Weekly Woundup 1: Tutorial Complete
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Weekly Woundup 1: Tutorial Complete
The first EASY ANSWERS weekly content roundup newsletter. Love u betch
Opening with a Whimper
Wound-up Wednesday, comrades and confidants!
Welcome to the first-ever EASY ANSWERS Weekly Woundup newsletter. This is where, no more than once a week, you’ll get a roundup of all our content for that week direct to your inbox — plus some special sauce unique to the weekly post.
Unfortunately, I have to start with an apology: sorry I’m emailing you more than once this week! I’m still getting used to all the knobs and dials of the Substack interface, so when I posted my piece on Ali Wong’s standup specials on Monday, I accidentally sent it out as an email. If you read the piece via that email even though it wasn’t what the email list was advertised as, thank you for your interest and patience. I’ll be more vigilant in the future to keep to my stated terms.
On a brighter note, as of yesterday, EASY ANSWERS now offers a paid premium membership! Of course, during this difficult miserable time, I don’t expect anyone to be able to support this project financially — but if you can, please know that it means the world to me during a time that’s been especially “difficult” for me and mine.
Over time, we’ll be figuring out more ways to reward premium and Founding members for their support. For now, the benefits you’ll reap include the ability to comment on our posts — plus some special paywalled surprises in the newsletter and elsewhere.
Pre.S. — Because I am a genius, this “summary” email is going to be too long for an email, so you might have to click this link (ooh, time travel) to read it all. Oops lol srry
Contents of This Newsletter
Prelude: The Cocteau Twins Series and Marvel Netflix Series
Tom Hanks May Have Read My Podcast Review
Marvel Netflix Series: Daredevil Good Still
Ali Wong, or Kanye East
Cocteau Twins, Abridged
Slaying the Spire on Hipsters of the Coast
Something Else I Haven’t Figured Out Yet
Prelude: The Cocteau Twins Series and Marvel Netflix Series
When I set up the Substack last week, on Monday, March 14th, the first thing I did — in order to have some “launch content” preloaded and give the site a false veneer of professionalism and history — was clean up some pre-existing social media posts I’d done recently and make them look like they were actual articles. Movie magic.
There are two topics I’ve been posting about regularly in recent times, which seemed like ripe avenues for tricking you into thinking this is a real journalistic endeavor. The first of these two consists of a series of reviews on the discography of Cocteau Twins — the iconic, indecipherable, hyper-Scottish 80s goths who pioneered “dream pop” — whose records I’ve been giving a long overdue chronological listen-through.
The pre-existing Cocteau Twins content I adapted for Substack comprises a piece apiece on each of their first / three / albums, plus some EPs they released in between.
The second topic I’d been posting about for a time prior to starting this site is the ex-Netflix, now-Disney+ Marvel Cinematic Universe shows. The truth is that when it was leaked that these shows would be leaving Netflix at the end of February, I got conned into impulsively starting them. Then it was revealed they’d come to Disney+ a week ago today, on the 16th, and now I’m stuck in the middle of a 13-season behemoth.
The pre-existing Marvel “Netflix” content I adapted for Substack consists of a lazily titled, positive piece on the first season of Daredevil, which is very good, and a more critical hot take on the first season of Jessica Jones, which is so-so — and racist!
Tom Hanks May Have Read My Podcast Review
On Tuesday, the Ides of March, I posted a deep dive and personal response to the fabulous, tragicomic podcast Dead Eyes, a project by actor/comedian and world’s leading George Lucas impersonator Connor Ratliff. I’m very proud of this piece.
The podcast in question delves into Ratliff’s traumatic experience of being cast for the HBO miniseries Band of Brothers, then forced to re-audition in front of series head honcho Tom Hanks, and then un-hired — because, as someone regrettably told him, Tom Hanks said he had “dead eyes.”
Dead Eyes has been trending recently for reasons that constitute spoilers, and to my surprise — in a promising turn of events, given this was my Substack “debut” and first post written specifically for this platform — I received an email that very evening from the show’s producer:
I just wanted to thank you for your piece about Dead Eyes. […] you pulled some quotes that don’t usually get discussed, and you’re the first person to reference the way I credited Bebe in the transcripts. It’s been my favorite review of the show to read by a long shot, so thank you again.
