Queer Content Charcuterie

[00:00:00] Welcome to The Bi Pod, A Podcast About All Things By Sexual. I'm Evan and my pronouns are Vae and Nem. And I'm Christina, my pronouns are She and Her. We welcome anyone who has any kind of relationship with or curiosity about Queer Miss.

[00:00:14] The Bi Pod is an ad-free community supported podcast. You can support us for as little as $2 a month. To join the community or get more information about the podcast, visit patreon.com slash the Bi Pod.

[00:00:25] This podcast is one piece of the long history of bisexual and queer discourse. We don't know everything at all. We're here to be part of the conversation. Let's get into it. Hi, Evan. Hello, Christina. Are you excited about our Sharkudery? We have prepared for today.

[00:01:01] I am. I love snacking, you know, and content sampling. We're doing a bit of a queer content recommendation, Sharkudery situation today. Yeah, we love doing the kind of deep dive analysis episodes or sometimes they're not even analysis, sometimes we're just like fanning.

[00:01:29] Yeah. I do dive as a deep dive. And also those can be involved. And we've done some not that long ago. And we also realize that if you haven't consumed the thing, those episodes are maybe not like super inviting or maybe not interesting.

[00:01:52] If you're like, well, I haven't watched a show that only got one season then Netflix unceremoniously canceled it because they're terrible taste. So today we thought we would, um, we would make it by its size. So we have a variety of things for you.

[00:02:14] So we'll give you a little bit of analysis or something to chew on or like a little bit of information about why we endorse this thing. That's why we recommend it. Why we think you might like it,

[00:02:29] but we're going to give you a lot of different things so you don't need to have consumed anyone of these individual things. There's going to be a lot in the show notes today. Yeah, there's been lots of links. So you know where to find them.

[00:02:43] But yeah, excited to, um, to influence you. Yeah, ideally. And I'm going to start with the Amos Bush. Is that how you say it? Yeah. Yeah, the appetizers before we get into the concierge. But we're very French today.

[00:03:02] When this episode airs, I will have gone to Paris for one day. It hasn't happened yet, but it's an entirely right amount. But Evan so graciously has offered to be Yol's content concierge. So they have some recommendations for you. Yes, chaoticly yesterday.

[00:03:19] Yeah, I went on the internet and I was like, tell me what you want recommendations for. I will come up with something for you. And a couple people did say, we appreciate this chaos. So we have found our people. But I famously don't consume as much content.

[00:03:34] I don't know if that's true. I just like listen to things. I like listen to things. Maybe. You are always listening to. I am. You absolutely can do more audio than me. Yes. Which I thought I consumed a decent amount, but no. Nothing on me.

[00:03:48] No one can compete with you. Yeah, so I'm going to do our appetizers and things that I have been consuming recently. And then we'll go into the concierge portion of the meal. Yeah. Okay, so first speaking of audio, I love music.

[00:04:08] I'm essentially a lot of music lately as always. I don't know if I have the right terminology for this, but I was a minor in dance and undergrad. So therefore, I'm a scholar. And I'm noticing something interesting that feels appealing to me about

[00:04:30] like TikTok dances and things like that that feel sort of like social dance or like line dancing. And I think that like we people today. And like in recent history, because we're not gathering for social dances

[00:04:50] in the way that like generations before may have, we don't have as much like shared movement. And it's like cool to see that kind of take place digitally. Also in person. Yeah.

[00:05:03] It feels like really good for your human brain to move like in the same shapes as of the people around you. It's like, or less than number one in starting a cult. But I think it's like really good.

[00:05:17] It's like a communal experience and also like the ethos of a lot of social dance is like accessibility and like people can sort of like do you know the shapes and the movements and the pieces that like work for them and they're still having the experience.

[00:05:33] I mean, you started talking about this. I immediately were like TikTok dances and like communal narratives. I immediately wanted to shoot my arms into the air and do the arms for hot to go. Yeah. And then I was like, exactly.

[00:05:44] Let me not just relax for a few of my like waving my arms in the air. But I couldn't contain myself in the drama. No, exactly. And I love that for us. I love hot to go.

[00:05:56] That is one of the dances that I feel like is part of that. And something that so my first recommendation and I'll go back to my big brain ideas. My first recommendation is the song Small Town scandal by Zolita. It is a pop song with a country sensibility.

[00:06:14] I would say I'm not like a genre master. But she attends this event that I've been to a couple of times. It's just very late on a Monday night and I just can't be doing that. Called Stad Country.

