OMG I am highly blessed and favored, y’all. Literally as I was writing this post, I was complaining internally about the fact that it’s the middle of July and still no second-half-of-2021 book preview from The Millions. I was like, “Forget ‘I love television,’ I’m going to use the subject of this post to bitch about the fact that the lengthy and clearly labor-intensive book preview has not dropped,” and as I was thinking about a pithy way to bitch about that, I opened The Millions to double-check and you will never guess what happened!
YES THAT IS RIGHT IT IS THE BOOK PREVIEWWWWWWWW. (link) I haven’t read it yet because I discovered it’s there approximately thirty seconds before writing these very words. I am saving it as a treat for the end of the work week. Yay. Yay. Yay. I love this book preview. I thank The Millions so much for doing it. I know it is a lot of work.
Okay! On to the rest of the links! A lot of them are about television! Watch Leverage: Redemption on IMDBtv!
LET LEVAR BURTON HOST JEOPARDY (link)
Jeannette Ng unpacks some of the history and political assumptions of the wuxia genre. (link)
Molly Ostertag considers queer readings of Lord of the Rings, and what Tolkien might have meant. Including: a surprise guest appearance by Mary Renault! (link)
“Sex/Life is the most boring and meager of sexual fantasies for straight women stuck in mundane marriages who wish they had something better to cling to.” I love a good pan, and Scaachi Koul’s of this Netflix show I’ve never heard of is excellent. (link)
“I do not want to win someone else’s game.” Nikole Hannah-Jones’s statement on why she is walking away from UNC is excellent, and heartbreaking. (link)
Products that go viral on TikTok are typically a flash in the pan. (link)
NEW LEVERAGE IS HEEEEEEEEEEERE so please enjoy this interview with the cast. Then go watch New Leverage. It’s exactly what I wanted it to be. Except for in my vision there would be more Hardison, but I understand Aldis Hodge is a fancypants movie star with a fancypants movie star schedule, sob. (link)
So-called “pot-hunters” regularly loot Native American graves, removing not just funerary artifacts but even human remains. When will it end? (link)
Surprise! People actually enjoy commutes. I can confirm this: Adding a small commute to my day (like 15 minutes) gives me time to decompress before and after work, and get some dedicated reading time. (link)
The life of an assistant in Hollywood has worsened drastically with the fall of network TV. (link)
Not prosecuting people for low-level misdemeanors turns out to reduce crime all around! Hooray! Let’s all just do that, then! (link)
This joint interview with Juno Temple and Hannah Waddingham, of Ted Lasso, will make your heart sing. What a lovely pair of women. Also you should watch Ted Lasso. It is not a perfect show but it is really great in many ways. (link)
I am crushed to learn that despite the incredible cast, Gunpowder Milkshake is boring and bad. CRUSHED. (link)
In closing, please watch New Leverage. If you don’t know what New Leverage is, I highly recommend repairing to IMDBtv (it’s free!) or Amazon Prime and watching the pilot of Leverage. It is very close to being a perfect pilot. Every time I think about the pilot of Leverage, I want to watch the pilot of Leverage. I want to watch it right now, typing this. It slaps. Thank you for your time.