Culture Recs for November

Written By Angela Tharpe

Recently, I’ve been slowing down on streaming media. I think with everything becoming high-tech at like lightning speed, my own little rebellion was via going to the video store and renting DVDs. My partner is really into buying cassettes so I tagged along with him when he went to the record store and got some CDs. We also have a record player, but why are records so expensive (!!!). I am very into gadgets so I got a cheap Mp3 player and burned (burned? is that what we called it?) the CDs onto there. I guess I am going bunker mentality but with tech, and not all the way for necessity’s sake, but enough of the way that I don’t feel like I am involuntarily walking into the glow of all our many new devices and softwares (looking at you, ChatGPT). 

Anyway, here are some things I really loved, some things I kind of liked, some things I thought were weirdly hilarious that I picked out from the movie rental place. I won’t tell you which is which, but maybe will just describe the experience of encountering some of these things, if that’s not too insufferable. (I recently started a Youtube channel and am now worried that most of what I say or do is insufferable by proxy lol). This is what I’ve currently been into, and some of these, I might pick back up on next month, as I get further along. 

Here we go:

1)  Digital Minimalism by Cal Newport

My partner lives by this book, and I didn’t read it when he finished it because I was in grad school and didn’t read anything anybody recommended to me because I had too much going on. Then, I saw an interview Cal Newport did, and I Googled him, and I remembered how my partner loved this book plus it seemed very aligned with my wariness around tech, and reader, it is very much aligned! It’s basically about how our phones have caused us to be afraid of solitude and boredom and lots of other things we kind of need to be fully grounded in the world. This book is making me like really freaked out when I see kids on their phones, and it’s also making me want to figure out more and more how to not be like ~tech-free~ and ~live on a farm~ (okay I do want to live on a farm eventually), but instead how to make sure I’m not 24/7 consuming media without having a moment to like stare at a tree. 

2) Teknolust, dir. Lynn Hersham Leeson (2002)

Okay so this is a very weird movie I rented from Videodrome where Tilda Swinson plays this PhD student who figured out how to make AI clones of herself but they need let’s just say something of a Y chromosome to live and so they like prey on men (they don’t kill them!) to feed themselves, and the whole thing gets really weird? It’s not so scary as it is playful somehow and campy and very ‘90s vibes. It reminds me of But I’m A Cheerleader in a weirdly tangential but same atmosphere kind of way. 

4) Drylongso, dir. Cauleen Smith (1998)

Okay another movie I rented from Videodrome (I unsubscribed from Netflix, so all of my TV time is through these once-a-week picks!! Lol maybe not permanently but for now!!): this is another movie from the ‘90s, a Black indie film about this girl Pica who’s a photographer, and her friend Tobi who sometimes dresses like a guy so as not to be harassed but also is maybe at least bi, Pica too—this isn’t ever addressed, which was like a very interesting aspect of the movie—it was so queer-coded, but almost subconsciously?? The film is about grief and art and friendship, mainly, and I loved how the shots were interlaced with analog video footage—it reminded me of Spike Lee’s work in that way. 

3) I Used to Be Funny, dir. Ally Pankiw (2023)

Another movie I rented from the Videodrome! This is a film Rachel Sennott did a couple of years ago about a stand-up comic who is trying to figure out how to get back on stage after something traumatic happens to her that’s tied to her comedy. There’s also another plotline where somebody goes missing, and she’s trying to help while still taking care of her own needs—it was complicated in a way I appreciated. I’ve been a big fan of Rachel Sennott since seeing her in Bodies Bodies Bodies (one of my favorite movies!). 

5) Boom Town by Nic Stone

!!!! Guys, this book is so good. A person goes missing in this story too, and someone else—her co-worker from a strip club—investigates and in her looking into it finds out that somebody else that she knows might also be involved, and it’s all very juicy and propulsive and mysterious. It’s also very gay, and Black, and set in Atlanta. It’s feminist in a way that felt grounded in the practicalities of womanhood, which I appreciated, and I listened to the audiobook, which was AMAZING? I’ve been listening to more fiction audiobooks, and these voice actors are unmatched, for real.  

6) Girl Dinner by Olivie Blake

This is the audiobook I started after Boom Town—when I found out Boom Town was listed as a thriller, it made me want to listen to another one like that. Girl Dinner is about a girl who pledges to a sorority called The House, even though she has reservations about it, and her twin sister is a radical feminist lesbian who is like, Girl what are you doing... I’m about halfway through, and I appreciate the questions—similar to in Boom Town—of what does it mean to be a feminist or even more transparently to look after your mind and your body in a world that will gladly gobble up both for dinner. The POV switches from the girl rushing this sorority to a Sociology professor who has an 18-month-old baby and is asking herself similar questions: What do I want, and how do I stay in touch with that?

7) White Girls by Hilton Als

I’m reading this essay collection to keep learning how to write creative nonfiction and just because I feel like reading essays expands the way I think in a way that’s really energizing and healthy? I’d read Hilton Als’ profile on Richard Pryor while doing research for my current project, and I was very intrigued by this collection of essays that houses his profile from The New Yorker. I can’t believe I hadn’t read Als’ work before. It is so weird and bold. He changes his mind across essays, and he changes his politics. This book has been a great reminder that to write essays is still to make art, and you can get strange with it and blur the lines a bit, which is inspiring. 

Okay, some other quick hits:

  •  I Who Have Never Known Men by Jacqueline Harpman — just started this, very weird and enticing! Reminds me of Handmaid’s Tale and The Wall. 

  • Best American Essays 2025, edited by Jia Tolentino — two essays into this, loved Jia Tolentino’s introduction to the anthology, and the first essay, “The Work of Witness,” by Sara Aziza is brilliant too. 

  • Call Me If You Get Lost by Tyler the Creator— this is one of the CDs I got for my ~Mp3 player~ and even though I’d listened to this album when it came out, listening to it through (instead of jumping around on Spotify) has been really interesting. I’ll probably write about this for One Thing I Loved next month, but “MASSA” was an especially good one to me. 

Okay since my new thing is to be obsessed with Youtube (help!!!), here are a few Youtube video I thought were interesting too:

Image: Drylongso (Janus Films)

Angela Tharpe
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5 Culture Recs for October