Over the last week, I’ve gotten really sick for the second time this year, which is super cool. Last month, I had a really but intense little cold. Maybe it was the flu. This month, it’s been much slower—started with a really bad cough on Monday before going through all sorts of other symptoms including, as of last night, loss of taste! So it’s probably COVID. Awesome. Went ahead and cancelled plans for the next few days.
Have you noticed everyone’s getting sick the last few months or so? I can’t tell to what extent that’s a bad omen and to what extent that’s just the normal wintertime wave of endemic diseases like common cold or flu (and now COVID). From some quick Googling, I gather we haven’t really reached a steady state with cold and flu season, so we don’t really know what ‘normal’ after the pandemic is. On the other hand, we’re not really recording COVID cases the same way. So we don’t really know how bad things might be getting since we changed our mitigation plan to a shrug and a “go back to work.”
All of this is to say, I’m kinda phoning it in this week because I feel like shit. This is just gonna be a bad Substack piece, I’m afraid to say. Probably not my worst, but not really one for the history books either, so if you want to skip it, that’s fine. Make sure to take a peek at the “New from me” section quick to know what new podcast stuff is out, and then be on your merry way.
Alright. This is the media round-up, where I (Josiah, who has COVID (probably)) tell you about all the media I’m producing, watching, listening to, and reading.
New from me
It’s been Mumblecore month over at Fruitless. Kind of. That was the original plan for February but then it worked better for the Jimmy Dore episode to happen in February, meaning I did the first Mumblecore episode in January. And then when I was looking for a fourth Mumblecore episode, Finch reached out to talk about Society of the Snow and I was like “well, that’s a movie. Fine, it’s Movie Month in February. And three of the movies are Mumblecore, and one of the Mumblecore ones is in January.”
What I’m saying is there has been kind of a Mumblecore theme, and this was the week where two of the big Mumblecore episodes came out.
On the Fruitless free feed, AJ Ditty from The Worst of All Possible Worlds joined me to talk about The Puffy Chair (2005) which is actually a good Mumblecore movie, unlike Kissing on the Mouth (2005). You can find the link for that here.
I also got to go on Fancy Movie Time, a series on The Worst of All Possible Worlds’ Patreon with Brian Alford and AJ Ditty. We discussed Frances Ha (2012). You can find that here.
Lastly, I was joined by Dylan Weaver on the Fruitless Patreon to discuss the Safdie brothers’ first two films, The Pleasure of Being Robbed (2008) and Daddy Longlegs (2009), which are both two great Mumblecore films despite the Safdies not usually being considered Mumblecore. You can find that episode here for a low low price of $3 per month.
Film/TV/video
So I’ve been sick. Sometimes me being sick manifests in me watching a ton of movies, sometimes it does the opposite. This week it did the opposite.
The only films I watched this last week were the two Safdie brothers films for the podcast. And unfortunately, you need to pay me $3 to hear those opinions.
I watched the Adam Friedland interview with Neil deGrasse Tyson which was incredibly funny. I haven’t watched much of the Adam Friedland Show, might need to change that.
I’ve also been watching Arrested Development with Kelli. Kelli had never watched the show, and the show was instrumental in shaping my sense of humor, so it’s been fun to show it to her.
I don’t know. Not a lot to report this week. Don’t even think about expecting anything in the “reading section” either.
Reading
I didn’t really read this week. I caught up on some assigned reading for EfM on Sunday, but since I got sick on Monday, nothing. Reading sucks.
Music
Now here we go. I have been listening to some music. I’ve been kind of all over the place stylistically.
I’ve been enjoying the Australian kinda pop rock band The Preatures. Alongside that, I’ve been listening to the electronic band, Crystal Castles. On the other hand, I’ve been enjoying the hardcore band, SCALP, and their album Domestic Extremity. Also a Chicago screamo band called Iwan that uses soundbites and titles from Disco Elysium. Also the band Rejoice, which my buddy Josh Christianson introduced me to.
Umm, aside from that: Fontaines D.C., At the Drive-In, Single Mothers, The Get Up Kids, Gleemer, Caroline Polachek, and Dear and the Headlights.
Alright. That’s about it. I feel like shit. See you around.