October recs 🍁

Around the water cooler 📰

Headlines that had our Slack channel abuzz, let's dive in:

• 19-year-old chess grandmaster, Hans Niemann, stands accused of cheating in over 100 matches, after defeating current top-dog, Magnus Carlsen. Niemann, for his part, has admitted to cheating in two online matches in the past, but Chess.com released a 72-page report that suggests a much larger pattern of foul play. The scandal has rocked the competitive chess world and inspired some...interesting theories/memes about how one might cheat in-person. Niemann is now countering with a $100 million lawsuit against Carlsen for defamation, but only time can tell whether the teen's gambit pays off.

• Apple must adopt USB-C for iPhones by autumn 2024. iPhone users rejoice, the European Union has approved single charger reform for phones by autumn 2024. Now you'll be able to borrow chargers from your Android-using friends when yours inevitably goes missing. The single charger mandate will apply to laptops as well, starting in 2026.  

• The Lettuce has outlasted Liz Truss. British Prime Minister Liz Truss has earned the title of shortest-serving UK prime minister at just 45 days. The livestream of the lettuce caricature began running October 14th, inspired by reporting from The Economist, which noted that between the 10 days of mourning for the Queen, near political implosion, and tanking the markets, Truss' grasp of power had "roughly the shelf-life of a lettuce." Rishi Sunak is now in line to become the next PM.

Recommendations

To Watch:

• Abbott Elementary: The Emmy-award winning comedy is back for its second season. Stream it on Hulu or catch it Wednesdays on ABC.

• TÁR: Cate Blanchett delivers a powerhouse performance as a world-renowned composer/conductor just barely holding it together.

• Black Adam: Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson stars in a DC superhero flick that one reviewer describes as "aggressively okay." Featuring Pierce Brosnan, Aldis Hodge, Viola Davis, and Noah Centineo, now in theaters.

• Swords & Sorcerers ⚔️🐉: House of the Dragon & Rings of Power have both concluded their first seasons. Streaming on HBO Max and Amazon Prime respectively.

• Love is Blind Season 3: Strangers speed date and propose to each other sight unseen in a messy reality TV dating show, chaos ensues. Season 3 is streaming now on Netflix.

• Atlanta season 4: Donald Glover's mind-bending FX series/social commentary is back for its fourth and final season. Catch up on Hulu before the series finale in November.

• She-Hulk: A fourth-wall breaking, courtroom comedy set in the Marvel Cinematic Universe that equally pokes fun at the genre and its fans. All of season one is now streaming on Disney+. 

• Do It Yourself! An anime series about an afterschool DIY club focusing on building furniture and friendships, while the rest of the world is focused on AI and future tech.

• Chainsaw Man: A gory, horror-action anime about a devil hunter that sometimes has a chainsaw for a head. Based on the popular manga series, now streaming on Crunchyroll and Hulu.

• Over the Garden Wall: doubling down on this recommendation because it is specifically, a great Halloween watch!

To Read:

• Fairy Tale: a new Stephen King novel about a young boy who inherits the keys to a parallel world where the forces of good and evil are at war.

• Where Did My Roommate Put My Charger? A kind-of activity book for kind-of adults, by New Yorker cartoonist & TeuxDeux podcast guest, Sarah Kempa.

• Can I Pet Your Dog? by Jeremy Nguyen, an illustrated celebration of dogs and dog-lovers!

• Shiver: A best-of story collection of the master of horror manga, Junji Ito.

• William Shatner's reflections on going to space and experiencing grief.

• Adobe's 2022 Emoji Trend Report: Avoid committing emoji faux pas with this extensive report from Adobe on Emoji usage in the U.S.

• BoJack Horseman creator, Raphael Bob-Waksberg's very specific ballot submission for the top 50 TV shows of all time.

• Alan Moore's (Watchmen, V for Vendetta) scathing takedown of the modern superhero genre and its fans.

To Listen: 

• COPINGMECHANISM : WILLOW continues an evolution as one of the more-interesting pop artists of Gen Z with an even-catchier, even-grungier fifth studio album.

• Elizabeth the First: a 10-part podcast exploring the life of Hollywood icon, Elizabeth Taylor. Narrated by Katy Perry.

• Complex: a melancholy, TikTok viral ballad by Scottish singer-songwriter, Katie Gregson-Macleod. She pays homage to Vanessa Carlton's A Thousand Miles with an almost shot-for-shot remake in a new music video.

• Midnights, Taylor Swift's latest album for Swifties to dissect, decode, and decipher.

• "A bit left field, but this choir cover of Alanis Morissette's You Oughta Know is so good." - Amir

To Try: 

• Exploring the Known Universe, in Minecraft: Reddit user u/ChrisDaCow reconstructed the entire universe in Minecraft...and it's magnificent. 

• Finding your favorite food in the Internet Archive, where volunteers upload and organize hundreds of high quality gifs of spinning food.

• Taking wildlife photos as good as these Wildlife Photographer of the Year winners.

• DIY Halloween crafts like this Silence of the Lambs decoration, or this Hobbit-costume hack.

• This rule-of-thumb for finding the best Chinese food in any major metropolitan area.

• Editing "back to front" next time you're on a writing deadline.

• Using Netflix's full list of secret codes to search.

• Examining the intersection of Art & Code in this online exhibit.

• Finding your element on the Motion Periodic Table.

A meme that will have you howling once you get it...

What have you been watching / reading / listening to this month? Send us your recs for the next edition of the neuxsletter!