Happy new year!! 🥳

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Without further ado

Tyler Bainbridge (instagram, twitter, website)

🎵 My Favorite Albums of 2021

I posted this on my Instagram a few weeks ago, but if you’re looking for some 2021 album recs you can check out the list on my website.

📽️ Raimi Spidermans

Just like you don’t have to be a “shark enthusiast” to enjoy Jaws, you don’t have to like or care about comic book film lore to enjoy the Raimi Spiderman movies, that’s why they rock. And they were made with ton of style and heart, a campiness that felt right for the subject matter, and had some fun action sequences. I mean just watch the beginning of this fight scene when him swinging through the city slowly zooms out to a reflection in Doc Ock’s glasses, so sick. Or when Raimi channels his Evil Dead days with this hospital scene. Or just listen to Kirsten Dunst talk about the now iconic kiss and quality of all the actors involved. They almost feel like indie films when compared to the overproduced money machines they are now.

🧣 Vintage Burbury Wool Scarves

A super warm and timeless scarf. And they’re pretty affordable if you buy one secondhand. Sometimes I wear it as a babushka when I get cold.

📽️ Whit Stilman - Barcelona (1994)

God I wish Whit still-made (sorry) movies like Metropolitan, Last Days of Disco, and Barcelona. What an incredible run. Barcelona is a whitty little movie about two annoying but sorta charming Americans shooting the shit with each other while falling in & out of love with Europeans. As always Whit is self indulgent and self aware here. But that’s why his stuff rules! “Well, you know how at parties people always talk about marketing?”…“No.”

🎵 Rx Papi & Gud - Foreign Exchange

Loving this new one from Rx Papi and Gud. Their blend of shouty delivery, super raw lyricism, and cloudy cinematic beats is way cooler (and more interesting) than most music these days. It starts off really strong with “12 Stout Street”, one of my favorite tracks of 2021.

🏍️ Revel Mopeds

God. These things are a blast. And so convenient. The training only took a few minutes and the questions were ez pz— you basically just need a valid drivers license and a brain. Revels are everywhere and in a lot of cases they’re the best way to travel between some neighborhoods around Brooklyn, or maybe I just tell myself that to justify riding them so often lol. The only part that sucks is wearing the sorta grimy helmet but sometimes you have to embrace the grime.

🎵 Nirvana (the band)

Maybe it’s because when I was a teenager Massachusetts alt-radio would play Nirvana alongside Bastille and Imagine Dragons, but at some point I just…stopped listening to Nirvana. I guess my smooth impressionable brain started to believe it was just lame radio rock and not some of the sickest music of all time. Especially In Utero and their MTV unplugged.

📺 Joe Pera Talks With You

I randomly stumbled upon this video of Joe making a stool for the Townsends Youtube Channel and loved his personality, so I decided to give his show a shot. I don’t know if this will make sense to all readers, but he really feels like the Bill Callahan of comedy. His show is a really heartfelt, calm, beautiful, and at times, hilarious, show about regular people. It feels like taking a deep breath. Here’s a fun skit called “The Perfect Egg-Bite” featuring a favorite of mine, Connor O’Mailey.

Alex Cushing (instagram, twitter, goodreads, moodboard)

🛋️ Hay Design PC portable lamp

I bought this little sucker used on ebay a few months ago and its versatility has leant it to being one of my most used desk items. When i’m zooming for work, washed out by the giant window directly behind me, I pop this thing in front of my face and tap it on, and boom my own ring light. If I want to read without lighting up the whole room? This little guy conveniently site next to my open book (usually set to the middle brightness of its 3 levels). It’s handy, simple, and looks great, what more could I ask for?

📹 Sony Handycam DCR-HC28 ~ EST 2007

People love film cameras, vinyls, tapes, and plenty of other “vintage” gear, it’s time to bring camcorders back! I use it to film moments of my family and my daughter. I love that it looks so old and kind of junky, i love that it feels nostalgic already, and i love that the videos arent just buried in a bunch of screenshots, memes, and fit pics, like everything in the camera roll on my phone. Pair it with this “VIDBOX Video Conversion for Mac” to save the vids digitally.

