Episode 94: Women of the Year

For this episode, Michael and Jessica talk about some favorite things of the year, including the works of two pseudonymous authors “who examine the life of young girls in a changing world”: Elena Ferrante, whose quartet of Neapolitan novels has been adapted into the HBO series My Beautiful Friend, and Olivia Jaimes, the latest (and first woman) cartoonist to take on the daily comic strip Nancy.

Michael says he loves the look of the series, which is filmed largely on a soundstage,

I found myself thinking a lot about De Chirico particularly. There are lots of perspectival shots where you see these colonnades, views toward the horizon that just seems both desolate and surreal in that De Chirico way. And it just makes everything seem like this really funny, eerie, hypnotic to me combination of real and artificiality…

As for the visual presences of the books, Michael says the American edition of the Neapolitan quartet is

just waiting to be a design class assignment: Fix these covers. People say they’re exactly the right covers because, like the author and the subject matter, they have a stealth effect on you. They look like harmless romances, then you open them up and you find you’re absorbed into this amazing, hermetic world that she creates…

Also mentioned this week:

• Rachel Donadio, The Atlantic, An Open Letter to Elena Ferrante—Whoever You Are
• Michael Cavna, Washington Post, For the first time in her 85 years, ‘Nancy’ will be drawn by a woman
• Heidi Macdonald, the Beat, This new Nancy strip is lit – and it’s got people on the internet going crazy
• Abraham Riesman, Vulture, The Pseudonymous New Cartoonist Giving ‘Nancy’ a Millennial-Approved Update
• Abraham Riesman, Vulture, Olivia Jaimes, the Mysterious Cartoonist Behind ‘Nancy,’ Gives Rare Interview
• Scott McCloud, Understanding Comics
• Henry R. Cobb: Words and Works, 1948-2018
• Esperanza Spalding, Twelve Little Spells
• Rawiya Kameir, The Fader, Tierra Whack
• Wesley Morris, New York Times, ‘Amazing Grace’ Review: Aretha Franklin Is Glorious in a Rousing Concert Film
• Marko Ahtisaari
• Recomposed by Max Richter: Vivaldi – The Four Seasons
• Oddityviz
• The True Size of… via this thread from @starlightgeek
• Jones Knowles Ritchie, Dunkin’ logo
• Trailer for Stack by Ketchapp
• Pamela’s gluten-free graham crackers
• Clausthaler Dry Hopped Non Alcoholic Beer

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