Good Cops Don't Exist, I Lost My Body, and Notes from the Blockade
A featured article by Judson Ellis and a podcast featuring the rapper MAVI.
Welcome to the twelfth installation of The Q: your one-stop weekly newsletter of culture recommendations. Can’t find a platform where you can receive condensed, reliable, pop-culture content? Yeah, we can’t either.
Every Saturday morning in your inbox, you’ll find a featured article, an album, a film, a playlist, a book, a video, and something funny we found that week. Oh, and a Two Virgins podcast episode, where Sam and Teresa talk about a recommendation while drinking virgin drinks. We also invite a guest onto the show every week (that guest could be you!)
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Featured Article
Writing Exercises to do in the Dark by Judson Ellis
An exercise in chaos:
With one finger passing between three letters and a spacebar, type the phrase “uh oh”
Do not stop, and do not erase, but try to write as quickly as possible. You will feel your finger falling out of its perfect rhythm as you work, and once it has fallen, the return to rhythm becomes nearly impossible. Finally, you achieve it, only to watch it slip from your finger once again. You break a sweat in frustration, knowing what comes next.
Album
Good Cops Don’t Exist by Chris Crack
Crack has always had a knack for picking names for his songs. On this album, we have the songs “Black Don’t Crack Unless You Smoke it” and “Reparations Not Decorations,” but some of my favorite titles from past albums include “Hoes at Trader Joes” and “Goals only Exist in Soccer.” In previous projects, the song titles rarely had anything to do with the content of the songs (unfortunately “Hoes at Trader Joes” is about neither hoes nor Trader Joes), but on this project, Chris Crack stays on topic. “Black Don’t Crack Unless You Smoke it” is an awesome song with a sweeping instrumental that actually is about attractive old people and drugs.
Film
I Lost My Body directed by Jérémy Clapin
When the credits started rolling after the film’s finale, I asked myself, why a severed hand? Why I Lost My Body and not I Lost My Hand? There will be many conclusions of the film’s thesis, which ties together the dismemberment of the physical, the soul, and the consciousness. However, I believe that that amongst these elements, the film best emphasizes the notion that trauma and experiences live in the body.
Book
Notes From the Blockade by Lydia Ginzburg
No one knows exactly when Notes From the Blockade was written, nor whether it’s a true story. The main character is called “N” -- anonymous, the everyman -- and the book recounts a day in his life in 1942, during the nearly 3-year Siege of Leningrad. Not a lot of Americans know what the Siege of Leningrad is, but growing up, I often heard about “the Siege” from my parents. I knew it to be something unspeakably horrible, an event that caused my family nearly as much trauma as the Holocaust. I knew that my great-grandmother starved to death during the Siege, at the age of 27. I knew that my grandparents could not bear to talk about their childhoods.
Playlist
Sam’s City Life features Jessie Ware, Nick Hakim, and Loraine James
Sam’s favorite track: Douha (Mali Mali) by Disclosure and Fatoumata Diawara
Description: “I just moved into a new apartment in New York City and I’ve had a great time just blasting my music in the last couple of days. This playlist is mostly made up of songs that I found during quarantine and made me think of the city while I was back home. Now that I’m here, these will be the songs I’ll be banging for the next couple weeks.”
Follow Sam on Twitter!
Podcast
Two Virgins Episode #12: Coca Cola and an Interview with MAVI
On this week’s episode of Two Virgins, Sam and Teresa interview one of their favorite rappers, MAVI, over a cup of Coca-Cola. MAVI’s debut album, Let the Sun Talk, was released last year and received critical acclaim for his beats and lyrics exploring identity and community. MAVI shares with Teresa and Sam the process behind making his upcoming album, Shango, recording during quarantine, and if white critics should discuss Black music.
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