recs

Friendmendations 11.1.21

Mark Zuckerberg is an idiot, a lot of people are creative online, I'm excited about laundry detergent, sangle means pump time baba

Allison Driskill

Nov 1, 2021 • 4 min read

Hi! Happy day after Halloween!

I was Patti Harrison's character from the Shark Tank-esque Capital Room sketch from season 2, episode 2 of I Think You Should Leave. I am nothing if not niche.

I had a Halloween party for my friends and used recipes from The Forest Feast Gatherings, my favorite cookbook for throwing together (vegetarian!) recipes for a party and Platters and Boards, which is literally just a cookbook for vegetarian charcuterie boards with optional meat additions for each recipe. I made the honeycrisp apple kale salad from Half Baked Harvest – I subbed goat cheese and tempeh bacon for feta and prosciutto – and this crowd-pleasing pumpkin sage tortellini dish.

And I wrote this newsletter! Here it is!

Read some stuff!!

Loved "Facebook's Name Change Is An Act of Meta-Desperation" by Ed Zitron, especially this line: "Even at its worst – in its most bloated and convoluted form (every subsequent year since 2006) – Facebook remains a product that just *works*, even if the definition of “works” changed from “catching up with my college friends” to “finding similarly-racist people.”
Madison Bloom's "The Grotesque Is No Longer Shocking in Pop" is so good! I love a well-laid-out chronology of a trend.
Read at your own risk: Brandy Jensen's latest "Ask a Fuck-Up" column, "Oh Shit I Think I Want to Fall in Love," might wreck you

31 days of creativity in one place

It's November, so you can now enjoy all of False Knees' charming Inktober crow adventure. Or check out all of Andrew Farmer's annual 31 Aunts of Halloween!

Being in your 30s means getting excited about laundry detergent, apparently

I got an Instagram ad for Defunkify laundry detergent and I was intrigued by its promise to work in cold water washes. Since I live in the city and have to rely on laundromat washing machines to clean my clothes, I'm always nervous about finding the right balance to thoroughly wash my clothes without damaging them. Defunkify has been a lifesaver. It works perfectly in cold water, so my clothes still come out super clean without having to resort to the intense heated cycles. I have sensitive skin, so I'm always nervous about scented detergent, so I got the Free & Clear version and it still makes my clothes smell amazing, somehow. I love it.

Good TikTok accounts

I know I usually do some quick hits of good TikToks I've seen, but this week I want to highlight a few TikTok accounts who make consistently great content. The first is Mike Baird's Dinosaur Dinner Theatre, absurd voiceovers of vintage clips in the vein of Mystery Science Theatre 3000. Highlights include a visit to the ham factory, an introduction to coffee, and a peek at the homes of tomorrow.

Another one is Jake Summerour, whose art is both technically impressive and filled with funny touches. I particularly love his "I don't know what to draw" series, where he'll pull Pictionary and Cards Against Humanity cards to make a thematic mashup, then try to draw what he's pulled. (A great example is his take on "stripe shower," which resulted in an adorable zebra letting his guard down for a scrub.)

Finally, I adore learning about design aesthetics, so I'm so grateful for Melina Bee's informative breakdowns on trends like disco deco and Pacific punk wave.

Okay and if you do just want one great TikTok, Kim Quindlen's impersonation of a 1950s actress absolutely wrecked me. I keep saying "Ah'm goin to cahllege... to visit my BRœther!" to myself and giggling alone in my apartment.

It's pump time, baba

This surreal video from Tim Platt is like if you fed the scripts of a thousand millennial-targeted ad campaigns to a robot who then immediately got a head injury.

Okay bye, here's a great tweet.