Offline Recs: Subterranean silos, bad waitresses, music geographies
Plus, coffee hacks, Nostradamic mathematicians, stunt food wars, and more.
Welcome to Offline Recs, The Culture Journalist’s digest of TV shows, sick reads, and other cultural ephemera we can’t stop thinking about — regardless of where they fit in the news cycle. This edition, we’re exploring underground music histories, hacking our coffee, sidling up to Nostradamic mathematicians, and more.
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Antonia Hitchens wrote an incredible piece called “Taco Bell’s Innovation Kitchen, the Front Line in the Stunt-Food Wars.” It’s a fascinating deep dive into how the Dorito-encrusted, Mountain Dew-flavored sausage gets made. —Andrea Domanick
Jesse Rifkin very possibly has the coolest job in the world: He spends his days walking around Manhattan, giving crazy-interesting walking tours chronicling how different chapters in the city’s musical history were incubated by different neighborhoods, like ’70s punk rock (Greenwich Village and the East Village) and ’90s and ’00s indie rock (Alphabet City and the Lower East Side). Next month, he’s publishing his first book, This Must Be the Place, which is a fascinating look at how scenes are as much the product of the specific artists we remember them for as factors like geographical proximity and cheap rent. We’re so excited about it, that we’re bringing him on next week to talk about it. Stay tuned. —Emilie Friedlander
Dirt published a long essay called “Bad Waitress” this month that was quite the talk of the town — so much so, that there’s even a mug you can buy. Becca Schuh writes about her experiences coming of age as a writer, but also as a server, in a way that makes you see the entire concept of “work” (and society’s stupid insistence on valorizing certain kinds of it more than others) in a whole new way. —EF
LA Times technology critic Brian Merchant has a book coming out in September about the Luddites, a group of early 19th century textile workers who smashed the machines that factory owners were bringing in to replace them. It’s good, and let’s just say that there are a LOT of eerie similarities between the industrial revolution and our AI-obsessed present. Listen to our conversation with him about it, and pre-order it here. —EF
Watch
Silo (AppleTV+)
Despite the fact that this post-apocalyptic sci-fi series is about people living in a sealed underground silo of mysterious origin, it’s way more than The Hatch from Lost: The Show. It’s got excellent world-building; a complex, kickass female protagonist (shouts to Rebecca Ferguson); and thrills and cliffhangers that actually build upon each other and pay off.
Because I’m impatient, I’ve been reading Wool, the acclaimed Hugh Howey book Silo is based on, and have been pleasantly surprised to find that the adaptation not only does it justice, but elegantly adds to — and perhaps even improves upon — the source material. —AD
Foundation (AppleTV+)
Speaking of adaptations, this ambitious rendering of Isaac Asimov’s classic sci-fi saga slipped under the radar when it came out in 2021 — which makes it all the sweeter to binge now that its second season is due out on July 14. Foundation has everything: Metaphysics! Religious sects! Lee Pace as a campy emperor! Jared Harris as a Nostradamic mathematician! The existential paradox of humanity! It’s gorgeous. —AD
Black Mirror Season 6 (Netflix)
Well-executed, cerebral sci-fi offerings are plentiful right now, friends. And the long-awaited arrival of Black Mirror Season 6 is the cherry on the dystopian sundae. This time, writer and showrunner Charlie Brooker takes a merciful turn away from the “too real” tech bleakness upon which the series built its name in favor of a (somewhat) thematically looser approach. But Black Mirror remains as incisive and resonant as ever, evolving right along with the contemporary discourse around tech and society — episode 1, about a woman who discovers that her life has been turned into an AI-generated streaming TV show, feels particularly on-point — while underscoring timeless themes about human nature. —AD