[00:06:27] I will put a link to their site in our show notes because they do events actually all over the country different weeks. But it is a queer landancing organization. And so they like set up a different bar, is on a regular schedule and teach land dances.

[00:06:45] Everybody involved is queer and it's really fun. I've been to the one in LA before and it's like a really good space. People are chill. They're doing the move. Some people go every week and they like know every dance.

[00:06:57] Me, I don't so I don't know most of them. But it's a lot of fun and Zolita goes which I had no idea. Maybe we've been there at the same time before. But when she put out the song, she put out I think a video talking about how

[00:07:11] she's been going to Stad Country and she's been having a lot of fun like reclaiming this like American tradition in a queer context because a theme like queer folks often are not like dance can be very gendered and

[00:07:29] all different things and also social spaces can be very gendered and very heterosexual. And so this particular organization is making a space where queer folks can come become triple in dance and like a lot of the songs are not queer necessarily

[00:07:44] but it's just sort of like that's the community. This song however is extremely queer which I love. She's a dance that I learned by watching the video. I tried to make my boyfriend learn it with me but he has never taken a dance class before.

[00:07:59] It's very accessible. He's just, he's going to get it. I've got a faster than him which I think is tough you know but he's going to get there. He's not a scholar like he's not famously not a scholar. Has a degree in communications.

[00:08:14] But yeah I had a lot of fun learning it. I'm just like waiting for the day that I'm out in public and somebody is like doing it or like the song comes on and I'm like it's even me and the grocery store. Let's do it.

[00:08:29] So highly recommend that and she has like lessons and things on TikTok and Instagram I think but that way you can like learn it and like the comfort of your own home where nobody

[00:08:39] else is watching you and even if that's the only space you do it I think it's really fun and you can do it at the same time as she's doing it in the video and you're having a communal

[00:08:47] experience and that's what we're here to do. So sort of like in that vein you mentioned hot to go. We love the hot to go by chapel-owned dance. She also has just put out a song that his

[00:09:00] decimated me emotionally called Good Luck babe and when she just released the chorus I was like the song's not even now yet and I'm already emotionally destroyed. It's so good.

[00:09:14] I texted Evan to say that I think she put drugs in this song and Evan was like it's probably just because you relate to it. I was like are you sure that it's drugs and it's not just because

[00:09:24] the song is about you know it's definitely nothing with me. I love chapel-owned. She makes a lot of explicit references to Long Beach in her music which I really appreciate. I just wanted to

[00:09:39] throw that in there. I'm as if she's like kind of having her moment. People saw her tiny desk concert which I highly recommend and pure tiny desk and Good Luck babe has been pretty well received.

[00:09:51] She has a dance to it that is very the first time I watched it I was like man what are we doing here? It's a bit slow but now that I like the song is out I am in the shower

[00:10:02] doing it and it's fun. I also think that one is pretty accessible you could do it sitting and just like omit the turns. That's actually true for most land dances but this one especially

[00:10:12] it's a lot of like pretty slow arm movements so that could be a good place to start. You can't see it but Christina is doing this. It was doing movements. Yes I was. Yeah I highly recommend those

[00:10:25] and the same sort of vein. Good luck babe is up in not country music but it's like again talking thinking about like wind dancing and community, community, community dancing things like that.

[00:10:39] Yes there's a video that Javel roamed it with her and I don't know her dancers or friends whatever like doing the dance in the parking lot of a red lobster. Yeah excellent.

[00:10:51] Americana. Yeah so good and that same vein I feel like I just want to mention cowboy Carter because I am really loving that album. It's a very brilliant meditation on genre in my opinion.

[00:11:06] Dalai partnors there and therefore we claim the album and the community. Also it's like a follow-up to Renaissance which is an album that Beyonce consciously collaborated on and dedicated to the queer community. So in my opinion it fits here. If you haven't if you somehow have not listened

[00:11:26] from start to finish go do that. A couple of their honorable mentions if you haven't heard the new flutter album I'm not sure what you're doing but in search of the antidote flutter you haven't heard

[00:11:39] it and we'll you have homework. Also the album prelude to ecstasy by the last dinner party. I feel like they're also having a bit of a moment. They're like Coachella and stuff. They have

[00:11:52] a very popular song called Nothing Matters. I'm not totally sure that they're queer but it feels queer to me so therefore again it works here but I would highly recommend listening to the whole album. Front to back there's a lot of interesting sound things happening. Also like

[00:12:12] their aesthetic is like their style is very different from what a music that I listen to. Reminds me sort of vaguely of a chanato corner in some moments. It's a lot of fun kind of

