Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
Episode 13: Best of 2025
51 Plays18 days ago
Restricting the content of best-of lists to things produced or released during a single year is, in many ways, fairly arbitrary. Books, movies, or TV shows don’t cease to be relevant as soon as the calendar changes. So we got together to talk about some of the things we particularly enjoyed in 2025. Here’s hoping they bring you joy, make you think, and entertain you in 2026.
In this episode:
- The Bear
- Shameless
- Tales of the Shire
- Japanese Rural
- My Shipwreck Story by Alec Freedman
- Mulholland Drive by David Lynch
- Who Framed Roger Rabbit
- Ludwig
- Extraordinary Attorney Woo
- Thursday Murder Club novels by Richard Osman
- Pee-Wee as Himself
- The American Revolution
- Long Live the Post Horn! by Vigdis Hjorth
- John Candy: I Like Me
- YouTube creators: Harry Mack, Josh Johnson, Daniel Naroditsky, Cracking the Cryptic
- Intermezzo by Sally Rooney
- Emma (2020)
- K-Pop Demon Hunters
Hosted by Nancy Boissonnet, Tiffany Carlson, Connor Ferguson, Ian Sutherland, Neal Kane, and Adrian Pio.
Produced and Edited by Tiffany Carlson
Music by Coma-Media, via Pixabay.
© 2025 Libretto. All Rights Reserved.
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction to the 'Well Put' Podcast Team
00:00:13
Speaker
Welcome to Well Put, a podcast about communications for mission-driven organizations from libretto. I'm Tiffany Carlson. I'm Ian Sutherland. I'm Nancy Boissanet.
00:00:23
Speaker
I'm Neal Kane. I'm Connor Ferguson. And I'm Adrian Pio. um Today on the podcast, we have our full libretto team, and we're here to share with you our annual best of list, where each of us will think back on some of the things we enjoyed the most during the year 2025.
00:00:40
Speaker
Could be new, could be old, but something that has stuck with us and that we want to share with all of you. Excellent. ah Tiffany, do you want to kick off the conversation? Maybe we'll jump around and share some of some of what we've been loving.
00:00:52
Speaker
Sure. Yeah. Happy to kick
Tiffany's Take on 'The Bear'
00:00:54
Speaker
us off. um First thing on my list is The Bear. i feel like I was a little behind getting to this. I know some of you have probably already watched all of it. i have only finished through season three, but I've really been enjoying ah this show. um That said, I can only watch it when I'm in like certain moods because it does get a little tense and if I if I need something lighthearted the bear is not the show um it's nice to see shows sit set in the Midwest I don't always see that it's usually New York or like l LA or something the bear is set in Chicago i recognize some of the locations you know um
00:01:36
Speaker
things like that. So it it is nice to see that. And it's fun to watch the behind the scenes of stuff in the kitchens. Like I've heard that this show is pretty accurate when it comes to kind of conveying what it's like to work in a kitchen. Have others here watched it?
00:01:55
Speaker
I know. No, but I'm curious whether or not you have started saying yes, chef to David in the house all the time. No, because I'm the chef. So ah if anyone should be saying it, it should be him to me. But if there was another cook in the house, probably would be.
Ian's Perspective on 'The Bear'
00:02:13
Speaker
I don't remember what season they're up to, but I know that Jacqueline and I are exactly one episode behind and that they finished the season and she was not ready to finish the season. So we are waiting i had to, I guess, until the next season comes out to figure out where we are.
00:02:27
Speaker
But like you also, ah I've really enjoyed it. I don't have any experience back of house in a kitchen. So the stress actually doesn't bother me that much. I know that they're very stressed out, but like I don't have that experience. So it's it's sort of fine for me to be like, OK, they can be stressed and I can like offload some of my own internal frustration onto them, which is fun, I think.
00:02:48
Speaker
That's nice. I tend to like, even if I, because I've never worked in a kitchen either, but I absorb like emotions. You're a stress sponge. I am, yes.
00:03:00
Speaker
But also like if people are like happy tears crying, I will be happy tears crying even if I'm not experiencing it. So them stressing in a kitchen or stressing about getting the restaurant set up, I'm getting stressed too. So yeah.
00:03:14
Speaker
I have to select my shows very carefully ah in that regard. So Chip and I say yes chef and behind you, chef, when we're cooking together constantly.
Themes and Music in 'The Bear'
00:03:24
Speaker
I love that. And we actually saw we watched the first first two seasons.
00:03:29
Speaker
And the one thing I remember with season two is that there are a number of episodes where people get their own arcs. And like when the pastry chef goes to Denmark, I think. and oh no to to and is living on the houseboat another one's living on the houseboat right right and um when the um the cousin evan moss back rack when he goes to a sort of apprentice those were just also totally amazing but i have heard people say talk about the stress levels And it's so weird because like that kind of stress when I'm watching something like compared to watching something like violence, like just sort of interpersonal stress doesn't really affect me that much and unless it's really, really like like high octane.
00:04:12
Speaker
But we we love drama that's not our own. Yes. I haven't seen the bear, but I, i well, I've seen the the first episode and that's all I've seen, which I really liked. And i I do need to continue watching it. What I've heard about the show and what I appreciated in the first episode is the music. The cuts they use are really good. The the first episode ends with the song Animal by Pearl Jam, which is amazing.
00:04:38
Speaker
Kind of a deep cut and one of my favorite Pearl Jam songs. And also, I think a very stressful song, like a perfect song to play out the end of that first episode. But yeah, Tiffany, you you are inspiring me to pick it back up again because I really ah I really did appreciate the the acting and The story is great and the I've just heard the music is fantastic. like There's just really, really good cuts throughout the show.
00:05:02
Speaker
it's It's also, and of course it's brilliantly written, and I think ah what it's a really great framing device for like ah All these notions of class and ambition and creativity and relationship, they're all it's almost like the restaurant is just sort of a backdrop for acting out all these amazing kind of motifs and and themes. And yeah, it's pretty amazing.
00:05:34
Speaker
Ian, I thought the connection you were going to make between the bear and music was Jeremy Allen White, his new upcoming Star Turn as the boss. Yeah.
Jeremy Allen White in 'The Bear'
00:05:44
Speaker
How many times have you seen that movie, Jersey Boy? I saw it once. All of you know I'm the biggest Bruce fan ah there there is, this side of the Hudson River.
00:05:56
Speaker
Only on that side of the Hudson. Yeah, the other side of the Hudson. Yeah, can't compete with the rest of the Garden State. I love that album. that that And sorry, just for a brief moment, we're talking about The Bear, but as a tangent, I think Jeremy Allen White is an amazing actor. I thought he was an amazing actor in Deliver Me From Nowhere, which is the biopic he's starring in about Bruce Springsteen's year in the life of recording Nebraska.
00:06:24
Speaker
I hated the movie. I'm so sorry to say. went to the theater. I did not like it at all. And it's very rare. This much more interesting. Let's let's pause the pause the whole best of thing. I want to hear more about Ian's dislike for the Bruce Springsteen movie.
00:06:40
Speaker
Now, i going back to Jeremy Allen White and his acting skills, I... I enjoyed watching this after watching him in Shameless because actually of all the characters in that show, I found his character's arc the most compelling and interesting to watch. And I thought he played it really, really well. And so I was really interested to see him, you know, taking the lead on a new show, also set in Chicago. um And he did not disappoint.
00:07:11
Speaker
He was really he's been really great to watch.
High Drama in 'Seven Fishes' Episode
00:07:13
Speaker
The other thing about the bear is there's a Christmas episode called Seven Fishes that is going to go down in the annals of television as just an absolutely epic episode. And Chip and I, and it's the first time the mother was going to appear and Chip and I love to sort of cast things like who they're going to cast.
