Category: Books

What I Watched & You Should Too!

I’m writing this post mostly because I just watched Hannah Gadsby’s Nanette special, and I felt the need to add my voice to the chorus of people telling you that you NEED to watch this, immediately. It’s rare that I feel such a visceral reaction to any show, much less a comedy special, but Nanette far transcends its genre. I’m giving it a few days to settle, then I plan on re-watching it because I am in awe of the way that Gadsby wrote and structured the show – it’s so brilliant, and it builds upon itself, layer by layer, to a perfect ending. It will devastate you, but in the best possible way. Seriously, “x” out of here and go watch it right now. Do it!

Did you watch it?

I hope so.

If you’re looking for more reccs, here are a few other things I read/watched recently.

This is not breaking news, but Hillbilly Elegy was a very interesting read. As a (white) immigrant from an “undesirable” European country, I’ve always felt like an outsider to the social class system here in the West, but reading Elegy re-framed my perspective on that to some extent. I have much less in common with the “hillbillies” that JD Vance writes about than I thought I did, largely because of education. I was poor growing up (particularly by Western standards) but everyone in my family, going back to both sets of grandparents, had post-secondary education and I grew up in an environment where academic success was highly valued (and, in fact, demanded). I don’t think I really understood before how much of a difference that makes, not necessarily in immediate economic terms, but in the mindset of a child and, ultimately, their long-term trajectory in life.

On a completely different note, I also really enjoyed browsing through The Cool Factor by Andrea Linnett, and was greatly inspired by it. I normally dislike style books that focus on “key pieces” (because everyone has different tastes, needs and lifestyles) but Linnett does so in a way that doesn’t feel prescriptive. For example, there is a chapter on how to incorporate leather into your wardrobe, and various options are included – from classic leather jackets, to skirts, pants, leggings, etc. Concepts are illustrated through outfits worn by different women (not models) with varying aesthetics, which I found very helpful. [I will say that, while there is some diversity among the women featured, there isn’t any real plus size representation in the book.] I wouldn’t say that there is anything particularly revolutionary about the book, but reading it sparked a renewed sense of excitement about exploring and expressing my own style – almost as if I had been busted out of a clothes rut I didn’t know I was in.

Lastly, I recently watched Thor: Ragnarok and was completely charmed by it. I attribute this 100% to the involvement of Taika Waititi; I have not seen any previous Thor movies, and Chris Hemsworth is not a Chris I get excited about. Ragnarok was just a lot of fun – and really funny! Afterwards, I promptly re-watched What We Do In the Shadows (a must if you haven’t seen it), and then checked out Hunt for the Wilderpeople, which I also enjoyed a lot. It’s funny and sweet (but not cloying in the least), and the performances are spot on. I was actually sad when the movie ended, because I wanted to watch more of Ricky and Hec’s bush adventures. It’s a good antidote if you’re feeling down – and, let’s face it, there are lots of reasons these days why you might be.

What I Read: Ghosts and Titans Edition

Every time I finish watching a really great series, I get into a Netflix slump. So is the current case after Fargo. I can’t seem to be able to motivate myself into starting anything new, even though I’m spoiled for choice. The good news is that means I have more time for reading.

This week, I read the excellent Spook by Mary Roach. I’ve loved her writing ever since I read Stiff, but at some point I lost track of her books. Spook was a good reintroduction; it’s well-researched and full of her usual witty asides. For some reason, I found myself oddly longing for Roach to actually find some scientific evidence of life after death; it’s something that has been on my mind lately, and I struggle with the unknownable-ness (oof, that’s an unwieldy non-word) of it all. It doesn’t surprise me in the least that many people strongly believe in an afterlife, because I can easily imagine how reassuring that would be. Damn my inner cynic/agnostic! I’ve actually been toying with the idea of writing some kind of ghost-based rom-com as a kind of feel-good substitute. Anyway, Spook is a great read, and you should grab all of Mary Roach’s books if you have the chance.

I also tried to read The Uncrowned King by Kenneth Whyte, a biography of William Randolph Hearst. Emphasis on “tried”. It’s a relatively thick tome that goes into a lot of detail about the newspaper business at the end of the 19th century/beginning of the 20th century. My interests being more in the line with the social aspects of the Gilded Age, I found it a hard slog. It doesn’t happen often, but I just couldn’t make myself read through the whole thing so this was a rare DNF for me. I’m planning to read Hillbilly Elegy by JD Vance next, which promises to be an interesting contrast, both in terms of subject matter and readability. In the meantime, I might be in the mood for some more turn of the century drama, so if you have a favourite TV/movie adaptation of a Gilded Age novel (Henry James, Edith Wharton, etc.), leave me your recc’s in the comments – bonus if it’s available on Netflix.

