Introducing Breast Assured – Useless Farm – Water tips
...and other recs this week!
Kia ora, welcome to this week’s newsletter.
The first episode of our new four-part podcast series Breast Assured, brought to you together with Breast Cancer Foundation NZ, is out now!
It’s hosted by the wonderful Sarah Gandy, who’s joined this week by special guests Morgan Penn from The Trainee Sexologist podcast and Arihia Hall from award-winning poetry group Ngā Hinepūkōrero to look at the role breasts play in our lives and wider society, and celebrate all the great things boobs have to offer. Tom Sainsbury also joins Sarah for some chest chat to learn more about her boob journey, from a time when she didn’t give them much thought through to her breast cancer diagnosis and beyond.
Have a listen below, and give it a follow wherever you normally listen to podcasts to hear the rest of the episodes over the next few weeks.
A special note from The Spinoff publisher Duncan Greive:
It's a little overwhelming to be sitting here, a week on from when I wrote my Bernie-esque plea for new members, to write to you about the response. It was instant and humbling. It has been the biggest surge in new sign-ups since the freaky days of April 2020. We also saw many existing members raise their ongoing contributions, which was also hugely impactful.
To be blunt, we needed it. And still do, so if you can join up, or have been meaning to, please do so today. We are still a long way from knowing when this period will end, which means our commercial funds remain highly constrained. We remain highly dependent on our members for everything from live updates, to data visualisation to cultural coverage. But we've had a really heartening week, and the whole organisation is very grateful for it. So if you are a member, or have donated – please take a moment to feel the immense gratitude radiating out from all of us here.
This week’s new podcasts
Two new episodes of The Fold [Apple | Spotify] in one week – Christmas has come early for New Zealand media boffins. The first one’s about Head High and the difficulties of making local drama, the second is about Facebook and what to do about it.
On When the Facts Change [Apple | Spotify], Bernard Hickey looked at how we connect the money with the projects that might help solve the housing crisis.
The Gone By Lunchtime [Apple | Spotify] assembled last week for Podathon 2021, an unofficial curtain raiser to Saturday’s Vaxathon.
And The Real Pod [Apple | Spotify] continues to recap every episode of Celebrity Treasure Island, which seems like it’s been going for absolute eons but only started a couple of weeks into lockdown.
Subscribe and listen now wherever you get your podcasts, and also... vote now for your favourite podcast in the Listener’s Choice category at the NZ Podcast Awards!
Ladyhawke on FIRST
Ladyhawke has a new album out next month – have a listen to the latest single here if you want a sneak preview of that. If you want instead to hear about her grotty first flat or how Christina Aguilera was once rumoured to be going to cover one of her songs, all that and more is in this week’s episode of FIRST.
Extremely Online: Have you read the terms and conditions?
One of the biggest lies on the internet has to be "I have read and agree to the terms and conditions." And fair enough when it would take an average of 76 working days to read all the privacy policies we come across on the internet each year. They're long, they're unpleasant on the eye – and they're designed that way. This week’s episode of Extremely Online, from the team at Shit You Should Care About, takes a look.
Two new music documentaries
Toby Morris says: “I'm really missing live music, so last week I watched two excellent and wildly contrasting documentaries about music festivals back to back. One is a celebration of a festival done right, the other a post-mortem of an absolute train wreck, and both do an amazing job of using the events as a way to talk about the psychic landscape of the respective times and places they were held.
Summer of Soul (Disney+) presents previously unseen footage of the 1969 Harlem Cultural Festival and weaves in historical news coverage of the era and current day recollections by performers and some of the crowd. Both the music (Staples Singers, Gladys Knight, Sly and Family Stone, Nina Simone etc) and the social context (post-MLK assassination, civil rights movement in full swing, Vietnam) combine to tell the story of an incredibly potent moment in time, with some huge tunes. Loved it.
Woodstock 99 (Neon), on the other hand, also paints a picture of where American culture was at in 1999, in a way less flattering way. Three days on a concrete army base with thousands of shirtless nu metal bros listening to Korn, Limp Bizkit and Metallica doesn’t end up going so well, and the doco does a killer job of building the ultra toxic mood. It might sound like a comedy like Fyre festival, but it’s actually more of a horror.”
Useless Farm
Emily says: “I am very into ‘farmfluencers’ – I can spend hours watching people comb their cows’ hair and I love to see goats doing anything. Useless Farm is kind of an anti-farm TikTok (also on Instagram) and I’m obsessed. The woman who runs it has this strange menagerie of emus, roosters, alpacas, a peacock named Steve and a mini donkey (Doug). They’re all useless. I am particularly obsessed with Karen the Emu who is homicidal toward Amanda who runs the farm and Poor Sweet Michael who is a very simple alpaca. Watching these silly animals is just the thing I need to soothe my brain right now.”
Midnight Mass
Chris says: “I will fall in love with any TV show set on a small island no one can escape from – think Lost, or Jude Law's The Third Day. Netflix's Midnight Mass is like those shows but with more bible studies. It follows a mysterious priest who starts making miracles happen when he arrives on the tiny Crockett Island. Some residents start getting younger, like Benjamin Button, while others find their ills cured. Then things start to get nasty – hundreds of dead cats washing up on the beach is just the start of the horrors that slowly unfold. Yes, creator Mike Flanagan (The Haunting of Hill House) has admitted he's exorcising some Catholic demons here, and the dialogue reminds me a little of the intense religious debates my university art school friends would engage in. But Midnight Mass is a deep, dark study of good vs evil, and what it costs when either of those things arrive.”
Alias
Sam says: “I have been watching the extremely current show Alias, which is available in its five season entirety on Disney+. The show is ostensibly about a spy and her father being double agents for the CIA, but really about Jennifer Garner knocking people down in a series of wigs. It’s a relic of a specific time where action, family drama and weirdly famous guest stars came together. It’s deeply watchable, sometimes great, and always bonkers.”
The Sopranos
Bel says: “At the end of the day, when all is said and done, when there are no more Tupperware containers to wipe residue off, when there are no more cups to take off the bench and no more emails to read, nothing brings me more joy than lying in my ship of a couch to watch a grown man wrestle with the internal conflict of his outward actions. I am, of course, talking about The Sopranos. I am, of course, now having fully-fledged fake arguments in my kitchen in a New Jersey accent. I am, of course, now listening to Steely Dan and thinking about how Americans call pasta sauce gravy and getting a full set of acrylic nail talons once lockdown is done.”
Notion
Alyssa says: “The app/website Notion has been a lifesaver in helping organise my life and all the jobs I juggle on the daily. It’s been fun creating templates and organising my ‘hub’, and it’s especially helpful in lockdown when there’s so much you can’t do anything about.”
A water tip
Eli says: “Pop some sliced cucumber in your water. Not only refreshing but also makes you feel a tiny bit fancy when you've only worn elasticated pants for 61 days and very rarely remember to wash your hair.”
Another water tip
Stewart says: “On a similar note I recommend buying Antipodes water once and then reusing the bottle forever like you’re in a fancy restaurant.”
OK, that’ll do it for this week. Please reply to get in touch and share with anyone else who might like to subscribe too. See you next Wednesday 👋