[00:12:25] operatic dramatic and I think that I like individual songs but it's a distinct experience to get to listen to the whole album front to back so that's Christina's music corner. Two more recommendations for you. I'm in terms of podcasts. I don't know if I've talked

[00:12:44] about this show on our show before but there's a podcast I really like called You Are Good. Their tagline is a feeling podcast about movies. Something interesting about me is that I listen

[00:12:54] to a lot of podcasts about movies but I don't watch the movies. That's just me. It's hosted by Sarah Marshall and Alex Died. I love the Sarah Marshall extended universe. She's also the host of

[00:13:10] you're wrong about and they talk about movies usually they have a guest not always but usually and as a recovering American Studies graduate student it's like it's been nice to listen to people talk about media in a way that is not always explicitly critical. Sometimes they are critical

[00:13:35] especially when something fucked up happens in the movie they'll call it out they have content learning something like that but it's like very human centered it's very charming I listen to it

[00:13:44] to like wind down in the evening and a year or two ago when one of my goals was to listen to more queer podcasts Sarah Marshall very conveniently came out as bisexual and I was like perfect

[00:13:58] very good done they have a lot of queer guests on and it's a lot of fun great listen highly recommend and then I have one fresh and exciting TV Foundation. There's this little show

[00:14:15] I don't know if you've heard of it it's called Shits Creek brand new just getting. I'm rewatching Shits Creek and it's just like so good like I feel like if anybody has a

[00:14:27] recommendations for a show that is like Shits Creek please send them to me because I just want to watch that show a lot. I think this is my third time watching it and I'm still like crying like

[00:14:40] people get together and breakup it's just cool to see like queer people exist in a world without a lot of homophobia it's emotionally compelling it's so funny and if you somehow have

[00:14:59] not already seen it you need to watch it and if you have seen it let me tell you it's a great 24-degree watch and those are my recommendations for you. Great I was gonna say I hope your

[00:15:11] appetite is weted but it's gross anyways for the news that I know I just said I had to well I can say what our listeners requested and then you can share your come here yeah okay so if I request for workplace romances preferably queer ones okay so

[00:15:38] I was initially stumped about this I was like oh but then I in fact came up with three different options so I felt pretty proud of myself about that so the first one I would say like fits

[00:15:54] the bill but I will say of the three things I'm gonna recommend it is my least favorite but I just am gonna give it so you have options so it's something to talk about by Merrill Willzner and the premise is this showrunner producer working in Hollywood

[00:16:14] is on the red carpet with her assistant and the assist one of them says something that makes the other one laugh and this gets like picked up as like sort of a sight of interest and like

[00:16:33] gossip because this you know showrunner is kind of like in the spotlight so it is I guess a Hollywood workplace romance but they work together so if it's the bill something that is a slight deviation

[00:16:53] from the prompt but it's still it's people who work together but not they're not colleagues exactly is for her consideration by any spalding which is so good and so the I now can't remember

[00:17:13] the name and characters name but the premise is that she writes emails for famous people that's like she sort of like manages people's inbox basically so if you are a celebrity or something

[00:17:27] you have an email address that you like give people that you don't really want to have like your personal email address but it sort of should seem like it's personal email address and she will like she does the emailing on their behalf and like coordinate schedules and things

[00:17:40] so she has to sort of like know these people and like what their vibe is like write emails like she's them and so this character starts working with an actress by the name of Ari Fox

[00:17:53] and I think the name just sort of paints the picture that Ari is like really hot that is a hot name yeah and she is like up and coming in Hollywood and they start to become friends

[00:18:07] and then things start to evolve from there so it is complicated because they have a working relationship but they're not like co-workers so when you said workplace romance I was like well they work together but it's not quite like workplace but I'm giving it to you for optionality

[00:18:26] but then I thought of a really great one and they do work together like if you were like I want people like meeting at the filing cabinet this is it and it is we could be so good by

[00:18:38] cats of Asjin oh it's just so this is a historical romance and it takes place in the 1960s at a newspaper oh yeah and now suddenly I'm like forget I was thinking about their names earlier

[00:19:04] and now they've gone for me but you have kind of a cranky reporter from Brooklyn and then the son of a newspaper magnet and a war reporter and so they are kind of they have

[00:19:26] like a little bit of an opposite thing going on and they meet at work and then sort of circumstantially end up living together and things kind of like evolve from there but this book is so

