Things we're enjoying this week
Rec Room newsletter #1 – It's nice, it's different, it's unusual
Kia ora, thanks for signing up and joining us here in the Rec Room.
If you were wondering, the “Rec” in Rec Room is officially short for recommendation. But it could also be short for recording or recreation – there are layers to it, multiple meanings, it’s nice, it’s different, it’s unusual. That’s why we ultimately chose it over the other name idea we had, “Vids’n’Pods”.
The Spinoff has heaps of vids’n’pods coming out at the moment, and we’d love to be able to share them with you via the medium of email so you don’t miss anything. We also love a good recommendation, so we’ll be sharing other things we’ve been enjoying here too. Hopefully you’ll find something new to watch, listen to or put on your toast*.
I’m Calum, The Spinoff’s video and podcast content manager, and it’s my job to put this newsletter together every week. I hope it finds you well, and you find something you like in it.
(* I just feel like we don’t talk enough about what we’re putting on our toast these days. Please get in touch by replying to this email if you’d like to share your latest toast tips.)
The Spinoff managing editor Duncan Greive recommends McMillion$, the HBO documentary series about McDonald’s Monopoly fraud on Neon: “Compared to all the Netflix docuseries that get the whole world watching, this one seems so much more stylish and considered, and just as buzzy a story. It has Jersey mobsters, a guy who was married seven times, heady morality questions and an amazing final ep that delves into the function of the law in a way that really Made Me Think.”
Ātea editor and On the Rag co-host Leonie Hayden recommends the podcast series Wind of Change: “I’ve just started listening to Wind of Change, a podcast about how the 1990 power ballad ‘Winds of Change’ by German band Scorpions might have been written by the CIA as soft anti-Soviet propaganda. It’s a solid rambler with lots of likeable characters, and plenty for the Cold War buffs.”
Head of video Amber Easby recommends Get It to Te Papa, which used to be on Lightbox but is now available on Neon: Released in 2018, GITTP was The Spinoff’s first big video series and followed journalist Hayden Donnell and his long-suffering director José Barbosa as they travelled New Zealand in an unroadworthy van collecting Kiwi cultural artefacts for the national museum. The worse things went for ol’ Haydo the funnier it got, and things went pretty badly a lot of the time. There’s also an episode where he sort of kidnaps Dave Dobbyn? Probably fine.
Podcast manager Jane Yee recommends having locks on your toilet doors: “There’s no escape from my children during lockdown, and no locks on my bathroom doors.”
Culture editor Sam Brooks recommends Fall Guys: Ultimate Knockout on the PS4: “Fall Guys is a fun, hectic, incredibly low-stakes gaming experience that will appeal to your child, or the child within your heart. Like Takeshi’s Castle meets Fortnite, you run a bean through a series of retina-scorchingly bright obstacle courses, alongside 59 other strangers from the internet, until only one of you is left standing. Rinse and repeat until lockdown is over.”
South Auckland editor Justin Latif recommends the Michelle Obama Podcast on Spotify, particularly the second episode, with Michele Norris, about life in lockdown: “This might seem a bit cliché,” Justin worries, but personally I always appreciate being told when something that seems a bit cliché is actually good, you know?
Alice Snedden’s Bad News
Comedian / force of nature Alice Snedden is back with a second season of Bad News, with two episodes a week coming out on both RNZ and The Spinoff (because they’re so good you’ll want to watch them twice). Last week Alice tackled big topics like Migrant Sex Workers and TERFs, this week it’s Healthcare Inequity and Churches and Charity (this one’s available tomorrow on The Spinoff). Sounds serious, and they are, but they’re also really funny. You don’t want to miss a single one of them.
Youth Wings
Our latest documentary series Youth Wings goes behind the O Week stalls to get to know some of the young guns in New Zealand’s five main political parties. There’s a new episode out at 11am every day this week, and trust me, you’re going to want to watch all of these too. As one Twitter user put it, “Part of me is all ‘Good on ya, kid. Back yourself. Dream big.’ The other part is having a full body cringe that I may never fully unfold from.”
Gone By Lunchtime
One day the story of this week’s Gone By Lunchtime recording will be made into a podcast series of its own, and the episode about podcast manager Jane Yee’s late night mercy dash to contactlessly deliver a working pair of headphones to Ben Thomas’s house will probably win a Peabody. The important thing is we got there in the end, and the result is a classic ep of New Zealand’s most Zorb-obsessed politics podcast.
Business is Boring
This series of interviews with New Zealand business leaders has somewhere in the region of 150 episodes under its belt now, but host Simon Pound is still finding interesting guests to chat to. The most recent was with Sarah Ramsay, CEO of the Dunedin-based United Machinists, who’s helping to grow New Zealand’s high-tech manufacturing sector.
On the Rag: Weed
Funny feminist webseries On the Rag had a new episode out a couple of weeks ago, all about weed and women – timely, because there’s a referendum on it at this year’s election that a whole lot of women are going to be voting in. The episode looks at what exactly we’ll be voting on, and meets some women campaigning for legalisation on behalf of people living with chronic pain, and asks a scientist about some weed myths.
Conversations That Count – Ngā Kōrero Whai Take
Our latest podcast is produced in collaboration with Massey University, and offers thought-provoking perspectives on the issues shaping Aotearoa and te ao whānui. The first ep is about Equity vs Equality – subscribe now so you don’t miss the next one, which dives into the cannabis referendum.
What have you been enjoying this week? Reply and let us know!
See you next Wednesday 👋