Book check, Casiotron coming, Sterling K. Brown got hoes.
This week is the longest Monday ever.
I’ve never worked in editorial settings like Kevin has, so whenever he types TK, I just read it like Method Man saying tical. — Emilio
A quick one this week while I figure out what I’m doing with my life. - Kevin
Book check.
I’ve been reading lately, and by reading, I mean picking up random books in my apartment, getting through a chapter or two, and then putting them down so they can go back to collecting dust. I don’t give books my sustained attention. Or, more accurately, I never direct my focus on one thing for more than 15 minutes at a time and books are a casualty of that.
I’m trying out this new thing where I have a highly visible book in every part of my apartment so that when I look at one, I can just pick it up, read it, then put it back and go away. My problem is that when I read just one book, I feel guilty for not returning to it, so I don’t. If I read several? Where’s the guilt,? I’m reading a ton of books at once, dude, get off my back.
Anyway, here’s the current list, ordered by how close I am to finishing them to ones I feel like I just started:
Sun & Steel by Yukio Mishima: You know, some men don’t shut the fuck up about other men. For the terminally online, Mishima is one of those men who are idolized for the wrong reasons. And, frankly, after listening to this essay, I never want to speak about him again. Sun & Steel is about Mishima’s relationship between the soul and body and it’s written so matter-of-factly that it’s hard to digest as anything but accurate; I couldn’t tell if he hated himself or just hated the self… This essay is so seriously unfunny and intense, occupying this space between grim naval-gazing, odd existentialism, and deep solipsism. I listened and finished this audio during three runs. It’s short and I don’t recommend it, but I do recommend him, as a person, to read about, because he’s so interesting and weird and passionate.
Eating Animals by Jonathan Safran Foer (2010): A friend told me to read this after I first turned vegetarian in 2015 (maybe?), having just read a few books about factory farming (Project Animal Farm, The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals) and watching meat-will-give-you-disease documentaries Food Inc. and Forks Over Knives on Netflix. I stopped being vegetarian when I went to Mexico a few years ago because even the beans there have lard, and I recently went back to veggies, so I figured I’d pick this up now since it’s been on my bookshelf for so long. And, dang, it’s preeeeetty good. I’ve been periodically reading it and going “They do WHAT with chickens?” every few pages, which is about as effective as a book about the mass-production of animals as food can be. It’s a really tough read… I find myself taking breaks in between chapters to clear my mind from the diseased and violent slaughterhouses Foer describes, and, uh, it’s genuinely made me think about the ethics of eating animals on behalf of their welfare, for once, instead of just focusing on things like climate change and my personal health. This book indefinitely solidifies that decision.
The Secret Life of Groceries: The Dark Miracle of the American Supermarket by Benjamin Lorr: I’ve been listening to this at the gym and it’s probably best served as a companion to eating food, and, by extension, Eating Animals. Solid, dense reporting about the grocery industry, starting with our nation’s first grocery stores and working its way through selling “desire” as packaged goods all the way into the present day. We don’t talk enough about the process of changing animals into food and then into consumer goods, and this certainly invites that conversation, while also telling you why Trader Joe’s is just okay.
Onward Toward Our Noble Deaths by Shigeru Mizuki (2011): Yooo, you know what’s been on my mind lately? World War II. You know why? Because that’s when life as we know it started. I grabbed this manga at a very good price from a gay comic shop in San Francisco because as much as there is to know about the Second World War, my caveman brain can only think about the atomic bomb, Hitler, Hellboy comics, Godzilla Minus One, and Oppenheimer. In the West, Mizuki is a severely underappreciated manga artist who fought in said war and wrote a very, very long comic about it years before he became known in Japan as the master of yokai. Here, he intimately details the loss of his friends, the mental anguish of being perpetually stuck in warfare, and the moment that he lost his fucking arm. The soldiers are all drawn with cartoonish, jaggedly features, but it works well here as he gives the most attention to background illustrations and action-forward panels… I also wonder if drawing in this style made talking about his WWII experience more palatable. Anyway, this was originally published in 1991, but was translated in 2011 courtesy of Drawn & Quarterly. Highly recommend.
Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World by Haruki Murakami: I feel like I’ve been reading this for months now and I don’t know what the fuck is going on.
The Martian by Andy Weir: I read the first chapter and was like “huh!” and put it down. I don’t actually know where I put it. It’s marketed as being scientifically accurate but I don’t read science fiction for accuracy, I read it to discover man’s misfortunes and failures in space.
Maybe I’ll finish a book by next week. — Kevin
Sterling K. Brown got hoes.
I think Sterling K. Brown is the only working actor right now who has convincingly pulled off being a wife guy and also being a lil slut. That’s range, baby.
For all its flaws, American Fiction is one of the standouts of this year’s Oscar season. It has one of the best ensembles of 2023, and it was funny as shit to boot. There’s a lot to be said about how much weight the dreaded “satire” label carries; it almost feels like calling a film satirical doesn’t mean anything anymore. American Fiction is definitely a satire but its bark is worse than its bite.
Jeffrey Wright puts in a performance worthy of the acclaim he’s getting. It’s a really great leading man show for a guy who has made his bones as a high-billed supporting actor but I couldn’t help but feel like I was watching Barbie all over again. I appreciate what Cord Jefferson is doing with this film, but the surface-level things it has to say, primarily about how white people view Black art, feel like something the average teenager could have found on 2016 Twitter or Tumblr.
I forget who, but someone on Letterboxd referred to this film as “Diet Spike Lee,” which is kind of valid, kind of harsh, and kind of funny. (Jefferson does openly acknowledge Lee as his hero and inspiration for filmmaking.) There are no clear similarities between their work (yet) other than they’re both Black men making movies about Black people. The tone of American Fiction doesn’t really sit the way anything in Lee’s filmography does though; without any prior conversation, Kevin and I both found ourselves comparing his work more to Alexander Payne. — Emilio
Casiotron coming back.
I’m a sucker for digital watches and re-releases, and this 1974 reissue is scratching a major itch for me. I just can’t swing $500+ right now… - Kevin
The best Valentine’s Day movies.
If your partner is like mine, holidays don’t last for one day, they last at least one week on the Gregorian calendar. So, that means you should probably have something queued up if you forgot to make plans. Here are some YBNBO-approved flicks for the lover birds out there, in case you’ve already run out of Wong Kar-wai movies. — Emilio
Anyone But You (2023)
The best rom-com of the decade so far is still playing in theaters. If you’ve seen it, you understand — also, you should just go see it again. If you haven’t, fuck off and go see it already.
Also, is Glen Powell hot? I can’t really tell. He’s definitely handsome and he has the body of a Greek god but in that scary or distracting way like Sterling K. Brown, so I’m not sure if that makes him hot. Either way, great film.
John Wick (2014)
As a wife guy, I consider this movie canonical. While it is incredibly violent, it’s important to remember that John Wick is a grief-stricken widow so everything he does is karmically and morally correct. You go, John Wick.
Frances Ha (2012)
Listed here purely for Greta Gerwig’s line reading of “AHOY SEXY!” Also, thought for forever this would be a #FFFFFF movie but I love it. A rare coming-of-age movie about people in New York where nobody kisses or has sex.
Decision to Leave (2022)
Personally, I find being infatuated with a woman who killed her husband incredibly romantic. I also think being emotionally, but not physically, intimate with the detective investigating you for said murder is also romantic. Really touching.
Portrait of a Lady on Fire (2019)
Kevin doesn’t like this movie but sometimes, Kevin is wrong. Eat shit, Kevin. Noémie Merlant and Adèle Haenel put on the best performance from a pair of actors since Robert De Niro and Al Pacino in Heat, I’m being so serious. (Seriously, eat shit, Kevin.)
(Kevin’s Note: Aye bruh, who tf said I didn’t like this movie??? I gave it 4.5 stars on Letterboxd. YOU eat shit.)
Speaking of Wong Kai Wai, you missed probably the best bootleg of the year.
Or maybe not—I see it’s still in stock. THEWWW continues to be the best bootlegger of all time, and this tee solidifies it for me. I haven’t seen seen In the Mood For Love (I’ve seen Chungking Express) but this all-over print is simply divine. - Kevin