[00:19:43] tender and it is so romantic which for people who like don't read romance maybe it's like is that not the genre and like romance can mean a lot of things but this book feels deeply romantic

[00:20:05] invested in not the aesthetics of love but in like bringing your partner flowers and like making dinner together and like intimate yes it's very intimate and there's some like domesticity

[00:20:25] and it also just has a lot of really interesting things going on so Nick who is the reporter from Brooklyn he is doing reporting about policing and then it's in this position where turns out cops don't

[00:20:43] like when you write about them doing bad things interesting and so it opens up a lot of these questions of like does he stop pursuing this thing that is important for his own safety and like

[00:21:01] he maybe doesn't feel like he should but like if the people who love him do like what is that how does that work and it kind of interacts with yeah I can't think of the other character's name but his

[00:21:14] mom was a war reporter and dies overseas and she was definitely more invested in her job than she was in like being a mom so it's like dealing with a lot of really interesting questions and like

[00:21:33] sociopolitical issues but in a way where like those things are both important and also it is ultimately a story about like two people falling in love and like building life together it's just like

[00:21:45] it's so good so those are my workplace romance recommendations okay next up we have queer historical fiction okay queer historical fiction so I was so glad someone asked for this because I was like wow

[00:22:04] I have so many recommendations for you this is my primary romance reading genre oh I didn't know that yeah so I had a lot of recommendations um you can pretty much just pick anything from cats of action or

[00:22:19] cage Charles cats of action wrote we could be so good so that's a great one if you are wanting a slightly more modern historical but I primarily read like 1800s ish which people often call Regency which is not historically accurate because the Regency is a very

[00:22:43] specific period of time when there was a Prince Regent but for our purposes we'll just say wow where is such scholars today we'll just say this is like largely Regency there's one of these this is gonna be later but anyway I have

[00:23:04] we'll call this a choose your own adventure depending on what type of queer historical fiction you want so if you want queer historical fiction with a little heist and a little fashion flare

[00:23:17] the queer principles of kit web but cats of action just great um there's also a second book in that series I think there's gonna be a third one eventually but the second one is out

[00:23:31] there's also really great but queer principles of kit web great uh if you want a gender queer protagonist then I would recommend unmasked by the Marquests which is also cast of action if you want a little old-timey domination and submission or with a serving of skating

[00:23:52] sociopolitical analysis then I would recommend a seditious affair by cage e Charles and that is technically the second book in a series but you don't need to have read the first one

[00:24:06] for the second one to make sense um it'll just be like there'll be some references to characters that if you've read the first one those characters will be in that book um all of them are

[00:24:18] good but the second one is my favorite I think if you in your queer historical romance want it sapphic within oblivious bisexual protagonists great perfect where I go then you were gonna want infamous by lexcrouture um an infamous has real Dickinson vibes so

[00:24:42] if you watched the TV show Dickinson and you were like where can I get more of this read infamous and then probably everything else lexcrouture has written but specifically infamous those are my queer historical fiction romance rucks i didn't know about you very

[00:24:58] interesting mm-hmm yeah it was tough to just pick four that was like okay i can't be like here's every every book i like we have a our listener who's interested in shows that are similar

[00:25:16] to half bad and to killing you okay so these two shows on the surface you might be like or what are those shows having common and so i've worked backwards and i was like well we have

[00:25:28] like complicated or like intricate messy relationships um sort of related to that is also queerness in a way that is like text but also quiet like no one's announcing no one's coming out

[00:25:47] um and some like murder i healthy little speckling you know um and tension like a lot of tension so much happening um and i could not immediately come up with another show Christina does

[00:26:07] have a recommendation but there is a book that has a similar energy it's the cruel prints by holly black and it's actually the first in a series so if you're into it like there's more for you

[00:26:20] to dig in there and the setup of this book is um two girls when they are children are kidnapped and taken to the land of fairy which if you have read a certain variety of stories about fairy you

[00:26:41] know that it's like actually kind of scary it's like magical but also you can't eat anything or if you start dancing you're gonna like dance until you die or like all these things not right for humans and

[00:26:52] jude the main character decides that basically the way that she's going to cope with how difficult it is to be a human in fairy is to be worse than all of the fairy's and i have been describing this book

[00:27:08] the thing i've been saying about it is like some people love each other and the way that they show that they love each other is by trying to kill each other and like if you hear that and you're like that

[00:27:18] makes sense to me you should read the cruel prints if you're like people who love each other don't try and kill each other this is not a series real that is very killing evil people

