Culture Study Podcast

I love old movies — but I didn’t always! In fact, I needed many years of directed classwork to fall in love with them. But if you’re not in the mood to pause your life and take on significant graduate debt, THERE ARE STILL OPTIONS, and Margaret H. Willison and I are here to offer them. In this episode, we offer specific suggestions to listeners based on short lists of their (recent) film favs, talk about “aesthetic friction” and how to overcome it, strongly invite you to put your phone in the other room, and travel all over film history in a very earnest attempt to help you find your own entry point into the expansive mansion that is “old movies,” broadly defined.

• Follow Margaret on Instagram!!

• Find out more about Margaret’s course on Mansfield Park here

• If you want to learn A LOT more about Pre-Code Cinema, this book is my go-to (and very accessible)

• A bunch of classic streaming services have challenged some of the arguments in this piece, but it’s a decent overview re: the disappearance of classic film from Netflix

• If you want to go deep on screwballs and the comedy of remarriage

• My Scandals of Classic Hollywood on Warren Beatty lives on

EVERY MOVIE MENTIONED AND WHERE TO FIND IT
(as best as Melody could figure out) (recs for checking the local library are implicit)

Vertigo (1958) - rent

Paper Moon (1973) - Paramount+

Badlands (1974) - rent

Tokyo Story (1953) - Max

An Autumn Afternoon (1962) - Max

Gosford Park (2001) - rent

What’s Up, Doc? (1972) - rent

Bringing Up Baby (1938) - rent

The Lady Eve (1941) - Criterion, rent

Sylvia Scarlett (1935) - rent

Now, Voyager (1942) - Tubi, TCM, rent

Sullivan’s Travels (1941) - rent

The Palm Beach Story (1942) - rent

The Miracle of Morgan’s Creek (1944 ) - rent

Shampoo (1975) - rent

To Be or Not To Be (1942) - Max, Criterion

Born Yesterday (1950) - rent

The Philadelphia Story (1940) - Tubi, rent

Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969) - Tubi, rent

North by Northwest (1959) - Criterion, Tubi, TCM, rent

Foreign Correspondent (1940) - Max, Criterion, Tubi, rent

Singin’ in the Rain (1952) - Max, rent

Magnolia (1999) - Paramount+, rent

McCabe & Mrs. Miller (1971) - rent

Cabaret (1972) - Tubi, rent

New York, New York (1977) - not available for streaming :(

Broadcast News (1987) - Starz, rent

Desk Set (1957) - rent

The Conversation (1974) - Paramount+, Criterion, rent

Evil Under the Sun (1982) - Prime, rent

Double Indemnity (1944) - rent

The Third Man (1949) - rent

Kind Hearts and Coronets (1949) - rent

The Shop Around the Corner (1940) - rent

Holiday (1938) - rent

Shadow of a Doubt (1943) - Criterion, rent

The Women (1939) - rent

All About Eve (1950) - rent

Funny Face (1957) - rent

Barefoot in the Park (1967) - rent

Charade (1963) - Prime, rent

Anatomy of a Murder (1959) - rent

Rear Window (1954) - Criterion, rent

• Dark Academia

• How cookbooks get made

• Van/Skoolie/RV Life

• Spiritual care for non-religious people

• Anything you need advice or want musings on for the AAA segment. You can ask about anything, it’s literally the name of the segment!

• You can submit them (and ideas for future eps) here

• Join the ranks of paid subscribers and get bonus content, access to the discussion threads, ad-free episodes, and the knowledge that you're supporting an indie pod trying to make its way in the world.
• Got a question to submit, a prompt for Ask Anne Anything, or an idea for a future episode? Tell us here.
• Catch up on everything else happening in the Culture Study universe here.
• Transcripts will be available here within 24 hours of publishing.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

What makes something Dad? Is it pleated Dockers? A worn baseball cap? Asking (again) if you’ve checked your oil? Incompetency in the domestic sphere paired with competency outside of it? I’ve long loved thinking through both the serious and the ridiculous of Dad Culture, and for today’s episode, we have an actual scholar of it (Phil Maciak, currently hard at work on a Dad Culture book) to unpack the history and theory of Dadness, including: do you have to be a dad to be part of Dad Culture (no) is Dad Culture just white middle-class boomer dads (also no) and is Bandit from Bluey too good of a Dad (maybe). Listen on, and let’s Dad It Up.

