by Nerdy Spice

March 2023 Book Rec: Notes of a Crocodile by Qiu Miaojin

“I don’t know how other people endure the violence and cruelty they encounter throughout their lives,” remarks the narrator of Notes of a Crocodile (by Qiu Miaojin, translated by Bonnie Huie), a young college student named Lazi. She is mourning the end of a relationship with her troubled ex-girlfriend, Shui Ling—only she, Lazi, is the one who ended it. In part this book is about that very question–how its characters (young gay women and men living in Taiwan in the 1980s) hurt each other, acting out their own traumas on each other, and sometimes becoming cruel out of pain and confusion.

Continue reading →
by Janes

Oscars 2023 Predictions: Who Will Win, Who Should Win

This Oscar season has been wild. Between Andrea Riseborough’s controversial nomination, All Quiet on the Western Front bursting onto the scene at the BAFTAs, and whatever’s going on in the Best Supporting Actress category, almost anything could happen tonight. The only thing we know for sure is that, against all odds, a weird little sci-fi comedy with butt plug jokes is going to sweep.

Continue reading →
by Janes

The Best Books We Read in 2022

We’re a little late with this one, but year-end posts are still fair game anytime before February (right?). This was a great year of reading for both of us – we both went overboard on Honorable Mentions and still had trouble choosing! Here are the best books we read in 2022:

Continue reading →
by Janes

Emmy Predictions 2022: Who Will Win, Who Should Win

I’ve never been able to write an Emmys post before! Usually, my tastes don’t align with the Emmys, and I haven’t seen most of the shows, but I did pretty well this year. I’ve seen all of the nominated dramas, except for Better Call Saul–if you read this blog, you know how much I hate all things Breaking Bad. I did especially well with limited series: thanks to a nasty bout of COVID, I binged every single docudrama miniseries of note this year, even the ones that weren’t nominated but should have been. (We’ll get to that.)

Continue reading →
by Janes

BuffyWatch: Season 6, Episodes 7-9

Janes (a True Stan) and Nerdy Spice (a New Fan) are watching all of Buffy together and comparing notes. Warning: May contain spoilers for later episodes.

Episode 7 “Once More, With Feeling”

OK, so as I’ve mentioned before, this was one of two Buffy episodes I’d seen before this rewatch. I had heard it was So Amazing and I watched it and was like, “eh.” The jokes weren’t that funny to me, the singing seemed awkward, and the much-vaunted final scene seemed more like two people chewing each other’s tongues than a hot kiss. (Don’t @ me, I’m just reporting how I felt back then!) After seeing this and “Hush,” I never considered watching Buffy again until this blog.

However, I had a feeling this time around I was going to be way more into it. Not just because what originally seemed to be a random kiss at the end has now been transformed into the Spike/Buffy consummation I’ve been dying for, but because I’ve changed a lot as a viewer. Buffy’s humor seemed too silly to me because I took myself too seriously; now I appreciate it much more. So let’s get to it and see if I’ve grown up enough to enjoy this episode!

Continue reading →
by Nerdy Spice

May 2022 Book Rec: Checkout 19 by Claire-Louise Bennett

In the middle of reading Checkout 19, Claire-Louise Bennett’s coming-of-age novel about a girl who really really loves to read, I rhapsodized to Keets that this book had put into words something that had always been true of my reading experience but that I had never noticed, let alone described. 

Continue reading →