[00:27:31] coded for sure yeah i love that um yeah i do have a sure recommendation wow a first on the vibodistry um i unfortunately have to inform you that it was canceled after one season um

[00:27:47] it's not quite as devastating i would say is half bad that that's the news but just so we all are going in you know no open ice open ice um it's called death and other details um it takes place

[00:28:01] it's a bunch of rich people on a ship and some other adjacent characters who are loosely associated with them and it's sort of a murder miss it is a murder mystery um there's some maybe espionage crime

[00:28:17] hijinks um there's a lot of queer not a lot there's a few queer characters we've got some queer sex scenes we've got some interesting queer dynamics um and i enjoyed it a lot is very entertaining

[00:28:33] it's relatively self-contained so it's not like you watch the first season and then you're hanging off of a cliff um but if you like the um those elements then that might be worth checking out

[00:28:45] as you're talking about that i did come up with a show that is like a little out of left field but i think if you liked these things you would like this show which is pushing daysies

[00:28:58] oh this is a show from way back then years ago or something this is yeah more than 10 years actually because i'm realizing i was in high school ish um this is a little bit of a deep cut but

[00:29:14] pushing daysies is on the surface much brighter but also it's a show about a guy who brings people back from the dead to ask how they were murdered so he can collect the money for solving

[00:29:33] their murder so it's like i need to show about death like it you know many things about it are actually very dark it's just doing it in a very bright color palette um has a lot of whimsy

[00:29:49] and it has a certain like weirdness that i feel like half bad has to it um it was unceremoniously canceled but it is more than one season i can't remember if it's two or three

[00:30:01] but it does and um it's not like conclusively wrapped up so no that going in i think it's still pretty satisfying but um yeah it i think that's another show that um might be enjoyed i don't

[00:30:19] think any of the main characters on that show none of the main characters on that show are explicitly queer but it's a weird show in a way that i'm like i mean straight people

[00:30:29] i don't know they could have come up with this so i might go watch that also lee pace is the main character and lee pace is queer so therefore that's gonna not stays um i have it on DVD if you

[00:30:45] want to borrow my idea of a deflayer i don't have a DVD player famously no order put a disk in my whole house it may or may not be online somewhere but if it's not i have it on DVD

[00:30:56] wonderful we have a analog yeah i might try that i've just finished watching another very old show so maybe all Kristen Chenna with his in it um love her yeah it's it's fun yeah yeah i love shows

[00:31:12] about death so i'm good about yeah that's very much okay our next recommendation request is a recent TV show yeah so i had to ask like how recent is recent and within the last couple of years

[00:31:31] was the time frame we're given so i was like oh thank goodness i haven't been watching much tv recently so like it would be hard for me to be like something that's come out in the last six weeks there's

[00:31:44] anything um that said i do have two more recent things and then one that's a little farther back so mister and missus Smith i watched that you did show that you actually watch i know um and this

[00:31:59] is a show that um is in many ways interrogating the relationships of straight people yeah it isn't interrogating heterosexuality in many ways like and that feels like a very clear a queer lens i think yes i agree um the setup is that there is this unnamed organization

[00:32:26] that is doing extra governmental activities and um these two people who we don't learn their names in the beginning um join this organization basically because what up the other things they were trying to do like weren't really working out um one of them was discharged from the military

[00:32:50] and the other failed her like CIA psych evaluation so they end up in this organization where they are paired together and given the identities john and jane Smith and they have to pretend to be

[00:33:09] married couple and then they get given these assignments to do um and the reason that i'm like this show is interrogating like heterosexuality is that you as the show goes on um you also see

[00:33:24] some other janes and jons um who also seem to have developed into a romantic relationship and sort of explain with this idea of like can you just stick to straight people together and put them in a

[00:33:37] high stress situation and make them fall in love and it seems like more or less yes um and so it's really interesting because you do get to see the main pair kind of fall in love in a way that i think

[00:33:51] feels organic but also there's an element of the show where like even though they're doing sort of like spy things it has a like i kept being like is this all just an experiment to see what they'll

[00:34:05] do like it has a sort of how's like a black mirror feeling yeah it has a weird quality of and it also like sort of takes place in the present but also in kind of a black mirror way where you're like

[00:34:16] is this the future like they're just little yeah i don't know so it's weird and interesting yeah and um i would recommend it yeah it's uh the concept is loosely based on the movie from forever

[00:34:32] yes but really really things to those they have in common is the names and spies yeah basically um it does end and and bigusly like in an intentionally ambiguous way

