Never Be Bored
29 October 2021
The Update Edition
Sheldon webcomic by Dave Kellett; Fermat's Enigma by Simon Singh; WHEN WE ALL FALL ASLEEP, WHERE DO WE GO? by Billie Eilish; Ultralife by Oh Wonder; The Breakfast Club 1985 John Hughes movie; Murder on the Orient Express book by Agatha Christie and 2017 Kenneth Branagh movie; 20020: The Future of College Football by Jon Bois; Wake Up Calls by Cosmo Sheldrake; Serenity 2005 Joss Whedon movie; For the Win by Cory Doctorow; AI Weirdness blog by Janelle Shane; SATURATION III by BROCKHAMPTON; total serene by Gang of Youths; Gone Now by the Bleachers; Crash Course YouTube channel; xkcd webcomic by Randall Munroe; Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo.
It's October, the anniversary month of Never Be Bored! We've come a long way. Although I've written about a lot of different books, tv shows, movies, albums, comics, etc. in this blog, there's always more media that I'm consuming that I never get a chance to talk about. And new stuff is coming out all the time! So here's a chance to list out some sequels, adaptations, and other works by the same writers/artists as things that have already been featured in the previous 34 posts since October 2018.
I found Drive by Dave Kellett, featured in my first post Really Big Worms, via his other webcomic Sheldon, which has wildly different subject matter—tales of a boy genius, his grandfather, and his pet duck—but still has that distinctive art style and sense of humor. It's just a very wholesome and nerdy strip, read it when you're looking for a smile or a justification to just go ahead and eat that cookie.
In On Computability I recommend The Code Book by Simon Singh; also by him is Fermat's Enigma, on the search for the proof of Fermat's Last Theorem—a problem that's easy to explain, but ended up taking over four hundred years to solve. Focused more on the history of the theorem than the math involved, don't worry, you don't need any advanced math experience to read this book.
Billie Eilish's EP dont smile at me was featured in Non je ne regrette rien and since publishing that blog post she's also released her first album WHEN WE ALL FALL ASLEEP, WHERE DO WE GO? Several great songs on there, but my favorite is probably "bury a friend," which has a beautifully creepy music video.
If you liked Oh Wonder by Oh Wonder (Next!), also check out their second album Ultralife. Similar vibes to the first, my favorite off this one is "Heavy," which gets stuck in my head so easily. The music video is very cute, with Anthony and Josephine Vander West, drunk on whiskey, captured dancing around in 2665 photographs.
John Hughes, director of Ferris Bueller's Day Off from A Year in Review, is of course the king of 80s teen movies. See also The Breakfast Club, such a classic, starring of course in the simplest terms and the most convenient definitions: the brain, the athlete, the basket case, the princess, and the criminal.
And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie, featured in Just you, and me, and this gun, is just one out of over 60 mystery novels written by the Queen of Crime. I also loved Murder on the Orient Express, which was adapted into a decent and star studded 2017 Kenneth Branagh movie.
17776: What Football Will Look Like in the Future by Jon Bois (And So On) is truly one of my favorite works of fiction and works well as a stand-alone, so imagine my surprise and delight when he published a sequel, 20020: The Future of College Football, which is just as good if not even better. Nick Navarro and Manny Baez are iconic as San Diego State football players.
If your favorite song off The Much Much How How and I by Cosmo Sheldrake (Strange and Yet Familiar) was "Pliocene," whose beat is composed of noises from various endangered animals, try his album Wake Up Calls, where each song samples recordings of different endangered British birds. Truly he's one of the most unique composers and producers I've ever heard, my favorite from this album is "Cuckoo."
Firefly, a tv show featured in The Family We Made Along the Way, was famously and disappointingly canceled after only fourteen episodes, but did get a follow-up movie in 2005—Serenity. Watch to see what the crew of the titular spaceship get up to after the tv show's timeline ends.
In Connecting the Dots I recommend Homeland by Cory Doctorow as a novel that teaches you something while you're reading. All his books are like that—try For the Win for a tale of video games, economics, and labor rights, available to download for free, like all his books, from his website. A topical read considering the union rights protests and the rise of NFTs right now, even though this book was originally published in 2010.
My introduction to Janelle Shane, who wrote You Look Like a Thing and I Love You, was through her blog AI Weirdness. Read for fun experiments where Janelle trains a model on different kinds of text and sees what it come up with—the title of her book came from one of these, when she had a neural network look at pick up lines.
As I mention in Connecting the Dots, I've seen BROCKHAMPTON in concert twice—once for their album GINGER, recommended in that post, but first when they were on their Love Your Parents tour, after they released SATURATION III. They are incredible live, go listen to "BOOGIE" and tell me that doesn't make you want to dance.
Why yes, I am still obsessed with Gang of Youths—their Go Farther in Lightness was recommended in Let's dance, off the beat. Recently they came out with a new EP of three songs, true serene. Hard to pick, but I think my favorite has to be "unison," which samples 70s recordings of Maori music.
If you liked Strange Desire by the Bleachers, try Jack Antonoff's next album Gone Now. I love how the songs in this album fit together beautifully—snippets of lyrics from one song show up in another as you make your way through from "Mickey Mantle" and "Goodmorning" to "Goodbye" and my top pick and final song, "Foreign Girls."
SciShow YouTube channel from Neverbeboredology was created by Hank Green. With author John Green, the two brothers also started educational channel Crash Course, which uploads mini courses on subjects ranging from world history to physics. I never had the time to take a class on the subject, so I really enjoyed the channel's sixteen episode series on linguistics hosted by Taylor Behnke.
Randall Munroe of What If? is also the creator behind xkcd, a piece of media that holds a very special place in my heart; I've been reading this webcomic since probably sometime around 2010. My dad and I will quote the archives to each other, and scrolling through our texts you'd find tons of xkcd references in our conversations—some recent messages link to Clinical Trials, Hell, and I Am Not Good with Boomerangs.
Finally, in This Place Hates You I recommend Dark by Leigh Bardugo, magical horror set in New Haven, Connecticut. For something a bit different, check out her excellent fantasy heist story Six of Crows, starring a thief, a spy, a merchant's son, a witchhunter, a witch (sort of), and a sharpshooter. I do love a book where the characters spend all this time and energy to work out a rather ingenious plan that just immediately goes to hell.