Night Ride – Gumbo’! – Lockdown lunches
...and other recs this week!
Kia ora, welcome to this week’s newsletter.
We have another really good short film from the Loading Docs 2021 collection for you to watch this week. Night Ride was made by director Todd Karehana, whose mum has an evening routine of feeding the stray cats that live by her old house – the house she moved out of seven years ago. The film follows Todd’s attempt to help his mum catch and rehome one of the cats, Fluff, and also figure out the real reason she’s so dedicated to this routine. It’s really lovely and warm-hearted and may very well make you have a little cry – have a watch and see!
This week’s new podcasts
On When the Facts Change [Apple | Spotify], Bernard Hickey looked at the big vaccine challenges facing business – should and can they say “no jab no job”?
On The Fold [Apple | Spotify], Duncan Greive spoke with sports writer Dylan Cleaver about launching his newsletter The Bounce this week.
On Business is Boring [Apple | Spotify], Simon Pound talked to TasmanIon co-founder Dr Shalini Divya about her work designing better, more sustainable batteries.
And The Real Pod [Apple | Spotify] moved to a (slightly) new format, with a real life and real news episode out now, and the first Celebrity Treasure recap episode coming later tonight.
Subscribe and listen now wherever you get your podcasts!
FIRST
Haz Beats (Team Dynamite, Home Brew) is on FIRST this week. Talks about the time Home Brew took a goat to the VNZMAs in 2012 – turns out it was the same goat that was in the movie Boy.
Extremely Online – When games play you
What is an ARG? How do you play? Are you being played? All is revealed in this week's episode of Extremely Online, from the team at Shit You Should Care About.
Gumbo’!
Chris says: “When it comes to rap, it's been Drake this, and Kanye West that, for weeks now, with rap's corporate big-wigs engaged in the world's most boring beef over their bloated, messy records Donda and Certified Lover Boy. I've skipped all that in favour of Pink Siifu's Gumbo'!, an inventive, New York Times-approved new album that pays tribute to Atlanta rap legends Outkast and Dungeon Family. Trust me: you'll have way more fun listening to this than anything the OGs have produced lately.”
Shudder
Josie says: “One day into the week-long trial period our bubble decided to go all-in on Shudder, a streaming service for scary movies. We've been watching one movie a night, and so far we've seen Possessor, Host, Goodnight Mommy, and Anything for Jackson. All of them have been really good, all in really different ways – there's a sub-genre for every horror fan!”
The Murderbot Diaries
Sam says: “The Murderbot Diaries is a series of award-winning sci-fi novellas by Martha Wells, about a security cyborg (Murderbot) who has achieved self-awareness, seemingly by accident, and has to hide this fact while also just really wanting to sit around watching his favourite TV shows. I read all six of these over the weekend, and they’re smart, funny, well-plotted bits of sci-fi that poke at your heart at unexpected moments.”
Joseph’s Machines
Tara says: “For anyone with kids at home, I recommend Joseph's Machines on YouTube. Joseph Herscher is a New Zealand kinetic artist living in New York who creates incredible chain reaction machines from everyday items. His videos are funny and brilliant, as he thinks of creative ways to serve a slice of cake or wake up more efficiently in the morning using random stuff lying around the house. His channel will keep your kids occupied for several glorious minutes, but be warned, you'll never look at the contents of your cutlery drawer the same way again.”
Terrible Art in Charity Shops
Lucy says: “Facebook is pretty boring these days but I still enjoy the posts in Terrible Art in Charity Shops in between family updates. Members post from all around the world and I have to say there have been some real beauties lately.”
Surfing dog alert
Stewart says: “I recommend this video of a surfing dog in Wellington. Bella the golden lab has quite possibly breached alert level rules, but nonetheless is a very good girl.”
Some lockdown lunch tips
Alice says: “My recommendations this week are both toast toppings: the first is hummus and sliced cucumber. It’s refreshing and delicious, and eating cucumber always makes me feel a bit fancy, like a lady at a country club. If you’re feeling a bit spicy, my second recommendation is harissa paste on toast with cucumber (there’s a theme here). It’s deliciously spicy and sharp and not too hard to make, I use Nadia Lim’s recipe from Vegful for the paste. I cucumber.”
Jin says: “I made noodles with rice paper, putting each rice paper one at a time in hot water + sesame oil for 10 seconds so that they don’t stick to each other when they are on the plate, and then adding chopped cucumber, coriander and pouring over a dressing that includes soy sauce, vinegar, tahini and chilli oil. Tasty, fresh and easy.”
Dylan says: “I recommend Lao Gan Ma (“Old Godmother”) Black Bean Chilli Oil. Put it in a frying pan with some ginger and a little soy sauce and toss hot noodles through it. Dip dumplings in it. I dunno, probably lots of things – I've only just started!”
That’s all for this week! Please reply to get in touch and share with anyone else who might like to subscribe too. See you next Wednesday 👋