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Hump Day Recommendations
Watch: “Adolescence.” This four-part Netflix miniseries follows a 13-year-old boy in a northern English town who is arrested on suspicion of murdering a girl in the year above him. Though the pilot centers on the arrest and the boy’s day in custody, this isn’t a murder mystery. It’s about the myriad challenges that parents face as their children live alternative lives online, with their own ecosystem and own language. It’s a harrowing picture of the modern world, but essential viewing at a time when figures like Andrew Tate – who is referenced directly in one of the episodes – proliferate online. – Zac
Glance: Can a millennial pass the vibe check with Gen Alpha? Bet. Xiaoma, the 34-year-old polyglot who became an online sensation years ago for his language abilities, delivered an address to a group of schoolchildren in West Chester, Pennsylvania, using their own dialect. He lowkey slaps, no cap.
Purchase (preferably second-hand): A pogo stick. One trip to a random apartment in Park Slope and a $10 Venmo transaction later, I am the proud owner of a pogo stick – and no purchase ever made me feel like I leveled up in life. I took it to Washington Square Park and was immediately flocked by other adults wanting to take it for a spin and rediscover the childhood joy of defying gravity. Catch me boing boinging around Brooklyn. – Riley
Hot take of the week: “The cheaper the pickle, the better the taste.”
(Yes, dear readers, we used to call this Humpday Recs™ – but we’re trying out some new names, bear with us.)
Watch: Veer-Zaara: I recently rewatched this Indian cinema classic from 2004, and immediately remembered why it’s my favorite Indian movie of all. The drama unfolds as an Indian Air Force officer wrongly imprisoned for 22 years in Pakistan is given a chance to fight his case. In his story, we learn of his romance, just before he was arrested, with the betrothed daughter of a Pakistani politician. Two decades after its release, the film’s dialogues are as impeccable and timely as ever – a sensitive portrayal of the fraught relationship between India and Pakistan, two countries once again on the brink of war. - Suhani Lakhotia
Read:The Sparrow blends sci-fi and faith as Jesuits journey to an alien world, echoing real-world missions from centuries past to "undiscovered" lands like Japan and the New World. With the Catholic Church bidding farewell to its first Jesuit pope and now deep in conclave talks to pick a new one, the novel feels newly resonant—grappling with discovery, suffering and belief at civilization’s edge. - Alex Gibson
Listen: “Dr Death.” Not to be confused with the key witness in Errol Morris’ “The Thin Blue Line,” this documentary podcast series tells unsettling stories of untrustworthy doctors. It completed its fourth season earlier this year, but none match the original series, which follows the enthralling and harrowing tale of Dr. Duntsch, an unqualified neurosurgeon who keeps getting new jobs at Texas hospitals despite maiming dozens of his patients. – Zac Weisz
Hot-Take of the Week: Zac says “coffee tables are useless and should be banned.”
Hear: the sounds of lost souls. In 1964, as US involvement in Vietnam was deepening, the US army unveiled a terrifying new psychological weapon. Sound designers working with early audio editing technology made harrowing soundscapes featuring the “lost souls” of North Vietnamese soldiers whose bodies hadn’t been properly buried. The wailing and shrieking of these “souls” – in reality, they were the voices of local US army employees – was broadcast via speakers at night in the jungles around villages thought to be sympathetic to the Communists. The idea, cooked up by army psyop experts and Madison Avenue advertising mavens, was to tap into deep-seated Vietnamese fears about the spiritual anguish of being left unburied. This Radiolab episode tells the whole story and makes a (perhaps imperfect) parallel with the recorded voices of America’s own dead. – Alex K
Read: “Ministry of Time,” by Kaliane Bradley. If you are fascinated by the ill-fated 1840s explorations to find the Northwest Passage – an Arctic link between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans – you will enjoy this fictional, time-traveling romp, which focuses on Lt. Graham Gore, who was aboard the doomed HMS Erebus when it went missing. The “Ministry” of the title rescues Gore from death and throws him two centuries forward into modern London, where the story follows his struggle to understand today’s world amid a budding romance with an unnamed minder from the Ministry. It’s the debut novel from Bradley, a British-Cambodian writer who started it as a fan fiction of sorts. While you could poke holes in the plot, it’s intriguing, fast-paced, and will leave you wanting a sequel. Alas, she hasn’t committed to one – yet. (Perhaps the Ministry knows more than we do about this!) – Tracy
Read: “Too Much Happiness,”by Alice Munro. Munro never ceases to amaze me, and this collection of 10 short stories that my editor, Tracy Moran, plucked out of one of those free library boxes for me, is no different. Each is so full of humanity, empathy, and powerful portrayals of women’s experiences. If the election this week is inspiring you to read something Canadian, I highly recommend this collection. – Riley
Listen: This Guy Sucked. Are you, like me, nearly as big a history buff as you are a hater? Then this new podcast from Dr. Claire Aubin will be right up your alley. Every week, she and a fellow historian break down the myths and false memories surrounding some of the world’s most unfairly celebrated figures, from Voltaire (the 18th century’s Joe Rogan), to Charlemagne (Aachen’s most genocidal maniac), to Jerry Lee Lewis (Rock n’ Roll’s drunkest sex pest). You’ll laugh, learn, and hopefully come away a little less intimidated by the so-called “Great Men” of history. – Matt
Hear: the evolution of what you’re saying.If you’ve ever wondered how the Proto-Indo-European root word “h1ésh2rnom” evolved over thousands years to become the English word “iron”, or which popular profanity came from the root “pugnéh2nam”, you’ve gotta listen to self-taught linguist @arum_natzorkhang do his 10-second recitations of the words as they evolved from 5000 BCE to today. He also sings Greek tragedies in the original and has thoughts on the languages of Ancient Egypt as well. It’s not for everyone, but if it’s for you, you will NOT be disappointed – and that’s a h1ésh2rnom-clad guarantee. – Alex K.