• We’re big Phil Maciak fans here at Culture Study — read my interview with him re: screentime here and listen to the (very popular) episode of the pod (one of our earliest!) on Paw Patrol:

• Follow Phil on Bluesky

• Read Phil’s television criticism at The New Republic here

• Dad Magazine !!!

• Phil mentions Kirsten Swinth’s book Feminism’s Forgotten Fight: The Unfinished Struggle for Work and Family

• Ella Emhoff in her camo Harris/Walz hat:

• Rob Mitchum’s original review of Wilco’s Sky Blue Sky (2007) for Pitchfork

• In 2019, Mitchum revisited the concept of “dad rock”

• Is 26-year-old MJ Lenderman making dad rock? The comments on this YouTube video suggest… maybe.

• HISTORICAL ROMANCE (will neither confirm nor deny that we have a co-host whose confirmation made Melody faint)

• Fan Fiction — Past, Present, Future

• Dark Academia

• How cookbooks get made

• Spiritual care for non-religious people

• Cleaning Culture especially “cleanliness as moral”

• Anything you need advice or want musings on for the AAA segment — WE REALLY NEED MORE!! You can ask about anything, it’s literally the name of the segment!

• You can submit them (and ideas for future eps) here

• Join the ranks of paid subscribers and get bonus content, access to the discussion threads, ad-free episodes, and the knowledge that you're supporting an indie pod trying to make its way in the world.
• Got a question to submit, a prompt for Ask Anne Anything, or an idea for a future episode? Tell us here.
• Catch up on everything else happening in the Culture Study universe here.
• Transcripts will be available here within 24 hours of publishing.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

I know a lot about historic Hollywood feuds. I could do an entire episode just on the magazine covers featuring Elizabeth Taylor, Eddie Fisher, and Debbie Reynolds circa 1959. But to do any episode on Celebrity Feuds right — particularly one that airs just days before Kendrick Lamar performs at the Super Bowl — I knew I needed a different sort of celebrity feud expert. When Joel Anderson, host of three blockbuster seasons of Slow Burn (including a canonical one on Biggie + Tupac), agreed to come on the show, I legitimately let out a little scream of delight. He has so much knowledge, context, and perspective; this episode is a dream come true.

**Note: This episode was recorded before the Grammys, and we didn’t correctly predict Beyonce’s AOTY win nor Kendrick Lamar’s FIVE awards for “Not Like Us.”**

• If you’re unfamiliar with Joel’s work and want an intro, I can’t recommend the first episode of the Clarence Thomas season of Slow Burn highly enough. I’ve listened to it so many times (which is VERY rare for me with podcasts); it’s such a journalistic coup. The entire season is a marvel.

• But also — and pertinent to this discussion — check out the season of Slow Burn on Biggie and Tupac

• Listen to Joel over at The Ringer on The Press Box

• I strongly recommend (re)watching the video for “Not Like Us” (the lyrics auto-play)

• A solid overview of the Kendrick/Drake feud from GQ

• One of the first reaction Tiktoks I remember seeing:

• Easter Eggs from the video for “Not Like Us”

• The ridiculous Cosmo compilation of “Celebrity Feuds From the Year You Were Born” I keep referencing

• Joel references “The Fight’s Over, Joe,” a classic Sports Illustrated article on the feud between Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier

• Listen to the Elizabeth Taylor episode of You Must Remember This

• This is the unfathomable movie where Liz and Debbie raz Eddie Fisher

• If you really want to know about Jane Fonda’s “feud” with her father, the Fonda section of Richard Dyer’s Stars is unrivaled

• I personally learned about 50 Cent’s beefs from this episode of 60 Songs That Explain the ‘90s: The 2000s

• HISTORICAL ROMANCE (will neither confirm nor deny that we have a co-host whose confirmation made Melody faint)

• By popular request, all things fan fiction

• Dark Academia

• How cookbooks get made

• Spiritual care for non-religious people

• Anything you need advice or want musings on for the AAA segment — WE REALLY NEED MORE!! You can ask about anything, it’s literally the name of the segment!