[00:34:48] so i guess if you were someone that doesn't like that in a show um if you didn't like the end of like inception um don't this is maybe not the show for you yeah i feel we should have an offline

[00:35:03] conversation about that because my partner and i had a very in depth we did some math uh i i think i know how the show ended but we can have that all fine yeah um i also was like i also did math

[00:35:16] then i was like well but this and then also yeah so actually as somebody who does not like ambiguous endings i liked the ending yeah it's sort of thing that as i was saying and i was like is this

[00:35:28] should i not say this but i do know some people who are like that's not what i'm looking for and when you're recommending content i think that's important yeah it's a fucking weird shell

[00:35:37] it's a very weird shit in a way that i think is great but there were also there was also a point where i was like why am i watching this i watched it with my step side so you can imagine what that was like

[00:35:50] but he's an adult it was fine so there's another show that i have not watched yet so i can't like recommend it but it does fit the bill of a new show and it's very new which is fallout

[00:36:09] oh i've heard people talking about that yeah it's based on a video game um of the same name but Jonathan Nolan is one of the producers and he was one of the creator and producers of west world

[00:36:22] and i really liked west world and i liked um the way that i've the interviews and stuff that i've seen with him talking about west world i sort of like the way that he thinks which

[00:36:34] makes me think like this show has um i want to see his what he's bringing to it um and the premise is kind of interesting it's like a bunch of people who've been living underground in a bunker

[00:36:48] in fallout shelter um from the fear of like nuclear apocalypse and then one of them comes to the surface to be like what's going on up here and there are people up there but like living

[00:37:00] in a post-apocalyptic wasteland and um it's not all like the i don't know happy go lucky bunker experience that it seems like she's been having so as seems interesting i have not played

[00:37:14] the video game um but i did date someone who was really into it when it first came out so in my head i'm like that i i know about that i know things about this property yeah so

[00:37:27] not a recommendation so much as a naming of a thing that i will probably watch that is new and then the show i wanted to recommend that is a little bit older as Dickinson

[00:37:38] and that aired from 2019 to 2021 so a couple years ago it's not brand new but it is like it's an apple TV plus show so a lot i feel like a lot of people maybe didn't see it

[00:37:53] it's weird it's queer yeah it's an agronistic um that's a great show that's a greek rendition yeah thank you so that would be my other show rack if you haven't watched it

[00:38:05] yeah i don't think i finished Dickinson i should go back and do that i haven't either but you know it's a little bit of a little bit of a little bit if you want to go back to it we could

[00:38:13] would have you fun yeah we could do it together i haven't watched the third season yeah i feel like i watched the first room but that's a great show yeah i love fun okay we want something similar to

[00:38:26] like a love story or more adult okay so this is a book that i have not read but that i am familiar with my version the author talk about it wow this is very impressive concierge work you're

[00:38:39] right now um and so i have a couple of recommendations based on kind of like themes i picked out of what i know about this book but as i've already disclosed i haven't read it so grain us all

[00:38:54] um so if you are wanting something with teens responding to kind of the world around them and a political situation that's hanging over them for those who are not familiar like a love story is

[00:39:06] three teens um who get involved with act up during the AIDS crisis um so my recommendation if you're kind of wanting teenagers is like interacting with kind of politics or the sociopolitical

[00:39:25] situation that i'm living in would be um the voting booth by brandy co-bear this book is not explicitly queer but that is something that brandy co-bear does in many of her other books and it's focused on two black teenagers on voting day and their different experiences and relationship

[00:39:49] to voting so i also will love story um it's good so if you're kind of if that's the element that you're wanting that's kind of the direction i go if you are wanting friendship and complicated

[00:40:02] romantic feelings um maybe odd one out by next stone um i have not actually read this book it's sitting on my bookshelf i mean that like half counts as right um yeah so it's three teenagers

[00:40:22] trying to figure out their feelings about each other basically um and then um if you want both some shifting relationships the sociopolitical inner weaving and you're like also there should be magic

[00:40:39] a song below water by Bethany C. Maro um is a mermaid book it's kind of like urban fantasy so they're not underwater um i'm gonna go see the lala i was gonna not declare a five land mermaid

[00:40:57] city girls um it's really interesting um and good um it has been a while since i read it so I no longer remember if any of the main characters are queer um so depending on what

[00:41:13] they're that is a thing you're explicitly looking for or not but um that is good great how are the imurmese if they're in the city they're like um like when they get into like water

[00:41:29] oh okay yeah got it you there was like a couple of different um like a mythological kind of things happening i'm doing a lot of hand talking today um me too um literally doing uh

