Metal Monday
YouTube Obsession
I am a peripheral Gundam fan. As a kid growing up in the middle of nowhere I would only graze Gundam media when I would visit “big” cities¹ and I remember always being drawn to the design and aesthetic of Gundam. I even bought my first Gundam model kit when I was at an anime store in Tampa, Florida.
The anime itself, however, would be very difficult to come across until the age of Toonami and pirating media on CD-R to watch on my PS3. Now with GundamInfo on YouTube, it’s even easier to keep up with the various Gundam anime that make up the “Gundam” genre.
“GundamInfo!” is a phrase burned into my brain because of this channel.
The selection of Gundam series varies on the channel and usually far after they’ve originally aired. So I wouldn’t recommend if you must stay current but for me, it’s perfect. I’m currently enjoying The Witch from Mercury.
Watching
All right I’ll say it: The Nanny is a perfect sitcom².
I say A perfect sitcom because there have been a few, Cheers to name one and like Cheers, The Nanny has all the elements that make a sitcom great. Charismatic leads, comedic physical acting, raunchy double entendres and a dissonance from reality.
It is a show from the 90s so it has ‘gay panic’ jokes but unlike other shows, most of The Nanny’s queer coded jokes are actually funny. It helps that Fran Drescher’s co-producer -and then husband- Peter Marc Jacobson was a closeted gay man.
My partner is a life-long fan of the show and I can’t believe I’ve put off watching until now.
Reading
All Systems Red by Martha Wells has been popping up in my cultural bubble for awhile now. I recently heard it is getting a TV show starring Alexander Skarsgard so I figured I better read it before I can no longer find a copy at the library.
It’s good, interesting and light sci-fi concerning a “murderbot” that has hacked itself into free will. It’s also very short. A blessing to read between jabs at Infinite Jest.
GAMZ
Sometimes a game is more than the sum of it’s parts and that game is Tchia.
On the surface, it’s an open-world sandbox that really puts an emphasis on traversal and exploration. Just below that is a very soft, queer heart that permeates throughout. It is the best of the Breath of the Wild-likes that have popped up in the past few years and where BotW can feel immense, Tchia never ceases to feel intimate. If I had played this last year, I would definitely put it on my year-end list.
Other Items
I want to thank Andrew at Adjei Breakfast for introducing me to this absurd trailer.
In the words of Mariah Carey on JLo: “What she does is different.”
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¹ Bloomington, Indiana and Tampa Bay, Florida and St. Louis, Missouri were the only regular big cities I would be in to visit family.
² Also, please remember that these are the opinions of a white queer person in their 30s.