• You can submit them (and ideas for future eps) here

• Join the ranks of paid subscribers and get bonus content, access to the discussion threads, ad-free episodes, and the knowledge that you're supporting an indie pod trying to make its way in the world.
• Got a question to submit, a prompt for Ask Anne Anything, or an idea for a future episode? Tell us here.
• Catch up on everything else happening in the Culture Study universe here.
• Transcripts will be available here within 24 hours of publishing.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

We’re at the point where we know a bullshit attempt to commodify our burnout when we see it. No one’s buying the self-care spiel the bath bomb companies are selling us. But the rhetoric of self-care has crept into the workplace, family dynamics, and TikTok therapy speak, usually divorced from any critique of the systems that make self-care feel necessary in the first place. Pooja Lakshmin MD, author of Real Self-Care, joins the pod to answer your very smart questions about contemporary self-care in workplace trainings, in conversations encouraging everyone to GET A HOBBY!, and in advice to perfectionist women to “lower the bar.” Pooja is so clear-eyed and compassionate — and I think this episode will make you feel seen and challenged.

Show Notes:

• Subscribe to Pooja Lakshmin MD’s newsletter, Real Self-Care

• Read my interview with Pooja from 2023:

• Buy Real Self-Care on Bookshop!

• Re: menopause / perimenopause scams — I like this Dr. Jen Gunter piece from last year

• If you missed the episode from earlier this month on Therapy Speak

• Want to see the art from our AAA asker, Erin? It’s here, and it’s beautiful!

• HISTORICAL ROMANCE (will neither confirm nor deny that we have a co-host whose confirmation made Melody faint)

• By popular request, all things fan fiction!

• Pre-teen influencers

• Budget Culture + Specifically Budget Advice You Find Dubious

• Dark Academia

• How cookbooks get made

• Spiritual care for non-religious people

• Anything you need advice or want musings on for the AAA segment — WE REALLY NEED MORE!! You can ask about anything, it’s literally the name of the segment!

• You can submit them (and ideas for future eps) here

• Join the ranks of paid subscribers and get bonus content, access to the discussion threads, ad-free episodes, and the knowledge that you're supporting an indie pod trying to make its way in the world.
• Got a question to submit, a prompt for Ask Anne Anything, or an idea for a future episode? Tell us here.
• Catch up on everything else happening in the Culture Study universe here.
• Transcripts will be available here within 24 hours of publishing.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

I grew up skiing at a mid-size mountain in the middle of Idaho. I wasn’t ever an athletic kid, but skiing — it made me feel fast and really good at something. I loved it: the routine, the long slog to the mountain, the Cup of Soup for lunch, the crappy hotels, the freedom. But the ski culture that I grew up with is largely gone, at least in the U.S. — and I’ve spent the last few years coming to terms with how industrial shifts, climate change, conglomeration, the explosion of the unregulated short-term rental market have changed not only who can learn to ski, but who can keep doing it.

Heather Hansman, author of Powder Days, is the perfect co-host to grapple with your questions about the future of skiing, ski towns, and ski culture, including all the business nitty-gritty (and a frank discussion of what can make ski people so annoying). This is a ski conversation, but it’s also a conversation about housing, and class, and city planning — and the commodification of hobbies. I can’t wait to hear your thoughts.

• Find more about Heather’s work and buy Powder Days: Ski Bums, Ski Towns, and the Future of Chasing Snow

• (Here’s a great review)

• I mention the movie Ski Patrol — for real ones, here’s my favorite scene (and a pretty great encapsulation of the two stereotypes of ski culture)

• Heather’s really thoughtful piece on picking where to live

• Celebrity feuds, past and present, with Joel Anderson!!! (Yes this will come out around the time Kendrick headlines the Super Bowl halftime show)

• HISTORICAL ROMANCE (will neither confirm nor deny that we have a co-host whose confirmation made Melody faint)

• By popular request, all things fan fiction!

• Pre-teen influencers

• Budget Culture + Specifically Budget Advice You Find Dubious

• Dark Academia

• Getting into old movies!!!! Tell us why you want to get into them, why you find it difficult, and a few recent-ish movies so we can hand-pick recommendations for you

• Dad culture, whatever that means to you

• Anything you need advice or want musings on for the AAA segment — WE REALLY NEED MORE!! You can ask about anything, it’s literally the name of the segment!