00:07:30
Speaker
and yeah And like about 15 minutes in, I was like, could it be Jamie Lee Curtis? And like four minutes later, Jamie Lee Curtis appears at the stove cooking with a huge glass of red wine, smoking a cigarette while she's making Christmas dinner.
00:07:47
Speaker
And everything just goes absolutely downhill from there. And it's just... That's probably the stressiest episode of them all, but it's just brilliant. I was just going to say i needed to take almost a week off from the show before I went back to it after that episode. It was a lot for someone as highly empathetic as myself. That one was a lot. It was great, but it was a lot.
00:08:12
Speaker
Meanwhile, Nancy and I are both having a moment about Thinking about the Feast of the Seven Fishes on on Christmas. i saw saw I saw your face doing that. yes I did grow up eating the seven fishes every Christmas. And um the most prominent fish on the list were smelts.
00:08:30
Speaker
The little flint that you fry them like and yeah and eat them almost like little french fries. yeah And they were like the most wonderful thing. um but we don't do it anymore. And maybe I need to get out my smelt fryer this year for Christmas.
00:08:47
Speaker
Or it smelt smelter. Maybe. I have to smelt the smelt. Well, if you do it, I can guarantee you it will go better. Than in this show. yeah But I still say everyone should should watch it. It's just, it is really mind-blowing television.
00:09:03
Speaker
I did, well i I like Ian watched the first couple episodes. And then I was watching it at the gym and it was too much for me at the gym. And I had to go back Brooklyn Nine-Nine.
Calming Video Games After 'The Bear'
00:09:14
Speaker
You're supposed to get your heart rate up at the gym. Come on. Yeah, i was it was like making me want to curl into a tiny ball and hide. Which was not the vibe I needed at the gym.
00:09:27
Speaker
That's fair. um But I guess I could transition then into my second thing that I wanted to share, which is a very, it's been called cozy video game that I actually found very calming after a couple episodes of The Bear, which is called Tales of the Shire. um And it is exactly as you might imagine, it is set in the Shire. um You live the life of a hobbit and it's For some, could be a little repetitive. ah You wake up, you check your mail, you invite someone over for lunch, and you go on adventures. You help... You then cook Thanksgiving dinner?
00:10:06
Speaker
Not Thanksgiving dinner, but you do cook meals. Yes, but you have to go... yeah you know, like fish for your fishes, for your meals. You have to forage your mushrooms. You have to, you know, pick your berries from the bushes, that kind of stuff. And, uh, then you're also helping the little village, uh, gain its status.
00:10:27
Speaker
I'm forgetting. It's been a while since it's been a couple of weeks since I've played it. Um, but it's very much just a calm, relaxing, cozy game. And, uh,
00:10:41
Speaker
I also like parts of it where you can decorate your little hobbit hole. You can pick your wallpaper and vines and all of that. um So a total 180 in terms of like mood and vibe compared to the bear, but ah very much the type of video game I like to play. So that that's been nice to get into this year.
00:11:00
Speaker
We could all all use a little calm in our lives. My um family got very into Japanese rural for a little while. It's another Japanese rural Japanese rural. Yeah. Interesting.
00:11:14
Speaker
You like learn how to make your mochi and you have to go out and forage for your ingredients. and Yeah. It's also very animal crossing to me It is kind of animal crossing. Yes.
00:11:30
Speaker
It's another game that I enjoy. So, ah Similar sort of home building, town building. yeah yeah Positive pro social game.
Soothing Games Discussion
00:11:40
Speaker
Yep. It's like the Sims, but you can't set anything on fire.
00:11:45
Speaker
Basically. You can burn your fish though.
00:11:50
Speaker
overcoat him nancy's the avatar in japanese rural is it a human avatar like what's the who are you playing yeah there's like a little boy who has a dog oh okay he goes on all these adventures i think he rescues the dog from the river maybe yeah was gonna say it kind of sounds like a murakami uh murakami novel or something Yeah, it's very different in terms of its aesthetic.
00:12:16
Speaker
okay hey i said wait um But it's it's very it's kind of a soothing thing. I've actually never played myself, but they're always playing in the background or they were for a while. They went a little jag and um it was a soothing thing to have in the background.
00:12:32
Speaker
That sounds very fun. love that. Yeah, I'll have to look into the Tales of the Shire in Japanese rural. my My pick for the best of this year, the first is very short and the second is much longer.
00:12:44
Speaker
But the first is an article that was written in The Atlantic a couple of issues ago. And it was written about an experience of being lost at sea. It's a nonfiction account.
00:12:57
Speaker
Spoiler alert, the author does survive given that he's writing the article. But what stood out to me is it's a very gripping story. And when I finished reading it, I looked up the author and learned he was like two years younger than me. He was 27-year-old kid.
00:13:16
Speaker
Isn't that depressing? It's very depressing. i'm not happy about it That's why I'm sharing
Ian's Recommendations: Articles and Films
00:13:23
Speaker
this. It's not too late to get shipwrecked, Ian. This is my quarter-life crisis. this I'm taking over this podcast to present my quarter-life crisis. it's it's a It's a great story. If you have 15 minutes over lunch, I highly recommend reading this account of...
00:13:42
Speaker
young man adrift after a pretty much Murphy's law, everything goes wrong on a fishing boat in the Pacific Northwest. What was the name of the article?
00:13:54
Speaker
It's called My Shipwreck Story by Alec Friedman. Maybe you should ask for a slightly leaky boat for Christmas. and then There you go. Just make your own shipwreck story.
00:14:07
Speaker
Yes, that's a good idea. That's good idea. I wouldn't want to get shipwrecked around the New York City waterways because that that would be a very um smelly shipwreck situation.
00:14:17
Speaker
can get shipwrecked at the Guanas. yeah It's some black mayo. um Does everybody know what black mayo is? The toxic sludge at the bottom of the Gowanus Canal.
00:14:31
Speaker
Oh, really? I'm sorry to have just learned about it. The fact that they call it black mayo is... Black mayo. Good band name. If you don't have 10 to 15 minutes... Something about just a solid color description, like black mayo, pink slime. There's something about just that solid color description that really makes it bad.
00:14:51
Speaker
Yeah. Soilent green. Soilent green. ah If you have more than 10 to 15 minutes and you have over two hours to spare, I would recommend Mulholland Drive by David Lynch. That was my movie of 2025 that Adrian, I think you recommended to me back in like 2017. And as is sort of custom, I feel like with you and me, when it comes to your recommendations, it takes me at minimum five to seven years to finally
00:15:23
Speaker
watch or read or listen to whatever that recommendation is, but it was worth it. Thank you for that recommendation. I don't really know what to say about the film because I don't really know how to describe the film. It's a pretty difficult and enigmatic premise, plotline, ending, whatever you want to call it.
00:15:44
Speaker
But thank you, Adrian, for recommending it because it it has certainly resonated with me, even if I even if i can't. i knew I knew I had to plant the seed. It wasn't good for a 20-year-old. You had to get to your 30s, but once you made it. Yeah.
00:15:58
Speaker
yeah yeah i I don't even remember recommending it, but I'm i'm glad that I did fact that's true.
Exploring 'Mulholland Drive'
00:16:04
Speaker
You did. What did you like about it? I think I liked the fact that it was a very simple story deceptively told.
00:16:14
Speaker
I think at its core, it's about what unrequited love can do to somebody and it can be quite dark and disturbing. But that doesn't really present itself as a central theme till very late in the game. And hopefully I'm not giving anything away.
00:16:31
Speaker
That on top of excellent acting, an extremely eerie atmosphere. I also think it's, I've never lived in Los Angeles, but I've visited many times and Neil, you and I were there for a client once.