[00:41:45] wind and so there's like maybe there's like a basilisk or something there's some other a couple of other things and it's sort of going um yeah it's it's really interesting oh it's good

[00:42:00] very good hmm okay we want something similar to dirious the great or Evelyn Hugo okay so i haven't had if i haven't read either these books either um but i am familiar um so my first

[00:42:19] thought for something similar to dirious the great is not okay is permanent record by Mary Hk Choi um it's so good and it is upper YA so i mean character he honestly might be like 20 or something

[00:42:37] maybe 18 but he's like graduated from high school and is in this period of life where he's like what happens now um and he's kind of trying to figure out his place in the world and his

[00:42:54] relationship to his own identity and he is working in a bodega and one night um this famous pop star comes in to the bodega um and they kind of like hid it off and he gets like swept up

[00:43:12] in her world a little bit um but it is much quieter in many ways than that kind of description would lead one to believe like um most of this book is really about identity um um and kind of

[00:43:32] figuring out like where you fit in the world and like how do you relate to your family how do you figure out what you're good at like where can you kind of like make a home for yourself um

[00:43:48] also navigating anxiety the main character has anxiety in such a way that like it's was really well written such that like i had to put this book down when i was in an anxious period because i was like

[00:44:00] i actually cannot yeah you're like really not capacity yeah um oh interesting but yeah it was very good um and then uh for seven heavens and heavens of Evelyn Hugo this is not a book but you might like the movie Babylon which um i dislike probably the last

[00:44:25] hour of this three hour movie so i would not typically recommend it but it does seem to have like many elements in common with the seven husbands of Evelyn Hugo um i i would almost be like

[00:44:42] stop watching the movie once Toby McGuire is introduced like up until that point you probably in a good space and then once he's introduced i'd be like uh you may be on the watch this this

[00:44:54] it's not his fault it's truly it just goes on the rails in a way that i was like i'm not here for this but yeah it has a lot of interesting things to say about fame and talent and relationships

[00:45:16] and who gets famous for what and what talent means and um old Hollywood and uh Aquarius as well i found like taken the movie as a whole i found it to be kind of excessive i mean it's a three hour

[00:45:34] one that's too long yeah and there are basically just like how many famous people can be like cram into this but it has a it has a lot of interesting elements to it so um with reservation i

[00:45:48] might say like try the movie that one yeah i haven't seen it i just remember like the um the billboards with just like every slutbredeck yeah um it had i mean margo Robbie is one of the

[00:46:05] main characters she does a great job yeah Brad Pitt gives a really interesting performance about kind of an aging movie star like he's really it was doing like there was a lot of interesting

[00:46:17] intertextuality there of like he's playing this actor who was a famous silent film actor and then when the move to sound pictures happens he's basically like laughed off the screen um and this sort

[00:46:30] of like what does it mean to be an actor and the changing industry and like image and talent and yeah so very interesting yeah it has it has interesting things going on um i just found

[00:46:48] movies about movies are uh yeah can be self-indulgent and i got it to be self-indulgent i saw it with some other people who didn't feel that way um so it might you know there's an element of it

[00:47:02] might have just been me there was also just some like gross stuff that i that's where i was like once Toby McGuire's character enters yeah i don't want anything to do with the rest of this movie

[00:47:11] maybe i'll watch the first two hours um on my plane ride and then just go i love the chaotic plane watch yeah i watched um me three again right Megan what i thought i didn't just look

[00:47:25] over there like are you yep this movie would be good for that okay good perfect yeah okay final content a recommendation request is simply books which i was like i love an open

[00:47:41] ended request so i can just tell you whatever i want um and i wanted an opportunity to talk about a book that i read recently that just came out called this is me trying by recalmery i love

[00:47:54] to this book so much um it is about a couple of teenagers and it uh so the story follows two people who um one of their friends a couple of years prior um died by suicide so it is dealing with grief

[00:48:25] and suicidal ideation um but it is like so i it's a really lovely book that like really evoked it really felt to me like what being a teenager felt like in a lot of ways in the ways that like

[00:48:48] you can be with your friends and feel really like happy and alive and good and then also very suddenly be like and now i am so sad and like all of the depression that has been living inside of me is now like

[00:49:02] up at the surface um um and it has a lot to say or is exploring a lot about coping and the different ways that we cope and the ways that like everyone needs something different when they are

[00:49:24] navigating grief um and just because somebody needs something different like doesn't mean that either one of you is doing anything wrong i hate the death true don't like that at all thank you