• You can submit them (and ideas for future eps) here

• Join the ranks of paid subscribers and get bonus content, access to the discussion threads, ad-free episodes, and the knowledge that you're supporting an indie pod trying to make its way in the world.
• Got a question to submit, a prompt for Ask Anne Anything, or an idea for a future episode? Tell us here.
• Catch up on everything else happening in the Culture Study universe here.
• Transcripts will be available here within 24 hours of publishing.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Let me start with this: this is a dream interview. If, like me, you spent a lot of time in the 2000s and 2010s reading about celebrity online, Go Fug Yourself was an essential part of your online diet. Heather and Jessica were simply unrivaled when it came to celebrity fashion in general and red carpet fashion in particular. I idolized them the same way I idolized Lainey Gossip — both of whom I read alongside all of my graduate texts in star studies. The problem with those star studies is that they were always rooted in the past. But The Fug Girls and Lainey, they were doing the analysis now, on celebs who were desperately (and often unsuccessfully) attempting to navigate the new, digital gossip landscape — and that’s how they became part of my dissertation, on the history of celebrity gossip, themselves.

That’s why it’s such an absolute f-ing treat to talk to Heather and Jessica about the present and future of celebrity gossip: they have the context. They know the history. We talk about Deuxmoi, sourcing, blinds, accounting for past shittiness, so much. Melody had to jump in like 17 times to make us explain various peak 2000s gossip terms here, so if you were part of that universe (HELLO, TOOTHY TILE) you will love this episode — but if you weren’t, and you just appreciate an introspective look at how celebrity discourse works, you’ll love this, too (in part because Melody made us explain stuff, she’s the best).

Note: This episode was recorded just before the Blake Lively/New York Times bombshell so don’t get mad that we don’t mention it!!

• GoFugYourself if you haven’t already visited — but make sure you check out Drinks with Broads, Heather and Jessica’s Substack for even more in-depth analysis (and recaps), plus open threads for big celeb events (like the Golden Globes). Subscribe below!!!

  Drinks With Broads

• Here’s what I sent Melody when she was confused about what Toothy Tile was

• I liked this piece from Rebecca Jennings on DeuxMoi back in 2020

• The Fug Girls’ note on discontinuing royals coverage

• The subreddit devoted to Deuxmoi

• Re: Brad Pitt — I wrote about him and the stink of sad smut back in 2022

• Celebrity feuds, past and present, with Joel Anderson!!! (Yes this will come out around the time Kendrick headlines the Super Bowl halftime show)

• HISTORICAL ROMANCE (will neither confirm nor deny that we have a co-host whose confirmation made Melody faint)

• By popular request, all things fan fiction!

• Pre-teen influencers

• Budget Culture + Specifically Budget Advice You Find Dubious

• Getting into old movies!!!! Tell us why you want to get into them, why you find it difficult, and a few recent-ish movies so we can hand-pick recommendations for you

• Dad culture, whatever that means to you

• Anything you need advice or want musings on for the AAA segment — WE REALLY NEED MORE!! You can ask about anything, it’s literally the name of the segment!

• You can submit them (and ideas for future eps) here

• Join the ranks of paid subscribers and get bonus content, access to the discussion threads, ad-free episodes, and the knowledge that you're supporting an indie pod trying to make its way in the world.
• Got a question to submit, a prompt for Ask Anne Anything, or an idea for a future episode? Tell us here.
• Catch up on everything else happening in the Culture Study universe here.
• Transcripts will be available here within 24 hours of publishing.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Thrifting has a smell, but it also has a feel. For me, the feel is of thick, almost indestructible rayon weaves; of dense, mothbally wool; of slick, ancient crinoline; of stiff and generously cut denim. It was the feel of handstitching on a dress made from a pattern, or a cracked logo on a company picnic shirt from 1975. It was not the feel of shopping at Forever 21, even though the prices were approximately the same. Like so many of you, at various points in my life I’ve relied on thrift stores for resilient everyday clothes and delightful dress-up/costume accoutrements.

But thrifting has changed dramatically over the last fifteen years — and it’s never been more popular. In this episode, Kelsey Vlamis and I break down all the reasons for its its transformation, from the rise of fast fashion to influencers making haul videos. Plus: there’s a thrifting mystery we’d love to solve; listen and see if you can help us!