I sent a brief reply, feigning as if I know how to act like a non-stalker and thanking him copiously for bestowing on me the divine light of a comparatively famous person’s attention. Then, early the next morning, I got this mesmerizing Twitter reply:
In a small, bittersweet Dead Eyes moment of my own, senpai Connor himself actually noticed me, thus validating my existence and assuring me of the riches and celebrity that await me on the path of *reads from palm* “starping a stub sack.”
And there you have it: there is a non-zero chance that Tom Hanks has read my several paragraphs about how he’s been kinda one-note for the last 20 years.
Marvel Netflix Series: Daredevil Good Still
On Wednesday the 16th, the day the Marvel Netflix shows came to Disney+, I continued my series on them with a piece I’d already been procrastinating on the second season of Daredevil, which enabled me to then convince myself that it was good, actually, that I’d put off finishing writing it for over two weeks.
This piece doesn’t have a critical hot take like the Jessica Jones piece, and it’s even more glowingly positive than the first Daredevil piece, which is an obnoxious level of simp shit coming from such an extreme taste-haver and Born Hater as myself. That said, this review goes into much greater depth than the first two Marvel pieces — and sadly, there’s just no getting around the fact that Daredevil is very, very good so far.
Then it was Thursday and Friday and the weekend. I took a break. Fuck you!
Ali Wong, or Kanye East
This Monday, on my sister’s birthday, I wrote a kind of big-picture reaction piece on Ali Wong’s three Netflix standup specials on the economics of sucking dick: Baby Cobra, Hard Knock Wife, and the recent Don Wong, slyly and sardonically released on Valentine’s Day. The piece also takes a critical view to the underwhelming way I feel standup comedy is often covered in press, neglecting the way a performer’s specials necessarily tell us an overarching story about the trajectory of the artist’s life.
(It’s also the first post I made under the project’s new domain, EASYANSWERS.XYZ!)
In Ali Wong’s case, that trajectory is one of transformation from hungry young comic to thirsty celeb goddess. As of this writing, Wong has yet to reply to my requests for comment.
Cocteau Twins, Abridged
Yesterday I posted another entry into the Cocteau Twins Series: a rhapsodic review of their fourth full-length, a compilation album titled The Pink Opaque that does a great job of summarizing their career to that point. Although this piece is the first new Cocteau review I’ve done since starting the Substack, it’s adapted from a draft I had already typed up in the form of a Twitter thread, so the style of these reviews is still evolving toward some as yet unforeseen final form. I’m sure that form will be yodeling.
Slaying the Spire on Hipsters of the Coast
Early this underslept morning, my review of the influential deckbuilder game Slay the Spire went live over on the popular NYC-based Magic: The Gathering blog Hipsters of the Coast. I have ties with HotC going back many years to when it was a one-person project, and in 2016 I ran a column there on the intellectually bankrupt topic of how to make money from collectible cards. Those pieces are full of names I don’t use anymore, so thankfully, you’ll no longer find them on my HotC archive.
I think this is a very strong review piece and analysis of a new genre’s genesis, a topic that always fascinates and excites me. Crucially, moreso than my sparkling praise for Daredevil or Treasure, this writeup reflects the approach to criticism that most speaks to me: Even Things I Like Can Be Better And I Am The One Who Knows How.
That said, this review too was overhauled (though much more significantly than the Pink Opaque piece) from a Facebook/Twitter post I had already written. I’m excited to unshackle myself from the chains of social media going forward, ascending toward the siren’s song of the Moon herself, acquiring powers untold and spitting in the insidious eye of small-minded social norms like brevity and tone.
Something Else I Haven’t Figured Out Yet
This is where I was going to put in a surprise bit of content for premium members only. Then I actually got this far in the draft and remembered that I don’t have any yet.
Therefore, consider this your one and only full-on guilt trip — this week — imploring you to consider upgrading to a paid premium membership to EASY ANSWERS.
I hope you’ve enjoyed this first outing of the shakily titled Weekly Woundup. It’s been fun to write, and it’s nice to look back over the past week and a half and see how much writing I’ve actually done in such a short span of time. Don’t get used to it lmao.
Have a great week/end, and I’ll see you probably-on-Wednesday-again with another roundup of EASY ANSWERS content across all platforms. Thank you for your time.
Your friend(ly neighborhood Spider Queen),
Sin Black