00:16:44
Speaker
I think it really captures the mood of LA as a kind of strange, surreal city. I can't recommend it enough. It's just a great daydream of a movie that makes you think, which I guess any movie at its core should provoke in an audience. Will out? I don't It didn't stress me out. It's a daydream shot through with nightmares.
00:17:10
Speaker
Oh, okay. That's a pretty way to phrase it. That might be a unique take, Ian. There are some really discomforting moments. There are. There are for sure. all right. So I won't watch it immediately after the bear.
00:17:24
Speaker
I would not do that. I'm thinking of a couple of moments in particular that are deeply tense, if not unsettling. David Lynch is not known for being comforting. So I'm this. Maybe there's a psychological appointment in your future. There could be. as i As I mentioned, this is my quarter life crisis. Has anyone else else seen it besides Adrian and myself?
00:17:49
Speaker
yeah I have not actually, no. you Nancy, what's your what's your hot take? I mean, my hot take is that it's definitely unsettling, that the whole David Lynch universe, the whole vibe is just very unsettling.
00:18:03
Speaker
i most i saw it years and years ago, and I mostly just have sort of images in my mind and that unsettled feeling. So I think the answer for Tiffany is yes, it's unsettling. What I've noticed is what they know great when they do lists of the greatest films of the 21st century, it's almost always like in the top five or number two or number one. So It's definitely, I think it's phenomenal. It's incredibly Lynch in all of the best ways. If you're familiar with any of his other work, then you probably, you know, think about something like twin peaks, which also I think has moments that are funny and comforting, the damn fine cup of coffee, but also like sort deep underlying sense of weirdness that tends to discomfort people. I would not say that he is a comfortable watch for the most part.
00:18:54
Speaker
And to your point also, the plot is incredibly, ah intentionally opaque. um It's not the kind of movie where you're going to just sort of like watch and be like, oh, that was fun.
00:19:04
Speaker
I think you're if you're looking for that, then you probably won't like it because you'll get to the end and be like, I don't really know what just happened and it didn't make me feel good. you kind of have to go into it knowing that it's a bit of a thinker, but I think it's what we're thinking about personally.
00:19:20
Speaker
Adrian, was it you who told me that you you and a couple of friends watched the movie together, started to discuss the opaque plot line, and then decided, well, let's just let's go back to the beginning beginning and discuss that part, and discuss this and then it just turned into you re-watching in the
Adrian on 'Mulholland Drive' Discussion
00:19:38
Speaker
way. Yeah, we actually watched it back-to-back consecutively. yeah we We watched the movie in silence, and then nobody really knew what to make of it, and then we just started the movie over again and tried to explain to each other what we thought was happening.
00:19:50
Speaker
You made a director's cut. Essentially, we did, yeah. The commentary. did the commentary. right You know what's weird is that sometimes in my head I mix up – this is so very strange association. I mix up Mulholland Drive and Sunset Boulevard.
00:20:08
Speaker
Maybe it's just because they're both, you know, streets. Naomi Watts was ready for a close-up for sure. right They're both streets in in Los Angeles. And so it's, you know, I don't know, Mulholland Drive and Sunset Boulevard.
00:20:24
Speaker
unsatter i have a different kind of way I have to ask this though, Connor, because you, you having grown up in l LA, what is the quintessential movie about LA? You framed Roger Rabbit.
00:20:36
Speaker
Ooh.
00:20:39
Speaker
I thought you might say Chinatown. Yeah, I would have said Chinatown too. See, that's the thing is that it's like there's Chinatown, but but Who Framed Roger Rabbit is basically Chinatown, but like more, like weirder and more interesting and with cartoons. And I think sometimes, especially now, given we're used to just seeing a mix of like CGI and live action stuff we are in every movie that we see, it's it's easy to sort of like watch something like that where you've got traditional hand-drawn animation interacting with
Connor on 'Who Framed Roger Rabbit'
00:21:17
Speaker
characters.
00:21:17
Speaker
ah with real actors and be like, yeah, well, that looks pretty good. I bet you know that was good. But it's like there's very little CGI. Like when the when the tune has to pick up or, well, for for instance, there's a phrase in particularly in sort of like special effects, visual the visual effects world um called it's either bumping the lamp or swinging the lamp. And it's it is in reference to a scene in in Who Framed Roger Rabbit where um Bob Hoskins' character is there in the little like
00:21:55
Speaker
basement room in the the sort of like speakeasy part of the bar and he keeps walking back and forth and hitting his head on a hanging lamp so the light is just swinging back and forth in the room and you've got an animated character in the room there, which means that the the animators had to... Oops, I just hit my microphone.
00:22:18
Speaker
The animators had to hand track the swinging of the light to adjust all of the shadows in time on the animated character and make it...
00:22:30
Speaker
work And there's no lot or like but there's there's no plot reason for why the lamp should be swinging back and forth every time. It's just a gimmick. It's a gag. But the result is that it creates this completely immersive environment where you truly...
00:22:50
Speaker
without even thinking about it, believe that this animated cartoon character is living in that world and is right there. And so that idea of ah bumping the lamp or swinging the lamp is used to refer to things that you do in, you know, visual effects or movie or something like that, that are not strictly speaking necessary.
00:23:14
Speaker
They're probably technically very difficult, but they create this incredibly immersive experience. I know that this like so far from the original question of what is the quintessential Los Angeles movie, but I've seen Who Framed Roger Rabbit many times and it is a shockingly deep and interesting movie despite being about cartoon characters.
00:23:39
Speaker
I have it on my watch list. I've never seen that either. so Oh, it's so good. It's it is really good. it is i mean the The basic premise, it is it is the mid-40s in Los Angeles, and the idea is that at the time, in this golden age of cartoons, cartoon characters are real like actors, that they film cartoons like on a set with toons, and they live in Toontown, which is this... this like area of Los Angeles that's all sort of animated and um it's a noir film like the the the executive of the Acme Corporation is murdered and somebody has framed the cartoon character Roger Rabbit and it's just brilliant Bob Hoskins is amazing as like the alcoholic private eye it's it's great
00:24:38
Speaker
On the subject of the sort of weird and just to bring it back to Lynch for a minute, you're reminding me of the idea sort of bumping into the lamp.
David Lynch's Unique Details
00:24:45
Speaker
In an early, early episode of Twin Peaks, they're filming in the like the sheriff's interrogation room and they had a mounted like boss of a ah head like a a mounted deer head on the wall.
00:25:01
Speaker
And when they started filming, I don't know if it was part of like setting up the sound or lighting or something or just that it wasn't secured very well, but it fell off the wall. And Lynch was like, oh no, don't put it back.
00:25:13
Speaker
And so the entire time that they shoot this scene, like an interrogation scene that shot very seriously, they just have the deer head sitting on the table in between them as just a bizarre random prop that he thought made it seem like this was more alive. This was the kind of thing that would just like happen at a police station. I love that as an example, of just like introducing some moments of weirdness or sort of unnecessary complexity that make it feel like a lived world as opposed to a staged set.
00:25:40
Speaker
Hmm, beautifully set, both.
Nancy Recommends 'Ludwig'
00:25:55
Speaker
My favorite thing from this year is a bit of a departure. It's not about cartoon characters, but um I watched this show called Ludwig on BritBox.
00:26:05
Speaker
And I know at least one other person here has seen it. It is it's so good amazing and so good. Couldn't agree more. i Everyone should watch it. So far, there's only one season, but it is about a puzzle setter um played by David Mitchell, who finds out that his twin brother has disappeared and goes to impersonate his twin brother, who is a police inspector, to try to find out what happened to him.
00:26:32
Speaker
And he goes into um the police setting and he's like really shy and awkward and um not used to being with other people, except he's a puzzle setter and he can take all of that.
