been referring to this episode by a much different name — Chapter 27: “Sex Weekend.” Feel free to steal that for the second draft of your manuscript, Juggy.
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BSG #12: Zombie Carolina / American War
This week, the squad tackles global warming and animosity between the North and South. Are we talking about the past? Are we talking about the present? Neither! We're discussing America in the year 2073 as the country is in the middle of its second Civil War. Join us as we discuss Omar El Akkad's novel American War, which gave us a lot of material to talk about. Then we read listener feedback about The Book of Speculation, The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo, and our favorite: Fifty Shades Freed!
Click through for table of contents and show notes!
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I will readily admit that I am one of those people who loves to watch the Oscars almost as much as I love to talk trash about the Oscars. I’ve heard many like-minded people equate the Oscars to “the Super Bowl for movies,” and after some thought, I can pretty much get on-board with this comparison. Sure, there are some huge differences — the Super Bowl is an event where teams are playing live to win something they actually deserve, whereas the Oscars are an arbitrary set of awards determined by a bunch of rich old white people — but when it comes to the excitement of the viewing experience, the amount of alcohol consumed throughout the ceremony, and the excessive pettiness of my Twitter timeline during the show and in the days to follow, I honestly can’t think of two more similar events.
A week from tonight, the 90th Annual Academy Awards ceremony will air on ABC. Despite the fact that I’ve watched the Oscars every year for as long as I can remember, this will be the first time I officially make my predictions in a public forum (and what could be more public than this, our extremely famous and well-known blog?). I want to do my best to be correct, but I also want to give some love to the films I actually liked, so I’m going to format this post the way a lot of writers do: for each category, I’ll give my official prediction, and then I’ll give the film that would win it if were up to me.
This intro is starting to run about as long as I expect Jimmy Kimmel’s opening monologue will, so let’s get into it, shall we?
Othersode #11: A High Budget Movie About Average Sex / 50 Shades Freed
On a very sexy edition of #BookSquadGoals, the squad breaks down the new film Fifty Shades Freed, the so-called "climax" of the Fifty Shades of Grey trilogy. Join us as we discuss the strange plot, the use of ice cream during sex, pop sensation Rita Ora, and the utter lack of chemistry between the film's leads. We take a look at what this franchise gets wrong about BDSM and answer the most important question: Is this movie sexy? Plus, hear what's on the#BookSquadBlog (there's LOTS of great stuff right now!) and learn about our next book for the upcoming full episode, American War by Omar El Akkad.
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Oxenfree, a 2016 game by Night School Studio, released to positive reviews, but quiet fandom about a year ago. I played the game when it first came out, and loved it, but I’ve recently picked it up again on the Nintendo Switch. A year is a considerable amount of time in some ways. Since I first played this game I’ve finished my comprehensive exam, immersed myself in my dissertation, moved, got a new cat, had some personal life changes, etc. etc.. The game feels different now in a way that’s hard to explain, but for this post I’m going to try to.
To continue the trend of me not getting into games until they’ve been out for a year or so, I’ve been playing Horizon Zero Dawn, Guerrilla Games’s adventure for the PS4 that follows Aloy, a young woman tasked with discovering why the dangerous machines near her home are going crazy and murdering people. When I looked into what this game was about, I felt sold immediately. It has everything I like: a strong female protagonist, robot animals, beautiful settings, and lots and lots of sidequests. The A.V. Club’s Clayton Purdom calls Horizon Zero Dawn a “map game,” which isn’t completely fair. Yes, it’s a game where the player is invited to explore a map and complete quests in different areas of the map, but it also does a good job of building a complex world full of robots and intricate social hierarchies.
Of all the sexual misconduct stories that have come out of Hollywood since the Weinstein debacle, I think I speak for a lot of people when I say that I was most disappointed to read about Aziz Ansari. It’s not just because I think he’s funny and I like his work — it’s because he is a person who has consistently presented himself as an ally to women. He has repeatedly self-identified as a feminist, and he doesn’t just talk the talk; with his success, he’s certainly done his part to boost the careers and voices of the women around him.
Ansari’s willingness to help women tell their stories is a huge part of what makes his alleged behavior so surprising and frustrating. It feels like a personal betrayal to so many of us who have loved his work, who’ve been following and rooting for him all along the way because he’s one of the few male voices we felt we could trust to tell our stories as well as his own. If we can’t trust someone like Aziz to understand consent in its complexity, the road ahead of us is even more difficult than we thought.
(Spoilers for Master of None after the cut.)
Read moremade with love by emily, kelli, mary, and susan. <3 thanks to Katelyn Elaine Photography for our group photos.