🏇 Perestroika in Paris

Ever read a book that’s so positively wholesome you can’t help but smile the whole way through? Perestroika in Paris is the story of an innocent young racehorse who wanders out of her stable and into the Champ de Mars in Paris. This horse, Perestroika, befriends a collection of animals (all amazingly distinct and unique), and each of them wanders around Paris pleasantly and goes on about their lives. It’s extremely french, everything from the groundskeeper who doesn’t bother reporting the stray horse because “someone would have told him if it wasn’t meant to be there”, to the shop owner who gives the horse some food and goes on with her day. It’s relentlessly positive the whole way through, managing to keep you into the story without anything ever going wrong for anyone, and without any villain to propel the story into conflict.

📕 The Housekeeper and the Professor

This is a Japanese mini-novel (novella? Not quote that short?) about a brilliant mathematics professor who has an 80-minute short-term memory after getting into an accident. Every morning, he has to re-learn the fact that his memory is short and he has to re-introduce himself to his housekeeper and whoever else may visit. This story focuses mainly on the sweet little relationship that develops between the housekeeper, her son, and the professor, despite the troubles his lack of memory causes. It’s a really really great story that you can probably read through in a single sitting.

⌚ Vintage WW2 watches

I mentioned my Hamilton watch when I rec’d “All Quiet on the Western Front”. But it’s time it gets a rec of its own. Whether you want a true vintage watch or a modern/new re-issue (I have a Hamilton Pilot Pioneer, people also love the Hamilton Khaki Field, the Smiths W10, and many more), there’s nothing quite like wearing history on your wrist. It’s a classic look, worn by soldiers in WW2, & usually very affordable when compared to other varieties of mechanical watches.

🎵 Bridget St John - Ask Me No Questions (1970)

Ask Me No Questions feels poetic, personal, meditative, and low-key. It’s beautiful and a perfect folky/singer songwriter listen for those cold overcast days. Spotify tells me that since I like it, I would be into the playlist titled “slowcore”, and I think that fits it perfectly. If “slowcore” sounds like something you’d like, check this one out.

🎵 BAMBARA - Shadow on Everything (2018)

On the opposite of my music taste from St John’s “slowcore” is BAMBARA, a garagey noise punk band with an almost gothic/folktale-y atmosphere embedded into their sound. I love this album so much, it’s packed with hits but some of my absolute favorite songs are Wild Fires, José Tries to Leave, Dark Circles, and Backyard. Their album Stray is also great, and they have an upcoming release, Love on My Mind, dropping this February!

Serey Morm (instagram, twitter, vsco)

🌬 Canopy Humidifier

I often wake up with a bad case of dry eyes, mouth, and lungs despite drinking a ton of water before bed. With great timing and being a constant victim of Instagram’s creepy targeted ads, Canopy’s humidifier made its way into my daily routine. I constantly have it running and It has definitely helped with my breathing. A bonus is that my plants are also happier now!

🍿 The Silent Sea

Okay — this show is craaaazy! We binged the first season, which was around 6 hours, in two days. The premise is in a dystopian future where there’s not much water left on Earth, and a group of people have to go to the moon to grab some weird samples. If you’ve seen Squid Game, or Kingdom, you’ll see some familiar faces!

👕 AllSaints T-Shirts

For the past 5+ years, my most comfortable t-shirts are AllSaints crews. I’ve mostly worn them to lounge, or sleep in, to the point where there are tiny holes everywhere, which is a good thing! The fabric is super thin, so it ages really well. The blanks are a bit on the pricier side, so I often buy the white graphic tees that are usually on sale.

🌮 Kenji Lopez-Alt’s Carnitas

This is one of those recipes that can take a very long time to make, but it’s super easy, cheap, and hands-off. We’re big fans of Kenji around here, and this recipe is the result of another one of his experiments. This time, the twist is that instead of braising the pork in a liquid base, this is simmered in fat to produce juicier carnitas. Along with the salsa, this is probably one of the easiest and best things I’ve ever cooked.

🗞 Extra! Extra!

🏡 Yamazaki Home — suuuper nice all things home organizers

🪥 Toothpaste Dispenser — legit +99 QOL. Works super well

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