00:26:48
Speaker
Puzzle knowledge and apply it to the police cases. So it turns out he's a brilliant detective. And so he stands in for his brother and he ends up just solving all these cases and he keeps getting carried away and having to stay and continue impersonating his brother.
00:27:03
Speaker
And it is, there's sort of one overarching mystery of what happened to his brother, but in each episode, there's also a standalone mystery and all of them are incredibly satisfying. So at the end of each episode, they're resolving the one smaller mystery and gaining new clues for the larger mystery of what's happened to the brother. um I would give a special shout out to Anna Maxwell Martin, who plays Lucy, his sister-in-law, and is just this really fierce and flawed mother to her teenage son. And
00:27:43
Speaker
um she's just kind of the heart of the show, and she wears... awesome clothes, which is one of the things that's really fun about it. i love the way she dresses. The aesthetic of the show is really great. um And yeah, just that that sense of like we're we're solving every mystery at the end, but we don't actually solve the whole uber mystery. So that's running you through it and that's your kind of guiding
00:28:11
Speaker
It's the thing that ties it all together and keeps you watching, but the characters are fantastic and I loved it so much. I know Connor also enjoyed it. I would love to hear your take on it, Connor, as well. Well, I also, i appreciate one one thing that I picked up on is the fact that um David Mitchell's character is obviously heavily coded as very neurodivergent, but he's his neurodivergence is never made sort of like the butt
Portrayal of Neurodivergence in 'Ludwig'
00:28:38
Speaker
of the joke. um And particularly among his family, like his his relationship with his nephew, his relationship with his sister-in-law, this is because you know that the the interesting dynamic is that the sister-in-law
00:28:54
Speaker
they're childhood friends. Like she was childhood friends with these two twins and then married one of the twins. um And now this is sort of like the relationship of of her and and the other brother.
00:29:06
Speaker
um And his relationship with his with his family members is really interesting because they are not sort of They're not asking him to really be anything other than who he is in terms of his neurodivergence. And you know you you see it occasionally, but it's rarely played for laughs. like I think there's one instance where it's it's his he he clearly has ah some sort of compulsion about like pulling on seatbelts before he before he clicks the seatbelt in when he gets into a car.
00:29:36
Speaker
And maybe once or twice that's kind of played for for laughs, but at the same time, it's it's not in a not in a way that's sort of like suggesting that there's anything kind of wrong with him or that his way of seeing the world is in some way...
00:29:53
Speaker
in need of correction. It's like now his way of seeing the world is is part of why he is able to solve these mysteries and also like what makes him a good puzzle setter.
00:30:08
Speaker
and it's And it's also sort of what makes it hard for him to get along with other people, but also allows him to kind of see the things that he needs to see in every situation. And so it's the it's it's what makes his relationships strong as well. So it's always sort of about what his strengths are and how that contributes to setting puzzles, solving mysteries, and also kind of being this unintentional glue that's holding the family together.
00:30:39
Speaker
and thankfully they have renewed it for another season so that they they are filming another season of it. So very excited about that. do you have to have a BritBox subscription to watch it?
00:30:50
Speaker
You can get it through Prime Video. Amazon, yeah. Yeah. I had not heard of this show. I'm glad that that we're doing this end of year recap. I'm a huge David Mitchell fan. I love him in his various panel shows and Mitchell and Webb and et cetera. And so I will have to check this one out. And he plays both roles. So he's also playing his brother, who's a very different character. And the relationship with the sister-in-law is beautiful. And I read something where she was saying that that was why she took on
00:31:23
Speaker
the the role because it's really about her relationship with him and playing opposite him was really exciting to her too as an actor. um Yeah, you would love it. It's great.
00:31:36
Speaker
Does he have an opportunity to go on any indignant rants because that's really the Mitchell special. He's always indignant. and Fantastic indignant rants. ah ah
00:31:50
Speaker
It's delightful.
Nancy's Reading Preferences
00:31:51
Speaker
um So it turns out this was the year of me hating everything I read. so I went through all this this whole list of books that I read this year and i could do a whole podcast episode about all the things that I disliked. I really loved hearing Ian go on about how he disliked that movie because there were so many things that i disliked this year. um I'm going to spare you the things that I disliked, but...
00:32:17
Speaker
I ended up going back to a lot of things that are kind of classics for me or series that I liked. And one of them is the Thursday Murder Club books. I don't know if anybody has read these books.
00:32:30
Speaker
um Unfortunately, the list of things that i strongly dislike includes the recent Netflix movie um of the same name, which was based on the first book and was terrible.
00:32:44
Speaker
based on a really fantastic book series. So it's a shame, because I think a lot of people are gonna get to these books via that movie and watch the movie and be like, this is terrible. Why do people like the books? But the books themselves are fantastic. They're funny.
00:33:00
Speaker
I really laugh out loud funny. It's rare that I actually laugh out loud at a book, but I find these books hilarious. um They're great satisfying mysteries. The fifth one just came out this year.
00:33:12
Speaker
And I'm still going strong on this series. I I was really surprised because they sort of they're kind of a cozy mystery. i feel like he could have settled into sort of writing the cozy mystery set at their Saturday senior living community in England.
00:33:32
Speaker
And it's actually taken on a new direction where there's a lot of reflection on what it means to age, you know, what relationships really mean. They're um they're really thoughtful, but they're also super fun.
00:33:46
Speaker
And um there was an important, a significant death in the fourth book. And the fifth book is a lot of people trying to manage their feelings with regards to that. So, you know, each of them has a satisfying mystery at its core, but there's also a real through line. Apparently, that's something I'm very into these days. It's the through line. Each of these recommendations is satisfy satisfying at its core, but there is a through line among your recommendations.
00:34:15
Speaker
Fundamentally looking to make sense of the world here. ah so i wanted to add Perhaps your quarter life crisis. well I wanted to ask similar to Ian. That's very kind of you. Thank you. I'd be curious, what did you, just generally, what did you not like about the things that you read that you didn't like? what Like what wasn't landing for you?
00:34:38
Speaker
they Were there shared things? or Were there were there ah bush between the different books? I don't think so. Well, I really dislike the sort of big literary moment, the sickness, the death that's used as a plot point that, you know, the emotionally manipulative illness or death. um I did just read Heart the Lover.
00:35:06
Speaker
Maybe some folks have read Writers and Lovers. No. um Heart the Lover has gotten a lot of attention. People have really loved it. I really hated it for many reasons that would be there's too many spoilers to explain why hated but But if anybody wants to read it and get back to me, I'd be happy to discuss how much I disliked this book. I have, um Neil, you and I have a shared friend, Steve, who also read the book and he allowed me kindly to rant at him for um a long time about how much I disliked it. And it made me very sad because I loved Writers and Lovers. Writers and Lovers was, um have you never read Writers and Lovers, Neil?
00:35:54
Speaker
No. No. um I'm adding it. You should read that one. don't Don't read Heart the Lover. I'll save you the effort. Did Steve read Heart the Lover? I'm just curious. Did he read it? Yeah, he did And he encouraged me to read it and then ended up, I think, he wasn't ranting with me, but I think that my rant was not falling on deaf ears. You wrecked it for him. You helped wreck it him.
00:36:23
Speaker
He'd already read it. Thank goodness. But yeah, i've i'm I'm sure I've wrecked it for lots of people because I've been ranting about it. um Lily King was recently in Cincinnati doing a reading and I hadn't read it yet and I didn't manage to go to it.
00:36:36
Speaker
And now I'm so glad I didn't because I'm so mad at her. but One thing i wanted to mention, which was you were talking about mysteries and neurodivergence and through lines. Have you seen Extraordinary Attorney Wu?
00:36:49
Speaker
No, but I've heard of that. I think you've mentioned it before. You've mentioned it. Yeah. Yeah. I would just say it makes me think of that because it's this because she's a Korean attorney with autism and there's a case.