[00:49:44] but also and also kind of like the harm in in self isolation or being isolated by other people when we're navigating grief and basically just like that we need other people and so it's

[00:50:03] like dealing with a lot of serious and kind of sad stuff but also it's like very funny and hopeful and i just really wanted to like live inside this book um it is very queer um like most of the characters

[00:50:22] are queer in a way that is very just sort of like matter of fact and to like differing people sort of have differing degrees so um one of the characters santi he's bisexual and there are

[00:50:34] multiple references to basically the fact that he finds everyone hot and he's like but just because I think their hot doesn't mean that I want to like date them right and i was like oh santi's the kind

[00:50:44] of bisexual representation that we need um and like their um is a lesbian character who's like out and seems to have sort of a romance happening but is kind of like a little bit more low key

[00:51:00] and there's like a pan character who like she sort of doesn't really seem that interested in anyone and like queer adults and just like queerness is very a part of the story without it being

[00:51:15] explicitly like it's both not explicitly about that but also that is inherently part of the story because it's a story about these queer people and so like their queer mess is like part of it

[00:51:33] and it was just like it made me really jealous honestly i was like oh i want to write about their feels like this like i think you could do that it's just it was so good i just loved it so much

[00:51:45] so um please read it and then um we can talk about it beautiful yeah that sounds like a great book you're making all these pictures is compelling pictures for fiction books that i have

[00:52:01] like realistically will i read them not sure but they sound interesting and you can listen to the audio book i could i'm listening to an audiobook right now uh of a novel that's been great so

[00:52:11] where it's kind of kind of kind of a can delaria by a molestal a lot of a lever it's like end of world apocalypse um i guess those made the same thing um cannibalism a little bit um not for everybody

[00:52:27] um okay intergenerational stuff it's very interesting i like it a lot um it takes me forever to get through fiction books yeah i mostly can't engage with anything with cannibalism that's very

[00:52:41] i can't eat food yeah yeah blend please don't read this stuff yeah it's not very graphic i don't like that either but um it's important to me the you eat so yeah i'm glad that you i'm very

[00:52:58] still listening to this audio book yeah yeah you never listen to the things that i recommend i know that's not true that is not true i watch half bad um no this true we watch that together

[00:53:12] but it's true you the rare fiction things that you pick up are usually not the fiction things that i'm like that's true so good that's true well i love molestalos ata a lever um she's a wonderful

[00:53:26] poet this is her third book um and this one's a novel the one before was a novel inverse and then before that she was mostly writing poetry um i mean you can have interests outside of my interests occasionally

[00:53:40] oh we're gunna throw you're right that's on me how you're a conciergeing and i'm out here just going rogue this it was really fun to try and come up with things for people um yeah we should do this again sometime

[00:54:01] yeah i yes yeah you have great taste geer and excellent taste maker thank you yeah thank you i love to give recommendation i appreciated you giving some um i wanted to recommend too many things so i couldn't i couldn't get in on all of them um i

[00:54:22] appreciate that you brought some analysis for us anytime yeah that's fun um well we hope that you enjoy these things if you have recommendations always feel free to send them our way you

[00:54:38] know we're to find us instagram dm email yeah if you give us a call we've always filmed whatever makes you happy um but we always love to hear from you um oftentimes when someone recommends

[00:54:49] a piece of content even as audio where of it and or has consumed it um and then y'all could talk about which is one if you would like to be calmsier or should yeah what's the more for that um if

[00:55:04] you want something recommended to you send us send some parameters or send it open into and i'll just tell you whatever i was talking about like a person who just said books sure yeah

[00:55:14] great opportunity to talk about the most exciting book i've read recently yeah um if you like our content recommendations um quick plug for the newsletter the biopod bulletin um we do sometimes

[00:55:27] include um content wrecks over there so we post that for free on our patreon um so if you're subscribed for zero dollars you can see it i mean you can also just directly to subscribe through email

[00:55:38] so that's all in the show notes yeah and we're here on a big right up of books i've read this year for that so great join up yeah well happy uh it was gonna say happy consumption

[00:55:51] right yeah that's not happy no consumption for any of us please hopefully i'm so good be today i don't know why oh it is hot yeah well we hope that you enjoyed this queer sharkutory

[00:56:08] content extrave against uh mm mm mm mm and well goodbye thanks for listening to this episode the biopod is made possible by our patrons you can find us on instagram at the biopod

[00:56:29] and on our website the biopod.com this show is produced and edited by me and our theme song is coming home by snowflake