In a recent email, Lauren told me that she can't wait to find out what the new geek trend is. We had been discussing (via email. And text. And Facebook.) my utter infatuation with the radio dramas on BBC Radio 4 and how angry I am that I can't access the BBC the way someone in Britain can.
When I become a fan of something I become an excessively dorky fan. Whether it's a new author, a podcast, or a television show, when I get excited about something I get a little obsessive about it. I imagine that it's either excruciating or charming to go out for a drink with me, depending on how much you like me and/or how much you like the current topic with which I am enamored.
So, here's what's on my plate this week. What I would be talking about relentlessly over drinks, if I lived close enough to have a drink with you. That would be nice, wouldn't it?
5. Longform.org. Remember when reading an article used to require
a physical magazine or a newspaper? Longform.org rounds up new and classic
non-fiction that’s “too long or too interesting to be read on a web browser.”
4. Dessa’s “Palace”: I love Dessa. Anyone who can spit “Chicago
Manual of Style” in a song that also includes Sylvia Plath and Edgar Allen Poe ranks pretty high in my book. Her new album drops on October 4th and I’m so
excited for it I can barely keep it together. Palace is a great first single
off the album. Bonus: Check out “Dutch,” the song that made me fall for Dessa
hard.
3. Apod.nasa.gov: Really. With photos like this one of September’s aurora, and my love of space, this isn’t even that big of a
question.
2. BBC’s Hawking: My deepest apologies to The United States,
but the BBC totally won me over this week. The short film Hawking made me cry at eight distinct points during a ninety-minute
movie, a feat that has only been matched by "The Journey’s End" episode of Doctor
Who. It’s an introduction to Hawking’s early years at Cambridge as well as the
onset of Lou Gerhig’s disease. It’s brilliant and beautifully acted and
available on youtube.
1. BBC Radio 4’s dramatization of Life & Fate: If you
follow me on Twitter or Facebook or if you have the fortune (good or ill) to be
a close friend of mine, you’ve been inundated since Monday with posts/tweets/
texts about this dramatization. In case you’ve somehow managed to miss all of
the above let me be absolutely clear. This is the best thing I’ve heard on the
radio in years. It is by turns horrifying, moving, profoundly disturbing, and
is always beautifully acted. I haven’t made it through an episode without
holding my breath or crying—most of the time I do both. The series is supposed
to be listened to in order, but some of the episodes work as stand alone episodes.
If you really refuse to do the right thing and give this the listen it
deserves, listen to the episodes: “Anna’s Letter,” “Journey,” and “A Hero of the Soviet Union.”
Still not convinced? The novel was considered so subversive
that it was confiscated by the KGB—they even confiscated the typewriter ribbons
from Grossman’s typewriter. It was finally smuggled out via microfilm in 1974
and started appearing in the West in the 1980s.
If you listen to anything
in the next year, make sure it’s Life and Fate.
