Ahead on Differential

Here are ten things.

1. I watched this cute, cozy, barely-good slice-of-life anime movie called Words Bubble Up Like Soda Pop on Netflix, and I think I'm just going to have to admit to myself that I have a soft sport for this very specific kind of cute, cozy, barely-good slice-of-life anime bullshit. Is this what growth is?
2. The YouTube algorithm on my work email account is the best kind of fucked up. How do I know this? I fell into a rabbit hole of albums remade with video game soundfonts. Most of these are classic rock staples, because being a young classic rock-obsessed teen, I am very familiar with the mindset that's driven to make this specific kind of thing (hint: it's the same impulse that people made people make anime music videos in the 90s and 00s). Some nuggets: a Super Mario 64 version of Aja, an Earthbound version of Abbey Road, and a Pokémon Emerald version of In the Court of the Crimson King.
3. Speaking of Steely Dan: Jack Hamilton writes about the group's newfound favour among younger fans for The Atlantic, with a big assist from the book Quantum Criminals by Alex Pappademas (shout out Do You Like Prince Movies?, shout out Wesley Morris) and Joan LeMay.
4. I quite like the new Intel One Mono typeface, especially those curly brackets.
5. For The Ringer, Claire McNear on the legend of early Jeopardy! champion Barbara Lowe and why her run was scrubbed from the archives .
6. Jessa Crispin on the superfans who are against the WGA strike. (via Kleon)
7. I'm going to see Beau Is Afraid sooner rather than later, so naturally, my inclination is to watch the first two films by director Ari Aster, Hereditary and Midsommar. But I'm balking at just sitting down and having my mind flayed by these movies that, by all accounts, are visceral fucked-up emotional bruisers. I guess I'm just in my chickenshit era.
8. Things are decidedly not fucked up in the land of Watchlist Roulette: we have Brief Encounter (devastating), Soul (cute, great score), and My Night at Maud's (attractive and loquacious French people, my one weakness!).
9. This is a corollary item to last week's ninth item, which was also about the ongoing Blank Check Buster Keaton miniseries: so far, I've watched all four movies covered so far while listening to the episode in which they're discussed. This is maybe the most decadent thing I've ever done.
10. “Not All of Us Get to Be Ghosts” by Leila Chatti (via Pome):

    In December I watch movies about ghosts
    with a woman I call mama though she is not
    my mother, only a woman who is kind, this all
    I require. We take breaks to lean against each other
    on the porch, her sucking smoke from between
    her fingers, exhaling its skirling; each mouthful
    dissipating, becoming something like air. My breath’s
    a less impressive phantom, fleeting silver
    in the cold light. Standing there
    in our small shadows, we discuss the ways
    of the dead, their metaphysics, as if we were experts
    by osmosis, a certain knowledge absorbed. I say I think
    our ghosts become us, or at least reside in our dark
    like tenants we haven’t the heart to kick out.
    She says, though she hasn’t quite figured it out yet,
    there are rules: not all of us get to be ghosts.

#tenthings