Staff Picks: Flavorwire’s Favorite Cultural Things This Week

By Sarah Fonder

Oct. 16, 2013

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Need a great book to read, album to listen to, or TV show to get hooked on? The Flavorwire team is here to help: in this weekly feature, our editorial staffers recommend the cultural object or experience they’ve enjoyed most in the past seven days. Click through for our picks, and tell us what you’ve been loving in the comments.

Cuntz — Solid Mates

I have been listening to gloriously absurd Australian punk band Cuntz’s album Solid Mates. It’s a pretty hilarious satire of Aussie macho stereotypes, and also a rollicking good listen if you like loud, dirty punk music that should really be appreciated at high volume in a suburban living room that smells like stale beer and bong water (until the neighbors call the police to get you to turn it down). It’s all kinds of awesome, in other words, and it makes me vaguely homesick, which never happens. Listen here. — Tom Hawking, Music Editor

Best Coast — Fade Away

I grew up in a part of Northern California where the closest beach required fleece pretty much year-round, but I still find myself putting on Best Coast any time I feel homesick. Naturally, I was psyched to hear about their seven-track mini-album Fade Away, which you can now stream in full. The album is quintessentially Best Coast, lying somewhere between their lo-fi first album Crazy for You and their poppier sophomore effort The Only Place. When I found out that one of the tracks (“Who I Have Become”) was inspired by the Clueless theme song, I was instantly sold. Now I can’t stop listening. — Brie Hiramine, Editorial Apprentice

Brooklyn Nine-Nine (Fox)

It’s pretty rare for me to get into a show right when it starts. I’m wary of wasting my time, so I usually wait for a show to gestate before I watch. That being said, I’m so glad I started Michael Schur’s Brooklyn Nine-Nine right on time, because this show got into a groove immediately. Something about the concept of a comedy crime procedural seems really fresh right now, and it’s ridiculously fun to watch. That’s thanks in part to a reliable cast of comedic all-stars like Andy Samberg, Joe LoTruglio, Terry Crews, and Chelsea Peretti. I’m particularly in love with Stephanie Beatriz and Andre Braugher, the latter of whom Jason Bailey rightly singled out as the show’s real star. This show is only five episodes in and it’s off to an incredibly strong start. If you haven’t checked it out yet, do it now. — Sarah Fonder, Editorial Apprentice

New Yorkers famously have access to America’s widest array of cultural offerings, but here’s one thing we don’t have within our city limits: a drive-in movie theater. Or rather, we didn’t until the fantastic Empire Drive-In set up shop in the parking lot of the Queens Hall of Science. Self-described as a “large-scale temporary installation” (sadly, it disappears October 20th), it’s a drive-in populated by junked cars that ticket holders can sit inside and on top of as they watch each night’s programming. On Saturday, I caught a double feature of teen-rebellion flicks Over the Edge (1979) and Suburbia (1983) — perfect movies for the setting, and a fun flashback to the days when Matt Dillon in a crop top represented the epitome of cool. — Judy Berman, Editor-in-Chief

Alice Munro’s Nobel Prize win

I liked Alice Munro winning the Nobel. Still on a Canadian cardigan-wearing high from that. — Michelle Dean, Editor-at-Large