00:37:04
Speaker
each episode and and she basically like one of the reasons she's so effective as an attorney is that she has this incredible empathy that's you know she's so attuned to people and of course it manifests itself in like very kind of idiosyncratic ways but a lot of it is just about insight and recall and in and empathy which is part of what makes uh a great lawyer and it's and and also tiffany it's it's also one of these things where it's really like it's it's calming and diverting and still stimulating and trite and that's sometimes a hard like balance for me to to to find and i we really really enjoyed it
00:37:55
Speaker
i mean I think to your point, Neil, when you ask me what it is that I didn't like about a lot of these books, I think that maybe I'm looking for that. I'm looking for something that's calming and diverting, but not trite. um Maybe I should start a list of all the things that I found that are like that, because that's exactly what I find myself needing right now.
Neil on 'Pee Wee as Himself' Documentary
00:38:16
Speaker
Alrighty, so I guess I'm going to talk about a couple of things. And so one of them is a documentary. And i was thinking about for me, documentaries that ah appeal to me are things where they're multi-layered.
00:38:33
Speaker
and It's ironic because there's supposed to be these objective depictions of truth. But in fact, the the truth often becomes murkier for me in a really good documentary, ah one ah one of which is ah Capturing the Freedmen, which is about i you know It's about sexual abuse, but it's actually it's about this family, and it's this incredibly wild, almost contradictory
00:39:04
Speaker
um story of this family who also, they videotape themselves compulsively. So while this whole thing is going down, there's like archival footage, which makes it like realer, but in fact, it's more messed up.
00:39:18
Speaker
But anyway, and then another another one ah I've always loved is a piece of work, which is the Joan Rivers documentary, which you know she's the ultimate wisecracker and you see sort of her humanity and her grit and her determination.
00:39:35
Speaker
And it just opens you to a totally different side of this character. ah But the one I want to talk about is called Pee Wee as Himself. And it's about Pee Wee Herman, of all people. And ah my friend Catherine, who's a great sort of cultural critic, recommended it.
00:39:54
Speaker
And basically what I love about it is... there's There's so many things going on. So one is Wee Herman, who claimed to fame with Pee Wee's Big Adventure and Pee Wee's Playhouse.
00:40:07
Speaker
And when he started the whole Pee Wee character, it was very subversive and it had a real guerrilla theater quality to it. And when you see these early shows,
00:40:20
Speaker
also an incredibly kind of sarcastic streak and a little bit licentious and all these things happening at once and it was hugely about subtext and this whole idea of you know how he came across to kids to how he might come across to adults And what you realize is that he becomes the peewee character in real life.
00:40:51
Speaker
And Paul Rubens as a person becomes almost non-existent. And he talks about this, how... So he takes this character, it's like Roger Rabbit, he takes this character and then he's living the life of this character in the real world, but it's totally unreal. And of course he has no you know he has no romantic life, he has no,
00:41:14
Speaker
you know has relationships. He has no you know negativity. and And of course, it's totally soul sucking and it's totally fraudulent. um And I also love oh stories. and And I've talked about You're Wrong About, which is a podcast that I like because one of the things that that.
00:41:35
Speaker
um Sarah does on that is she takes these flash in the pan cultural people who become sort of jokes and does incredibly compelling portraits of their humanity.
00:41:48
Speaker
And so with Pee Wee, Pee Wee becomes this joke when he's he's caught in a movie theater. and you know sexually compromising situation and becomes just an incredible,
00:42:00
Speaker
um it's like people who have, the same people who put him on the pedestal just relish and knocking him down and trampling in the dirt. And it says so much about just the sort of vicissitudes um of American culture.
00:42:14
Speaker
And then, and this isn't really a spoiler, but um another motif in the movie is he's, he's He's pretty hostile to the filmmaker because he's so used to controlling every aspect of his persona that he wants to do the same with his biography. So it's quite their relationship is quite fractious.
00:42:33
Speaker
ah And then the other thing the other thing that you learn is that he had a terminal illness and he was dying while the documentary was being made and didn't tell the filmmaker. So it's this real parfait of just, and and and that and when you see the, especially the early Pee Wee stuff is so brilliant and hilarious and incredibly original.
00:42:57
Speaker
So it's just, um you know, it's a really, it's some ways it's a classic American story of somebody who, you know, is it like Liberace is venerated when he's a subtext, but when the reality of his life actually comes out literally, it becomes it becomes like an American tragedy.
00:43:15
Speaker
and But it was really, really, really fascinating. Did they delve into his sexuality at all, Neil? because ah And I don't know much of the story of Pee Wee Herman, but i was it recent that he came, he kind of late in life came out as as gay? Well, what happened was he had he had a relationship with a guy in California for several years that was kind of idyllic.
00:43:37
Speaker
And then he went back into the closet because he wanted to get film roles. And this is, again, you could not be an out actor in you know, late 1970s Hollywood. So, I mean, the and the irony of like Paul Rubens and Pee Wee going into the closet to get sort of like masculine, quote unquote masculine film roles. It's kind of hilarious and of itself, but he did that and never really had a relationship again because Pee Wee, which consumed him, was a largely two-dimensional character.
00:44:09
Speaker
um which is again, know, another classic kind of show business sort of trope in a way. But, um and he was also incredibly disciplined and again, really, really, it's really, the stuff is really, really brilliant, but it came at like a great cost, you know?
Ken Burns' Series on American Revolution
00:44:28
Speaker
Well, and part of what I think is kind of interesting about the Pee Wee Herman character is that he's sort of this weird, like childlike and almost asexual character.
00:44:41
Speaker
and And yet there's that sort of, like as as you said, sort of like licentious, like slightly slightly subversive, almost sort of double entendre sense to it.
00:44:53
Speaker
And that I can imagine that that would make it very difficult for Paul Reubens, the actor, to have had... you know any sort of normal relationship with his sexuality totally totally um and talk about something vastly different um so which is the ken burns um a american revolution series which has been getting a lot uh of kind of notice and press and uh chip and i have watched most most of it
00:45:24
Speaker
And it's pretty amazing. I mean, the the one thing that's funny about it is each episode is about two hours. And you know what I've come to realize is like, I was actually, actually one of the watched this year was The Leftovers. and And those episodes were an hour and they feel really long.
00:45:42
Speaker
so the So the Ken Burns episodes seem really long, and ah it's kind of a commitment. And of course, you know, it's in classic Ken Burns fashion, he sort of invented this genre. You think about it, there's no um there's no footage right i mean everything is sort of these fragmented recreations and you know landscapes and buildings and which is which is an amazing feat to be able to construct a compelling um documentary out of this all of this stuff that's incredibly static um
00:46:24
Speaker
And a couple of things that are really interesting about it One is he clearly has heard past criticism about notions of like inclusivity and representation.
00:46:36
Speaker
So there's a lot in it about women. There's a lot about indigenous peoples and you know how they were totally um just just the the epic betrayal of um indigenous people and ah ah you know people of color. And you know yeah Washington,
00:46:56
Speaker
who oh was well known in slavery, they had integrated troops um And he originally was was forbade the integration of you know sort of the militia.
00:47:14
Speaker
And then when he saw how these enslaved people, they're how heroically they behaved in the battlefield, he actually integrated the troops. so there's there's ah there's And there's a lot of amazing, I love statistical sort of trivia stuff.
00:47:28
Speaker
um For example, what was the fourth largest settlement in the colonies in 1777? The
00:47:38
Speaker
the fourth largest? Oof. um
00:47:45
Speaker
Oh, it's a stumper. Was it in... Virginia? was north It was a place called Valley Forge, Pennsylvania. valley so right So when the you so when the the colonial army was at Valley Forge, it was the fourth largest settlement.