What I Watched: Back to Netflix Edition

It’s been a while since I binge-watched Netflix to the extent of recent weeks, but I’ve been working on some larger knitting projects and I find that I enjoy having shows running in the background while I knit. I prefer documentaries and comedy specials for that, because I listen to them without necessarily having to watch them. I’ve lost track of the number of specials I’ve seen, but they included:

– Ali Wong, Hard Knock Wide: as raunchy, or possibly more so, than her first special. I really enjoyed the show, but I think I liked Baby Cobra more – probably because I had no frame of reference for it, while Hard Knock Wife consequently had a high standard to live up to.

– John Mulaney, Kid Gorgeous: he’s not a “must watch” comic for me but this was pretty good.

– Amy Schumer, The Leather Special: kinda meh, to be honest. I felt like I was watching “Amy Schumer, Celebrity” rather than “Amy Schumer, Comic” which was kinda intriguing, but also kinda not as funny.

– Trevor Noah, Afraid of the Dark: I’m a sucker for anyone who can do a bunch of accents, so I liked this a lot. The bit at the end about Russian accents had me in tears. Full disclosure: I am one quarter Russian (hey, it counts), but I can’t do accents to save my life, and especially not a good Russian accent; I am now very sad about that.

Moving on, I watched a bunch of what I call “non-fiction TV”. Better known as “documentaries”. Can you tell that I had been on a reading kick until recently? Anyway, Dirty Money is excellent, you guys. It’s a docu-series that focuses on various financial and business scandals. I especially enjoyed the episodes on Valeant, payday lending, and Donald Trump.

I don’t often feel very strong negative emotions towards people, but I loathed Scott Tucker and his wife as soon as they started speaking. Their complete disregard for the suffering they caused to millions of people, combined with self-pity over Scott’s federal indictment and the loss of their ill-begotten gains, made me sick to my stomach. These people are poster children for what is wrong with capitalism, and I say that as a leaning-to-the-fiscal-conservative-side person.

Equally enraging was the Valeant story, which tested the limits of my conservative tendencies in a similar way. I understand how the pharma business operates, and the fact that a profit needs to be made to provide an incentive to spend money on potentially life-saving R&D. But to gouge exorbitant profits from a “captive market” (people dependent on your drugs to stay alive) without using any portion of that money towards advancing the public good? I simply cannot accept that as a justifiable business model – ethically, morally, whatever. It’s just despicable, and the people involved in that business who only see/care about the bottom line are equally despicable.

So it was interesting to follow up that episode of Dirty Money with Betting on Zero, a documentary about Herbalife. For those of you who don’t know, Herbalife is a multi-level marketing (MLM) company … also known as a pyramid scheme. Now, I consider MLMs to be as scummy as payday lending, so imagine my surprise when I saw a familiar face in an unexpected position.

(Don’t @ me if you’re involved with an MLM; I have no interest in debating this with you. #sorrynotsorry)

Let me back up. One of the biggest investors behind Valeant was the Pershing Square investment fund run by Bill Ackman. Ackman is some kind of Wall Street wunderkid, according to the Vanity Fair articles I binge-read after watching Dirty Money. He went out of his way to support Valeant and its CEO, even after information about its shady practices came to light. Valeant, by the way, has not dropped the prices on its drugs in the aftermath of the resulting public outcry; it is continuing to charge as much as $300,000 for a year’s supply of a life-saving drug that used to cost as little as a $1 a pill or something. Its stock price is in the toilet, however; were it not for the exorbitant prices it continues to charge, it would be bankrupt. Pershing Square lost a ton of money on its Valeant investment before finally selling its stake – which is a little bit of justice, I suppose.

Anyway, the same Bill Ackman shows up in Betting on Zero … because of his crusade against Herbalife. That’s right, Ackman became convinced (not without good reason, I might add) that Herbalife was an unethical pyramid scheme and decided to short their stock – in other words, to bet on the fact that their stock price would go to zero once the truth about their business practices was known and (Ackman believed) the government would take action against Herbalife. The documentary is based around the story of this “short” – which Ackman ended up losing. Even after an FDA investigation which concluded that Herbalife “was not not a pyramid scheme”, the company is chugging along, and expanding into new markets. It had to pay out some kind of settlement per the FDA ruling, but the amount was peanuts. (The documentary doesn’t cover this, but it’s worth digging into if you’re interested. I also recommend John Oliver’s segment on MLMs, which touches on it.)

What was amusing to me was Ackman’s self-positioning as an activist investor – i.e. someone who was pursuing this investment position (the short) almost as an ethical choice. A bit rich, I thought – excuse the pun – considering his stance on Valeant. I guess we all have our blind spots … or something.

So that was it for me, for now; if you have other documentary recc’s, send them my way because I have a lot more knitting on my hands. And tell me what you’ve been reading and watching lately.