10 Things: Mail, Music, and Masala
My recommendations for things to watch, read, think about, do, buy, and examine this week.
Here we are again, with more to appreciate about the world. I am watching my daughter T solo this weekend for the first time ever, and I find it hard to do anything besides watch her — so this is coming to you late, during one of her naps. Even as I write to you, the main thing I’m thinking is that she could wake up AT ANY MOMENT and HAVE NEEDS. It took everything in my body not to recommend “naps” as one of these ten things.
But I didn’t! The first three are free; to see them all (this week including a recipe, a baby item, and a Reddit post), subscribe to a paid tier!
Journalism Movies.
We watched “She Said,” which is now streamable on Peacock, and has Patricia Clarkson in it wearing a very smart bob. I found it to be just OK. I wanted it to be AMAZING, because several years ago, I had a journalism student who raised her hand and said, “Hey, when will we get to watch a movie about badass women-of-color journalists doing amazing journalism?” And I smiled my sad smile and wished there was even one major motion picture about journalists who were women, or men of color, let alone women of color. (I WELCOME being told that I’m missing something. I’m looking for a non-documentary film that tells the story of journalists doing some journalism, but the journalists aren’t primarily white men.) “She Said” is OK. There are some great parts. Luke liked it more than I did, I think; and I liked subtleties about it — like the implications about being a journalist and a mother at the same time. But ultimately, I can’t show it to my high school students because there’s too much explicit sexual language; and it didn’t tell the story in a way that felt fresh to me. Probably this is because I wanted so much from it. This is on me. BUT ANYWAY, I do fundamentally love movies about journalists and journalism. It’s actually my favorite genre. And so I thought I’d share the four I do show my students every year (one at the end of each unit), and tell you how much THEY like them.
“Shattered Glass” (2003). I always start with this movie, because 18-year-olds have never heard the name “Stephen Glass” and have no idea what is coming. It’s such a wild story about a narcissistic, manipulative, white guy, and it’s pretty fun to watch him unravel. The cast is objectively great. (Steve Zahn, Hayden Christiansen, Peter Sarsgaard, Chloe Sevigny, Rosario Dawson, Hank Azaria, and I COULD GO ON!) One hundred percent of the students stay awake for 100 percent of this movie. (I guess that’s my metric.)
“All The President’s Men” (1976). This is a good movie that shows how the modern era of investigative journalism was born, and Robert Redford is hot in this. (I know, but still.) I had never seen it before I started teaching journalism, and now I’ve seen ALL the journalism movies (all the ones I can find on online lists, anyway), and I can say with an amount of certainty that this is among the best. The students find this one hard to follow, even with a whoooooole lot of background information. They can tell that something exciting is going on, but it’s hard to understand WHY it’s exciting. Which, fair. Half the class is sleeping by the end.
“Spotlight” (2015). It’s clear that this is what “She Said” was trying to be, but this movie is more successful because there’s a sense of uncovering something new and horrifying, and understanding the importance of going after systems rather than individuals. The Harvey Weinstein story was more of an open secret, so the movie is about getting people to go on the record (and why they didn’t want to). That’s important, too; but this is more compelling. Also, the sexual details in this piece are less explicit (though since they’re about children, they’re in some ways more disturbing), so it’s not too much to show at school. This is always the students’ favorite one. BUT, the first 30 minutes of the movie are SO BORING. Like, they are SO. BORING. And that’s a long time to be bored. So I have to tell the kids, “You need to trust me when I say that it will pick up. Please, stay awake for 30 minutes. And after Rachel McAdams does her first interview, if you aren’t a little hooked, you can check out.”
“A Beautiful Day In The Neighborhood” (2019). It’s sort of a stretch to call this a journalism movie, but also, it’s not. There are a lot of wonderful questions about what it takes to write a profile, and what objectivity means when we’re writing longform for magazines. Also, this movie is about Mr. Rogers, whose legacy of kindness is indisputable. The students are mixed on this one. Some of them LOVE IT. Some of them think that it’s really weird. There are definitely weird parts in it (like, a dream sequence with a huge bunny?), so I get it. But they tend to stay awake for the whole thing.
A return address stamp.
I ordered a cheap self-inking return address stamp a few years ago, and I use it constantly. I hand-wrote the label and then had it printed as a picture instead of text, and I think it’s really pretty! I’m about ready to get a new one, and I think I’ll draw an actual image to go with the text — Kelly Fauxcheux does these in the shape of houses, which is a very cute idea. I might draw a cat around mine? Or a chicken? Anyway, everyone should have one of these.
This is my favorite protein to add to things because (1) it is readily available; (2) it doesn’t taste like anything; and (3) it makes you poop. I want to pretend like I use this in something other than smoothies, but that would be a lie. There was a period where I stirred proteins into my muffins, but it does change the texture in a way that can’t be denied, and a big part of a muffin is the texture. Here is my smoothie recipe: 1 cup frozen mango, 1 cup frozen berries, 3 cups spinach or kale, one little box of coconut water (I buy the Kirkland brand from Costco, and it’s fairly cost-efficient), another cup or so of water, a huge scoop of hemp protein, and a pinch of sea salt. I read in Bon Appetit that a pinch of sea salt in smoothies is a game-changer, and my friends — IT IS. It makes sense, when you think about it: all sweet things are a little sweeter when you add a smidge of salt. You’d never make salt-free cookies. So don’t make salt-free smoothies! (Sea salt in oatmeal, also clutch.)
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