00:48:03
Speaker
and like So you learn, again, you learn a lot just about life in the colonies and economics and Washington's character. And also, you know, these these cons, these some i don't know if they're called conscripts, but basically, you know, they would have they would like sign up for a year and then they would leave and they'd have to be replaced.
00:48:26
Speaker
And and the ups and the incredible ups and downs of the war, including, like I mean, the Battle of New York, I mean, you realize how close the whole thing was to imploding.
00:48:40
Speaker
And a lot of historians, even who find Washington problematic, you realize that it's hard to imagine the rebellion succeeding without Washington, who's just an incredibly charismatic leader.
00:48:55
Speaker
So, um, Ken Burns, actually, Neil, he'd be, uh, you might be interested in reading it, but, um, the Atlantic, I'm sorry, I keep bringing up the Atlantic, but they did, uh, an issue last month, which is the unfinished revolution and Ken Burns and the other filmmakers wrote about, the process of filming.
00:49:13
Speaker
this series and they talked a lot about filming in 21st century weather, but how important weather was, for example, to the the successful evacuation of of New York.
00:49:24
Speaker
um And they also taught what I found most interesting, and I haven't actually seen the series yet, but I do want to watch it. They talk a lot about the reenactors. I'm not sure how much you've seen of footage they use of like historical interpreters and the reenactors, but he gives them a huge thank you, not just for their participation in the film, but, and I know there's many folks from New England on the call, but he talks about the, they just did the, I forget what anniversary it was of the battle. Well, I guess we're approaching the 250th anniversary um ah Bunker Hill, which they didn't actually do on Bunker Hill in Charleston. They did it up in Clouster, I think.
00:50:01
Speaker
But just the ah the clothing you're wearing and how heavy everything, like it takes a ton of commitment on a hot day in the summer to pull that off. And anyways, I recommend the article if you you have a chance to read it. because And for me, I'll watch the series because I've heard nothing but good things. um Actually, it's funny. Another thing you learn is that Washington had his troops inoculated against smallpox.
00:50:27
Speaker
And the idea of math, which is also, again, in the present moment, crushing irony. But they cite that as that is one of the reasons. Like, if the he if he had not done that, which was an incredibly risky thing to do,
00:50:41
Speaker
um And they still lost huge numbers of soldiers to disease, but it it it actually, they think it might've made the difference in the war. So I totally recommend it, but it's it's a commitment.
00:51:03
Speaker
Cool.
Connor Recommends 'Long Live the Post Horn'
00:51:04
Speaker
Well, my first recommendation is not really a commitment because it's a fairly short book. um It is a book from ah three or four years ago, I think, called Long Live the Post Horn by Vigdis Hjott.
00:51:21
Speaker
It is a Norwegian novel um about a a PR executive whose firm is hired by the Norwegian Postal Service to support um or to actually to to handle the communications in opposition to an upcoming proposed EU postal directive.
00:51:45
Speaker
And if that sounds exciting, then just wait. um It is actually a really interesting book because it starts, like, the the main character is basically at this point of total despair and desperation. She has kind of lost her sense of of self and her connection to her family, to her partner, to any sense of of community.
00:52:09
Speaker
And basically, over the course of working on the communications in opposition to this EU postal directive, she starts to gain sort of a sense of meaning in this task and in this sort of ah this purpose.
00:52:29
Speaker
this purpose And it actually ends on a, i mean, it's not really necessarily a spoiler to just say it, it ends on a surprisingly hopeful note as a result of sort of like finding meaning and purpose in ah in shared goals and community and community.
00:52:46
Speaker
you know, it's it it's kind of leftist, sorry, but it kind of is. um And- How dare you? How dare i Yes. And it's also just interesting because you i feel like you see, so there are so many novels that are kind of existential novels that end with like kind of the disillusion of self and the the narrator or the main character kind of like losing losing a sense of purpose and and belonging. And there aren't as many about like sort of finding that sense of purpose and belonging. And it was really unexpected to me to sort of um find that there. And I think it's it's unexpected to the to the um the narrator, to the protagonist, to find this sense of meaning and belonging and working for this
00:53:35
Speaker
this EU postal directive, which like I don't even really understand. It's something about like setting like universal postal rates.
00:53:46
Speaker
And since Norway is like not totally ah beholden to the two directives from the EU, they like they don't have to ah go along with it, but it's, i don't know. And the the the thing that's interesting is that this a real, this is a real ah bill that happened in the European Parliament.
00:54:07
Speaker
And it it ended up passing. And so like, essentially, you know that What she's fighting for it like doesn't matter because in the end it ended up passing and Norway adopted the postal directive. But that's not the point of the book. The point of the book is that it's like there's this this sense of purpose and belonging and meaning in a communal effort.
00:54:29
Speaker
And I thought that was... I'm having a hard time connecting to the ah the Byzantine postal regulations, but I do like the idea of striving for something more together. That's nice. Well, the Byzantine postal regulations, I will say, are like, I don't understand what what they are about either. And the it kind of doesn't matter. like The book does not really make a big deal about it. And honestly, I think the main character doesn't understand what they're all about either. She's just...
00:54:53
Speaker
Her PR firm has been hired to you know make claims that this is going to be bad for Norwegian postal workers, and so they mount a campaign for that. Connor, when you originally told me you thought I would love this novel, I looked it up, and I found on, I think it's a publisher's website, it says, this is an existential scream of a novel about loneliness.
00:55:19
Speaker
And the Postal Service, which I just thought was really fantastic. Well, and, and but that, I mean, I think it's important to know that it's an existential scream about loneliness, but but it starts from the point of loneliness and then goes from there. And I think that's...
00:55:36
Speaker
to to the the theme that has been running through this episode and these recommendations of wanting some calm and coziness. And this is this is hopefully not a book that would leave you feeling more alone and more in despair.
00:55:54
Speaker
It didn't for me. I think that was sort of a cheap shot at Edvard Munch, a screamy yes ah Well, I was thinking one of the things that I find, ah and this is, I've talked about this last few years, like to me, like the preoccupations of upper middle class white people, especially in fiction, are just not that interesting to me anymore because it doesn't feel like kind of new terrain. And also the whole thing about so many narratives that are all about wealth and fame and money and glamour and the idea of people just sort of workaday people finding something meaningful or compelling or engaging about the actual lives, which are like much more like the lives that people actually lead.
00:56:41
Speaker
I think that sounds really appealing. And it's also, i think, probably harder to do in a lot of ways. So um my second recommendation is another documentary kind of ah along the lines of some of the things that you were talking about, Neil, but ah also a very different
Connor on John Candy Documentary
00:56:59
Speaker
vibe. And this is um the recent documentary that I believe is on Amazon Prime about John Candy called I Like Me.
00:57:10
Speaker
um And in Sally's family, there is a long tradition of watching planes, trains and automobiles every Thanksgiving. um So that has now become very much part of my tradition as well.
00:57:24
Speaker
Fantastic movie. um And the the the title of the documentary, I Like Me, is is from i that pretty well-known speech that John Candy's character Del Griffith gives ah in Planes, Trains, and Automobiles where he says, I like me, my my wife likes me, my customers like me.
00:57:44
Speaker
And the documentary is just, it's beautiful. It has so many people who knew him and worked with him.
00:57:55
Speaker
And you just, you come to understand that this kind of lovable, jovial man that you see in all of these films, that that really is him, that he he really was just this there's beautiful man and father and husband um troubled. i mean, you know, they they talk so much about the impact of his own father dying at the age of 35 on John Candy's fifth birthday.
00:58:27
Speaker
and how that impacted his his life. And then you have his his two now adult children being interviewed and talking about that experience that they knew that their father went through, which is all the more poignant realizing it's like, well, yeah, but they also then lost their father when they were not quite that young, but still fairly young. I mean, know, I think his his son was was like when died.