• Read Kelsey’s big piece on thrifting in Business Insider — you can also read/hear her talk about it more on Marketplace

• Welp here I am in my Tiffany outfit, thrifted entirely from a now-defunct thrift store in Downtown Walla Walla, Washington

• A Fast Company overview of ThredUp’s booming business

• On the success of The RealReal

• A pretty good Reddit Thread on “Boots Theory”

• Dr. Danielle Sponder Testa is the ASU professor referenced by Kelsey

• Patagonia’s resale site, WornWear

• A pretty fun video of the Lummi Island Rummage Sale rope drop

• Pre-teen influencers

• Pivoting from my beloved Paul Mescal…..can we just talk about Irish Pop Culturification (including Paul) with Caroline O’Donoghue (!)

• Budget Culture + Specifically Budget Advice You Find Dubious

• Getting into old movies!!!! Tell us why you want to get into them, why you find it difficult, and a few recent-ish movies so we can hand-pick recommendations for you

• Contemporary ideas of self-care (remember this newsletter?)

• Dad culture, whatever that means to you

• Anything you need advice or want musings on for the AAA segment — WE REALLY NEED MORE!! You can ask about anything, it’s literally the name of the segment!

• You can submit them (and ideas for future eps) here (this is the subscriber-only form!)

• Join the ranks of paid subscribers and get bonus content, access to the discussion threads, ad-free episodes, and the knowledge that you're supporting an indie pod trying to make its way in the world.
• Got a question to submit, a prompt for Ask Anne Anything, or an idea for a future episode? Tell us here.
• Catch up on everything else happening in the Culture Study universe here.
• Transcripts will be available here within 24 hours of publishing.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

No matter where you spend your time, online or off, you’ve encountered some form of therapy speak. Maybe it comes from a friend who loves processing their therapy with others; maybe it suffuses your TikTok FYP; maybe your friends or family members have been using it to try and describe how they’re trying to foster and maintain healthy relationships; or maybe you’ve just been keeping up on the latest celebrity gossip. It’s everywhere — and as you’ll find in this episode, tracing its proliferation will lead you in so many fascinating (and complex!) directions. I’ll be real: I knew this episode would be interesting; I didn’t know it would be this interesting.

As soon as I heard about the new podcast Bad Therapist — cohosted by psychotherapist Ash Compton and New Yorker journalist Rachel Monroe — I knew they’d be the perfect people to help answer all of your questions about therapy speak. This is complicated shit! We’re talking about language that is often super useful to people… but can also be weaponized (GAH, THERAPY SPEAK) to inoculate those using it from critique. Weirdly, I feel like it’s the perfect New Year’s Day episode? I can’t wait to hear your thoughts about all of it.

• Listen to Bad Therapist! Start with the intro ep (just 12 minutes); my fave ep thus far is the one on “Shadow Work”

• Read Rachel Monroe’s stunning collection of writing at The New Yorker

• An overview of Ashlyn Harris’s “disassociating” comments re: her relationship with Ali Krieger

• A smart piece on the Jonah Hill therapy speak / connection to his therapy documentary

• The famous/infamous/memeable Wicked “holding space” junket interview with Tracy E. Gilchrist (and the subsequent breakdown of the meme with Grande and Erivo)

• The Rachel Aviv book Ash and Rachel mention is Strangers to Ourselves: Unsettled Minds and the Stories that Make Us

• The 2005 Vanity Fair profile of Jennifer Aniston that lives in my head rent-free

• Nicole Daniels is the comedian I mention re: non-profit boss impersonations. Here’s a recent fav:

• And here’s the TikTok that opened the show

• Pre-Teen/Tween Influencer Culture

• RUNNING CULTURE (you can take this in any direction you’d like — good, bad, ambivalent, we’re talking to Raziq Rauf so it’s gonna rule)

• Pivoting from my beloved Paul Mescal…..can we just talk about Irish Pop Culturification (including Paul)

• Budget Culture + Specifically Budget Rules You Want/Need To Destabilize or Break Entirely

• Getting into old movies!!!! Tell us why you want to get into them, why you find it difficult, and a few recent-ish movies so we can hand-pick recommendations for you

• Contemporary ideas of self-care (remember this newsletter?)

