While we do love us some books, believe it not, we do have a life outside of reading. So to highlight our other pop culture interests, on the last Monday of each month, we each will highlight three other “happenings” from the last month. Big events on favorite TV shows, new movies we’ve watched, old movies we’ve “discovered,” etc. Pretty much whatever we found of particular interest outside of the book world during the last month. Share your own favorite things in the comments!
Serena’s Picks
Video Game: “Split Fiction”
It’s really tough to find a good couch co-op game these days. What used to be a staple of social gaming has now been almost completely consumed by a world where instead of hanging with friends you spend most of your time in a massive online world being ruthlessly hunted and killed by gangs of roaming middle graders. At least that’s been my experience. But a few years ago, my husband and I played “A Way Out,” a couch co-op game where you escape a prison. It was great fun, so I was even more stoked when I heard the same company was releasing another similar game! But this time it followed two writers, one who writes science fiction and the other fantasy. And then the game involves traversing these various fictional worlds. Could a game BE more up my alley? I think not! And this one has easily lived up to my wildest dreams! It’s bizarre, beautiful, and, best of all, endlessly clever in its way of forcing the players to work together to solve puzzles and defeat enemies. Just when you think you’ve seen it all, bam! Time for another twist! I highly recommend this one, especially if you have someone you can game with at home!
Sports: MN United
My husband and Kate’s husband have had season tickets to the Loons since before, well, they were even the Loons, though, we’ve definitely all used them less since we collectively introduced 3 kids into the scene! That being the case, said children are now finally getting old enough that bringing them to sporting events can be an actual good time, rather than just another form of stress and questioning life choices. The weather was nice, the soft pretzels were enormous, and fun was had all around. Yes, the Loons lost 3 to 1, but hey, you can’t have it all!
Movie: “Beauty and the Beast”
I want to start up a family re-watch of all the Disney movies with my kids, starting from the earliest and then working our way forwards. In the meantime, however, our choices have been very sporadic. But this month when debating we finally landed on “Beauty and the Beast.” I feel like it’s almost a requirement of the job that a librarian love this movie best of all the Disney fair. But, on the other hand, it’s also just that good! As I’ve been reading a lot of romantasy recently, I also recognized the early bones of many of my love story preferences in this re-watch! Always great to have an excuse to revisit classics like this!
Kate’s Picks
Album: “Mayhem” by Lady Gaga
I have been a fan of Lady Gaga since New Years Eve 2009, when I was at a house party with some friends and we were listening to “The Fame” and “The Fame Monster” and dancing about. Now I’ve passed that love onto my five year old, and we were both totally amped when her new album “Mayhem” dropped. Her because she was immediately obsessed with “Disease”, me because it feels like such a throwback to old school witchy demony weirdo Gaga. “Abracadabra” is an obvious winner (the music video is INSAAAAANE and hey, it was the finale lip sync for the crown in this season’s “Drag Race”), but I think that my favorite is “How Bad Do U Want Me”, because it kind of sounds like old school Madonna meets Cyndi Lauper but also somehow a synth-pop Taylor Swift? All I know is that I told David that it was the kind of song I’d have on a loop were I still writing fan fiction romance scenes. HONESTLY THE WHOLE ALBUM HAS SO MANY GREAT INFLUENCE IN ITS SOUND! Like Prince, and David Bowie. I love it. Welcome back Recession Era Gaga, we needed you!
Netflix Show: “You”
We have reached the end of an era. The show “You”, based on one of my favorite series written by Caroline Kepnes, has dropped its final season! Joe Goldberg’s final dance, and perhaps his comeuppance, has arrived, and he’s back in New York and still a complete psychopath. And still incredibly entertaining. After his ludicrous shenanigans in London, he and Kate are now living in NYC, as she tries to turn her nefarious father’s business empire around, and he tries to keep his darker impulses in check. But Joe is Joe, and when he isn’t being completely enraged by the ill behaved upper class (notably Kate’s jealous half sister Reagan, played by a venomous Anna Camp), he’s obsessing over yet another complicated fantasy girl, this one named Bronte. Penn Badgley is still killing it as Joe, and we also get some fun performances from the aforementioned Camp, who is actually doing double duty as both Reagan and her twin sister Maddie, who are very different from each other in some ways. Goodbye, “You”. At least we still have the books.
Film: “Sinners”
I love a well done vampire movie, and when I first saw a trailer for Ryan Coogler’s “Sinners” I knew, KNEW that I needed to see it. Because not only did it seem like it was going to be a wild vampire ride, it was also taking place within the Jim Crow Era South, with a predominantly Black cast led by Michael B. Jordan playing twin brothers having to fight off bloodsuckers in a juke joint. My mind immediately went to “From Dusk Til Dawn”, but probably a bit more complex. In the 1930s in the Mississippi Delta, twins Smoke and Stack are returning home from a stint working as heavies for the Mob in Chicago, with a dream to open up a juke joint for the people in their share cropping community. They recruit friends and family to help them run the place, but on opening night their business is infiltrated by white vampires who want to be part of the fun. This movie blew me away. It’s creepy, it’s funny, it’s emotional, it’s deeply political, and it has a FANTASTIC soundtrack and a STELLAR cast. The vampire renaissance in horror media continues, and “Sinners” is possibly the best one we’ve seen.
The Library Ladies 