FanFare

This is the weighty (literally, it's 400-plus pages) memoir of the two years that Kate Beaton (Hark! A Vagrant) worked on the Alberta oil sands to pay off her college loans. [more inside]
posted by Etrigan on Sep 15, 2022 - 10 comments

This week.... Two hosts of The View test positive for COVID mid-show moments before Kamala Harris was due to appear. In Del Rio, Texas, Haitians attempting to cross the border were met with border patrol agents on horseback wielding makeshift whips. And Now: Local News Anchors Announce The Changing Of The Seasons The Only Way They Know How. ("It's Fall, y'all!") Main story (YouTube, 20 minutes): Voting rights, why they're under attack, and what should be done to protect them. And Now: The Utterly Spectacular Dramatic Pauses Of ESPN's Stephen A. Smith. Finally: duck stamps. They're not postage stamps, but kind of a hunting permit. But they're also collectable, and effective at raising money towards wetland preservation. There is much more to this than you'd expect there to be (see inside for more info). [more inside]
posted by JHarris on Sep 27, 2021 - 4 comments

Alan Davies, Desiree Burch, Guz Khan, Morgana Robinson and Victoria Coren Mitchell all vie for the Golden Head of the Taskmaster—and to eventually advance to the Champion of Champions III! But first they have to elbow their way through the ten-episode labyrinth of odd tasks overseen by Little Alex Horne... and then convince Greg Davies—the Taskmaster—that they actually performed said tasks, nevermind whether they may have done well. See the astonished looks on everyone's faces when Greg totally mishandles the doling out of precious points. [more inside]
posted by not_on_display on Sep 25, 2021 - 76 comments

Greg Davies is the Taskmaster. "Little" Alex Horne is the Taskmaster's assistant. Contestants are Hugh Dennis, Joe Lycett, Lolly Adefope, Mel Giedroyc and Noel Fielding. THAT'S RIGHT IT'S A BAKE-OFF SHOWDOWN. Also, the seasons are longer now: behold, 8 glorious episodes! Episodes are available in the USA on the Taskmaster YouTube channel (whole season playlist), and in the UK on the Channel 4 website. [more inside]
posted by Huffy Puffy on Mar 3, 2021 - 22 comments

Ducks, Newburyport is a 2019 novel by British author Lucy Ellmann which won the 2019 Goldsmiths Prize and was shortlisted for the 2019 Booker Prize. The bulk of the book is a very long, digressive, free-associative stream-of-consciousness in the mind of a forty-something mother-of-four in small-town post-Trump, pre-pandemic Ohio. [more inside]
posted by misteraitch on May 25, 2020 - 5 comments