• Dad culture, whatever that means to you

• Anything you need advice or want musings on for the AAA segment

• You can submit them (and ideas for future eps) here (this is the subscriber-only form!)

I’ll also add that we tried to be very, very careful in the way we talked about terms, diagnoses, and experiences that are often very personal and very sensitive (for very good reason!). I hope we can be thoughtful about the way that we talk about all of this here in the discussion, too.

• Join the ranks of paid subscribers and get bonus content, access to the discussion threads, ad-free episodes, and the knowledge that you're supporting an indie pod trying to make its way in the world.
• Got a question to submit, a prompt for Ask Anne Anything, or an idea for a future episode? Tell us here.
• Catch up on everything else happening in the Culture Study universe here.
• Transcripts will be available here within 24 hours of publishing.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

As an Registered Auntie, I get to watch kids’ toy trends from the backseat. I’ve bought annoying things (sorry, parent friends) and learned how to play new things (Beyblades, I rule) and passed down precious things (all of my My Little Ponies from the ‘80s). We could talk forever about the merits of various toys, past and present, but your listener questions this week underline that there’s also a tremendous amount of anxiety and class signaling absorbed by kids’ toys.

So this episode, featuring toy expert Youngna Park, has it all: light nostalgia, unpacking the obsession with wooden toys, getting to the heart of why grandparents give “junky” gifts, and, of course, talking about what kids actually like when it comes to toys. If you didn’t have Big Toy Feelings before, you will after this one.

• You can find more about Youngna’s work here — and I strongly recommend subscribing to her newsletter, which always has my favorite writing about parenting and kids culture

• Here’s where you can find all of Youngna’s New York Mag age-specific gift guides, amassed in part by interviewing actual kids

• Follow Youngna’s Instagram side project for kids’ books recs

• The Fisher Price Chatter Phone!!!

• The truly preposterous dog crate I mention in the episode

• Youngna and I both love/cite Hanna Rosin’s 2014 essay The Overprotected Kid (gift link!)

• The Wall Street Journal article about Lovevery capitalizing on kids’ anxiety (no gift link, but you can Pocket)

• The amazing gift guide site that Youngna mentions is The Kids Should See This!

• Youngna sent this follow-up note re: recs for young kids:

  • For stacking cups, I can't find the exact ones my kids had but something like these. There are so many varieties in both muted scandi, and primary palettes. These ones also look cool and are made of silicon (but prob not great for the beach, then). These squeaky eggs are like a drug to small children. I think something about noise, surprise inside, fitting shapes into shapes, etc. High success rate as a gift. For first drawing stuff, these chunky paint sticks are great — vibrant, easy to hold, don't dry out.

• Recent hits with Melody’s one-year-old twin nieces include a thing we call “Long Book” and this Melissa & Doug busy board

• RUNNING CULTURE (you can take this in any direction you’d like — good, bad, ambivalent, we’re talking to Raziq Rauf so it’s gonna rule)

• The rise of therapy speak, how therapy manifests on social media, etc

• Pivoting from my beloved Paul Mescal…..can we just talk about Irish Pop Culturification (including Paul)

• Budget Culture + Specifically Budget Rules You Want/Need To Destabilize or Break Entirely

• Getting into old movies!!!! Tell us why you want to get into them, why you find it difficult, and a few recent-ish movies so we can hand-pick recommendations for you

• Contemporary ideas of self-care (remember this newsletter?)

• Dad culture, whatever that means to you

• Pre-teen influencers

• Anything you need advice or want musings on for the AAA segment

• You can submit them (and ideas for future eps) here (this is the subscriber-only form!)

• Join the ranks of paid subscribers and get bonus content, access to the discussion threads, ad-free episodes, and the knowledge that you're supporting an indie pod trying to make its way in the world.
• Got a question to submit, a prompt for Ask Anne Anything, or an idea for a future episode? Tell us here.
• Catch up on everything else happening in the Culture Study universe here.
• Transcripts will be available here within 24 hours of publishing.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Sometimes we do episodes where I know a fair amount about the subject and end up on a three minute digression about picture palaces. And sometimes I’ve only started to learn about a topic — or read within a genre — and am absolutely thrilled to spend an hour listening to someone else’s expertise. That’s what we’re doing today with queer romance writer Adib Khorram: tackling your questions on everything from how to feel about queer romance written by straight people, why so many romance plots are M/M, where to find great trans romance, and so much more. And as with every episode in our romance series: you do not have to be an avid romance reader to find all of this interesting. (Although this episode might get you interested in becoming an avid romance reader!)