Watch: “The Mehta Boys.” Directed by Boman Irani, who also stars in the film, this drama follows the relationship between a father and son, two hotheads who are barely on speaking terms. After the passing of his mother, Amay (the son) is stuck with his father after the latter’s flight gets delayed. The duo come face to face with their differences and are left with no choice but to navigate through them. I loved the acting and writing, and how the film shows the reality of a broken middle-class family in India. – SuhaniRead: Babel by R.F. Kuang is a masterful blend of dark academia and magical realism, exploring the power of language, colonialism, and resistance through the eyes of Robin Swift, a Chinese orphan raised to serve the British Empire through translation. Set in an alternate 1800s Oxford, this richly-researched standalone novel feels uncannily real, challenging readers to question the role of language in shaping history. Kuang’s storytelling is both epic and intimate — a spellbinding love letter to etymology that doesn’t shy away from the brutal truths of empire. I can’t stop babelling about how much I liked it. – Riley
Watch: “Industry.” Has all this news about “stock trades” and “bond markets” got you hunkering for a show about finance? Look no further than this hit BBC series, which is now three seasons deep (with a fourth inbound). It follows an American near-graduate who runs into a morass of personal and professional issues — some of which are of her own making — as she gets to grips with her career at Pierpoint, a fictional investment bank based in the very non-fictional London. Come for the hastily-cinched deals, stay for the niche football (ahem, soccer) trivia. – Zac
Watch: “Rumours.”This darkly comedic 2024 movie is a pitch-perfect critique of elite politics, featuring zombies, a giant brain mysteriously sitting in a forest, and Cate Blanchett. – Justin Kosslyn, publisher of GZERO Media
Read: “Chip War.” Chris Miller’s 2022 nonfiction book on semiconductors more closely resembles an epic novel – the economic historian charts the rise of a component that now undergirds the global economy. Amid the US’s burgeoning trade war with the globe, it’s an apt moment to breeze through this eloquent tale. – Zac
Read: “An Officer and a Spy.” This gripping and meticulously researched historical novel by Robert Harris (of “Conclave” fame) recounts the Dreyfus affair, a scandal that shook French society to its core at the end of the 19th century when a Jewish French Army officer, Alfred Dreyfus, was wrongly convicted of treason and banished to Devil's Island, a barren rock off the coast of South America. The affair exposed deep veins of institutional corruption in the French military, as well as a virulent strain of French antisemitism. The protagonist, a persnickety intelligence officer named Georges Picquart, first helps lock up Dreyfus before reluctantly, but determinedly, uncovering his innocence, risking his own life in the process. There are 19th-century stakeouts in which hearing tubes go down chimney flues, torn-up telegrams that painstakingly get taped back together, and a fearlessly pudgy Emile Zolá. And with two world wars just around the corner, the stakes become much higher than the fate of just one man. – Alex Gibson, senior producer of GZERO World
Read: “When the Going Was Good.” In his new memoir, Graydon Carter, who helmed one of the glossiest of the glossy magazines, Vanity Fair, opens up about his storied career and the many trials and tribulations he faced along the way. It’s the tale of a kid from Canada who somehow became the toast of Manhattan, and eventually Hollywood, as the famous VF Oscar Party blossomed under his care. Remember when the character Carrie Bradshaw confessed on “Sex and The City” that she used to skip meals to afford the new copy of Vogue? I can relate, but it was Vanity Fair, in the Graydon years, that provided my sustenance.
– Tony Maciulis, chief content officer of GZERO Media
Watch: “The Laundromat.” Two legends of comedy who were also gifted young actors. Two greats who died too young. No words. Three minutes and 23 seconds. – Willis
Appreciate: “All Our Ordinary Stories,” by Teresa Wong.This book focuses on the relationship between a daughter and her immigrant parents. It was the first graphic novel I’d read since Art Spiegelman’s “Maus” series, so it’s not a genre I know well. But I was impressed by the simplistic/universalist appearance of the illustrations and words — and how they left room for the reader to fill in the blanks in powerful ways. – Tracy
Consider: the heretic. A new leader comes to power with a radical idea that enrages the old power brokers, upends the establishment, and ends up tearing apart society. In the 17th century BC, the Egyptian Pharaoh Akhenaten was one of the world’s earliest monotheists, professing the cult of one god, the Sun deity Aten, and ordering the closure of all other temples. He ended up deposed and despised. But what made him tick? What made those around him support or oppose him? Egyptian Nobel laureate Naguib Mahfouz’s beautiful, Rashomon-style novella “Akhenaten, Dweller in Truth” is a series of imagined interviews with Akhenaten’s friends, foes, and, ultimately, his enigmatic, famously beautiful wife Nefertiti. It's an exploration of power, faith, and truth that is as timeless as the sun. – Alex
Finish: “The White Lotus.” The third series of creator Mike White’s hit show is set to climax on Sunday night. The latest rendition, set in Thailand, has had mixed reviews. As usual, the show follows some ultra-elite, amoral holidaymakers who seek a relaxing vacation only to stumble upon a heap of unwelcome and unsettling surprises. The third installment departs from previous seasons, though, in how it promotes cinematography and meme-worthy conversations over plot — to the detriment of the series. Even with the lack of a strong storyline, it will be fascinating to see how White ties together all the loose ends in the finale. – Zac