00:58:56
Speaker
less than ten years old when when candy died um But it is really interesting to see how much sort of archival footage there is. There's lots of home movies and um interviews with him from over the years, archival footage from SCTV, where you get to see like young Eugene Levy and Catherine O'Hara and Martin Short and all of these people.
00:59:23
Speaker
in these in these these roles from the the late 70s. And then they're all being interviewed in the documentary too. Eugene Levy, Martin Short, Steve Martin, Catherine O'Hara,
00:59:35
Speaker
um ah I mean, Dan Aykroyd, all of these people. And ah it's it's beautiful. It's heartwarming. He was he was ah he was a great person. And i think illuminates a lot about actually watching some of his movies and sort of seeing what he, how he threw himself into these roles.
00:59:57
Speaker
Um, and I just warm and fuzzy. It was great.
01:00:04
Speaker
It's so interesting because he wasn't taken down a peg, you know? And that's, it's, yeah it's i probably, it's probably refreshing to see that because it's, again, that's so often the narrative is kind of like, he wasn't entirely, but there's, they definitely talk a bit about the, you know, the experience of, of his, his weight and his physical body and, and the ways in which, like, I mean, he was,
01:00:27
Speaker
asked some just like horrendous questions about his weight in in interviews that just like would would would get a would get a journalist just absolutely cancelled nowadays. And he just kind of had to smile and nod through it.
01:00:42
Speaker
um But it it talks a lot about the ways in which he was given advice by a lot of people that's just saying, look, if you lose a bunch of weight and you slim down, those roles are going to go away because you won't be John Candy anymore. Nobody's going to want, nobody wants a thin John Candy. That's not John Candy.
01:00:59
Speaker
um And it's just horrific to think about, in essence, that advice was killing him, you know? um So it's, I know I just, I just said, oh, it's so beautiful and warm and fuzzy and heartwarming, but, but also, you know,
01:01:16
Speaker
has some has some darkness to it Well, I'm regretting a little bit that I'm last on the list because I'm going to bring us down briefly, but then we'll hopefully end on positivity.
01:01:27
Speaker
um But when I was thinking about some of the things that I loved the most this year, um was reflecting on ah a chess player and streamer who I've watched for many years. His name is Daniel Naroditsky, who unfortunately passed away in November. And I was thinking about how I first discovered him in 2020 in the midst of COVID, as so many others have turned to the internet, ran out of TV shows to watch or hold my attention.
01:01:50
Speaker
Um, and I started playing more online chess, which is just a wonderful sort solitary home game because you can play with essentially infinite people these days, instantly online.
01:02:01
Speaker
Um, and of course the creators of the chess websites were also realizing that and trying to monetize that. And they, they made a big big push chess.com in particular as one of the two sort of main websites.
01:02:12
Speaker
It made a big push for um sort of building the brand of chess via their website. And that involved propping up a lot of these really famous chess players and streamers and getting them to sort of co-brand with them.
01:02:26
Speaker
um And Naroditsky was one of them, some other folks, Hikaru is a really popular chess player and streamer is probably number two in the world currently. Magnus Carlsen, of course, number one in the world for many years, was also playing chess online. And there's this wonderful community of those folks who, when you think about what it takes to get really good at chess, you've got to play a lot of games. And the easiest way to play a lot of games against other players who are good is to play online.
01:02:49
Speaker
And the result is that these guys are just sitting at their computers playing chess for hours and they realized that they could do that live and people would watch and people would comment and people would want to learn and listen to them.
01:02:59
Speaker
um And Naroditsky was one person who I think really tapped into that energy. He was not only an incredibly talented chess player, but also really funny, really personable. um really wise. He did a really good job of explaining what he was doing and sort of built his name in that online community as a an educator more so than a top player, although he was incredible player in his own way.
01:03:23
Speaker
um But he put together these chess speedruns. That's what they called them. when You start playing at a really low level. And as you win more games, you move up in the ranks and and you sort of play through to a really high level. And as you go, you demonstrate here's how you approach the game at a basic level. Here's how you take advantage of positions against weaker players as you get better at the game. um Here are some more complex positions and here's how you can win in these more talents in more challenging situations.
01:03:49
Speaker
um And he was just a wonderful person to watch and spend time with. And i enjoyed watching him live. i enjoyed watching his recorded videos and and was very sad that that we lost him in November.
01:04:00
Speaker
How did he pass, Adrian? Was he younger or was... well Yeah, he actually died, I think it was a couple weeks before his 30th birthday. I don't know that the family has commented much about it. He was dealing with a lot of mental health stuff at the time. and There's ah another very famous player who had been sort of berating and accusing him for a long time of cheating, which I think everybody agrees is completely unfounded, but it really took a toll on his mental health. So I don't know the details, but certainly a ah tragedy in any event. I'm sorry to hear that.
01:04:30
Speaker
I will still recommend that you check out his videos online, though. There's a lot of really good stuff
Adrian on Daniel Naroditsky's Chess Insights
01:04:34
Speaker
out there. And I went back, I was in preparation for this, I was watching some of the earliest stuff that I have seen of him when back in 2020 when I first learned that he existed, and they are still very good and very very funny.
01:04:47
Speaker
um So if you go back to that original chess speedrun, that would be my recommendation. One book that I did not hate this year, i didn't love it either, but I didn't hate it, was Sally Rooney's Intermesso. I don't know if anybody else read it.
01:05:00
Speaker
And you have a major character who is a chess player and you have a lot of really interesting sort of reflection on on chess. um And I was finishing that book right about the time that he died.
01:05:17
Speaker
And it had, I don't know, it had just sort of put me in mind of chess and put me inside the head of somebody who was trying to play chess. And I started reading up on all of the cheating accusations that he had dealt with. um And it's it's a really, it's it's a it's a rabbit hole that you can fall into pretty easily um to learn more about him. But ah he's he was an interesting character. I too was saddened to hear of his death.
01:05:40
Speaker
Yeah. It's funny you mention that too, because I was thinking even just like a couple of weeks ago, I think Tom Brady had some teary eyed interview he was doing about how he hasn't been a very good dad and he's, you know, sort of let his family down. And rate but that's sort of the mental price that you pay to be that dedicated to one element of your life. And I think that you become sort of emotionally stunted, maybe fragile, certainly in certain ways as you become so hyper fixated on that one goal.
01:06:10
Speaker
Have you seen The Queen's Gambit? I actually have not watched The Queen's Gambit. On my list. I really want to see it. loved it. That was couple ago. That was couple years ago. That's something I loved this year. Her, Emma.
01:06:27
Speaker
Oh, you yes. Yeah, you were. That, that, talk about it. love about things I loved. It's so good. And she is amazing. And that's what made me revisit the idea of watching The Queen's Gambit because she was so great as Emma. And Emma is so weird. Like of, of all of Jane Austen, like Emma is a, is a weird book. And that movie appropriately captures how weird that is.
01:06:53
Speaker
It was a great version of that. ah That takes me back to the first first days of COVID. I think that was one of the first movies that like had just been, either was just released in theaters and then quickly pivoted to streaming or so went immediately to streaming. And so that was that's like March of 2020. Oh, wow.
01:07:13
Speaker
ah wow I was five years late to this party. um I've related to that. While I was becoming enamored with chess, I was also becoming enamored with Sudoku. um i i know, Nancy, that flow is into that you were saying and, you know, I know you've had your moments with it. So I would recommend to you all and to anybody else's interest in Sudoku, this YouTube channel called Cracking the Cryptic.