• Read more about Adib and his work here but also: everyone buy his books??? For YA, start with Darius is the Great is Not Okay. IMO there here has never been a better book synopsis than this:

Darius Kellner speaks better Klingon than Farsi, and he knows more about Hobbit social cues than Persian ones. He's a Fractional Persian--half, his mom's side--and his first-ever trip to Iran is about to change his life.

Darius has never really fit in at home, and he's sure things are going to be the same in Iran. His clinical depression doesn't exactly help matters, and trying to explain his medication to his grandparents only makes things harder. Then Darius meets Sohrab, the boy next door, and everything changes. Soon, they're spending their days together, playing soccer, eating faludeh, and talking for hours on a secret rooftop overlooking the city's skyline. Sohrab calls him Darioush — the original Persian version of his name — and Darius has never felt more like himself than he does now that he's Darioush to Sohrab.

Adib Khorram's brilliant debut is for anyone who's ever felt not good enough — then met a friend who makes them feel so much better than okay.

• For non-YA Queer Midwestern NOT BIG CITY vibes, go to I’ll Have What He’s Having:

When it comes to love, substitute teacher Farzan Alavi is a disaster. Newly heartbroken--again--he's drowning his sorrows at Kansas City's newest wine bar. Only instead of being crowded between strangers, he's escorted to a VIP table for one. There, the hot sommelier does more than treat him to the meal of his life. The way he flirts with Farzan ignites instant sparks.

There's just one problem: David Curtis thinks Farzan is Kansas City's most influential food critic. The truth only comes out after the two spend an unforgettably hot night together. Good news--both think the mix-up is hilarious. Bad news — David is studying to become a master sommelier and has no interest in a relationship.

Neither expects their paths to cross again . . . until Farzan inherits his family's bistro. The two agree to a friends-sans-benefits exchange: David will share his industry knowledge, and Farzan will help David study. Only business turns to pleasure when neither can ignore the attraction still sizzling between them. But with David set on moving cross-country after his test, and Farzan committed to his family's restaurant, how can their relationship last past the expiration date?

• Adib has lots of upcoming romance-related appearances; check here to see if he’ll be near you, and follow him on Instagram and TikTok!

• Read ‘Nathan Burgoine’s essay “The Shoulder Check Problem”

• Explore the wondrous trove that is LGBTQreads.com

• The 700-page basilisk shifter romance mentioned was originally self-published as Split or Swallow. Since we recorded this ep, it’s been picked up by a traditional publisher, retitled Kiss of the Basilisk, and you can pre-order it

• If you have super specific desires for a book, Melody highly recommends getting involved in r/RomanceBooks

• Has anyone in this family ever even seen a chicken?

• RUNNING CULTURE (you can take this in any direction you’d like — good, bad, ambivalent, we’re talking to Raziq Rauf so it’s gonna rule)

• The rise of therapy speak, how therapy manifests on social media, etc

• The future of (downhill) skiing and livability of ski towns just generally

• Pivoting from my beloved Paul Mescal…..can we just talk about Irish Pop Culturification (including Paul)

• Budget Culture + Specifically Budget Rules You Want/Need To Destabilize or Break Entirely

• Getting into old movies!!!! Tell us why you want to get into them, why you find it difficult, and a few recent-ish movies so we can hand-pick recommendations for you

• Contemporary ideas of self-care (remember this newsletter?)

• Dad culture, whatever that means to you

• Pre-teen influencers

• Anything you need advice or want musings on for the AAA segment

• You can submit them (and ideas for future eps) here (this is the subscriber-only form!)

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• Got a question to submit, a prompt for Ask Anne Anything, or an idea for a future episode? Tell us here.
• Catch up on everything else happening in the Culture Study universe here.
• Transcripts will be available here within 24 hours of publishing.

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