01:07:35
Speaker
which was also a sort of pandemic find of mine. It's these two UK puzzle champions, which apparently is a thing you can be. um they so They are on the like national Sudoku team, but they do, they solve puzzles live. They just like sort of put up a puzzle that they've never seen before. And that's recommended by their crew or their team or their friends. um and they solve them and they talk through their thinking and it's fascinating. They do all handmade Sudoku. So it's like custom, often custom rule sets.
01:08:06
Speaker
Um, they can be a little bit more complicated than just what you find in the New York times, which is a lot of fun. Um, some of the newer variants, which I, I think are really interesting are the fog of war Sudoku. So you'll start where you can only see, you know, maybe yes, one box, you know, nine cells. And then as you fill in,
01:08:23
Speaker
the cells, it reveals other cells around it. So you sort of slowly uncover the grid, um which is actually who meets Minesweeper. Exactly. But it's actually really valuable from a solving perspective because it limits your options. You can only look in the places where you've uncovered the grid, right? So that makes it, even as you're doing a complicated puzzle, it makes it a little bit easier because you're limiting your your options in a a valuable way. and And it allows you a little bit inside the head of the constructor as well. Like they want you to follow a certain path to solve the puzzle, which is nice. And that's also very different from what you find New York Times, where it's you know essentially,
01:09:02
Speaker
fill in as many as are obvious and then you know sort fill in all the options and then see which options you can cross out which is process it's a great skill to have but um it can be a little bit repetitive as opposed to solving something little bit more custom where you're intended to oh this is like the trick that's like the clever little insight that their creator has designed for you to find um they are more up your alley yeah that might be yeah Simon, who is the one that I watch the most, is just the sweetest British man you've ever seen. And he lives next to an airport and he's always complaining about Maverick flying by.
01:09:42
Speaker
And he plays his own little guitar intros. He's adorable. Highly recommend it. That is adorable. Does does he have a twin brother who's gone missing? He does not have a twin brother.
01:09:54
Speaker
I want to close out my YouTube creators with my my pandemic finds with one other that I'll mention just very briefly, but he's a freestyle rapper named Harry Mack. And if you have not heard of him, and if you have any interest whatsoever in freestyle rap or rhyming or the way that words in the brain work, highly recommend him. He is He's very impressive. Yeah.
01:10:15
Speaker
Unbelievable. Unbelievable. What's his name? Harry Mack. Mary Mack. Nice. Pretty exceptional. Oh, I'll give you one more. That was the other thing I was going to talk about, but apparently I was brain dead as I was preparing this. um The other thing that I got really into this year, maybe it was last year. Maybe i already talked about this on a podcast. I don't know. Was the French rap duo, Big Flo and Ollie.
01:10:41
Speaker
You did not talk about no? No, you didn't. All right. They are so great I have been loving them so much.
01:10:52
Speaker
They are from Toulouse. We learned about them when we lived there. They're huge in France. They're brothers. um And... I think when you can understand the words, the words are amazing and you can hear the good rhymes. But for the rest of us. It's honestly really enjoyable just listening to it.
01:11:17
Speaker
We've spent a lot of time in the car this year listening to Big Flo and Ollie. There's something people can look up. Cool. Can you do it? Did they have a captioned version? Ooh, fun, maybe. I can do it.
01:11:31
Speaker
yeah
01:11:34
Speaker
On the next edition of the podcast, we'll do a libretto rap in france in French. and Oh, boy. That would be interesting. Oh, boy. My French is way too rusty for that. and I do Spanish instead.
01:11:47
Speaker
Pick your own language. We'll all do a different language. That'll be fun. Yep. Oh boy. I call ancient Greek. Nobody else. Oh, I thought you were going to do it. Oh man. Connor. That's what I was going to pick. Is it first come first serve? Cause I'll take English.
01:12:07
Speaker
It's off the table now.
01:12:20
Speaker
Were we going to talk about our our our one joint recommendation? Our shared recommendation. Oh, yes there's so all of All of Libretto is recommending to everybody, and which i'm sure nobody has I'm sure nobody has heard of, but it's this this movie called K-pop Demon Hunters.
01:12:38
Speaker
um I'm sure nobody has heard of it. Nobody has heard of it. And and nobody the other day we watched the ah Macy's Thanksgiving parade and both my kids sat through the entire thing just waiting for the K-pop Demon Hunters section of the Thanksgiving Day parade, which was really, really exciting because you get to see the actual singers doing the performance.
01:13:01
Speaker
And it was great. That's cool. Right. yeah So should we all say one thing we liked about the movie? Well, I'll go first. Should we let Ian start? Let's let Ian, who's never seen it, go first. Well, Ian's seen the trailer. so he's Oh, that's right. Ian, what did you like about the trailer?
01:13:20
Speaker
i like Apparently nothing. He didn't bother watching the movie. I liked the the music. I enjoyed the music the most. And I recommend the movie on the strength of the trailer music alone.
01:13:33
Speaker
All right. and the The music did get stuck in my head after I watched it. But honestly, my favorite part about it was kind of the animation, but more so the color palette they used. I thought it was really like visually different and interesting and really cool.
01:13:52
Speaker
I liked that part about it. My absolute favorite part was the bird with the hat on. i know that the it sort of underground cat monster was very popular, but the bird with the hat was for me.
01:14:06
Speaker
we um We have taken to, every time we have any free time in my house now, everybody chants, couch, couch, couch, couch. That has really worked its way into our our family vocabulary.
01:14:23
Speaker
I particularly like the um ah more specifically within the animation style, the the way in which sort of like the frame rate of the animation that it's almost like kind of looks a little like stop motion claymation at times um has this great sort of like.
01:14:44
Speaker
Like, because it's like fast, but, but slow almost. I don't know. That's probably a not particularly nuanced way of describing that. But um yeah. And the way that they like borrow from anime and manga visual styles to sort of like adjust the, I mean, that when they, when they see the Saja boys and their eyes turned into, to the corn emojis and then the corn starts popping.
01:15:09
Speaker
i love that. Yeah. I love the fact that they were they were girls and they had agency and they were authentic.
01:15:21
Speaker
And it was just kind of, um it was just presented very, almost kind of matter-of-factly. And I also, I mean, funny. I liked it the same reason I liked Clueless, where there's something incredibly important.
01:15:36
Speaker
Winning about it, that's from like just sort of leaning into like like girliness, you know, or like, you know, its sort of like that kind of girl power thing. And um and I also I know this is I'm always a downer. I also liked the fact that it wasn't kind of winking or self referential.
01:15:55
Speaker
You know, I felt like it was really clever it was truly clever. and um diverting and ah really, really fun and not and not patronizing.
01:16:07
Speaker
My 10-year-old did get to go to a sing-along version of it and does know all of the words and did enjoy that very, very much. I feel like maybe that should be the next libretto outing. I listen to yeah i listened to the the soundtrack many times after after we first watched it and it was i had listened to it an embarrassingly large number of times before I actually looked up the lyrics and realized that some of those lines that I was like why can't I understand that line it's like oh that line's in Korean yeah that's why also the fact that they killed zombies but it wasn't gory and that's ah that's you know it's like I like it's like I like non-gory violence is that so wrong
01:16:58
Speaker
Yeah, and then it did it it often morphed into the sort of anime drawing style at that time, which it felt like a suggestion of violence rather than anything else. And then it it it was also kind of light and fun.
01:17:12
Speaker
It worked well with the with the grown ups and with the 10 year old set. All right. Well, it has been wonderful hearing all of your recommendations and talking about K-pop demon hunters with you all.
01:17:23
Speaker
This has been Well Put, a libretto podcast. If you want to learn more about libretto and what we do, you can check out librettoinc.com. That's libretto-inc.com. And I hope you all have a happy holiday and hopefully take some time off to maybe engage with some of these recommendations.
01:17:47
Speaker
Well put.