Cooking with Artists and Watching TV with Jackie
Cooking with Artists and Watching TV with Jackie
Issue No. 90
This week Jackie gives her pick for best contemporary apocalyptic television programming, plus we share a cool web series on how artists eat.
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I ended 2021 in a similar fashion to how I started it — watching a lot of television and contemplating the apocalypse. While some continue to yearn for a return to a sense of pre-pandemic stability, my guess is that ship has sailed. It looks like the world will keep on being weird and exhausting for a while yet. For me, two bits of streaming content have mined this apocalypsish sentiment as we’ve turned the page on a new year.
“DON’T LOOK UP”
The first got a ton of attention and even an Oscar nod for best picture — the star studded Netflix climate change satire “Don’t Look Up” from director Adam McKay. The film follows two scientists as they attempt to alert an extremely corrupt power structure and apathetic public about a fast-approaching comet that will soon destroy the planet. The comet is a not-too-subtle metaphor for climate change. Netflix even put out a guide for talking to kids about climate change in conjunction with the film.
Personally, I was not particularly moved by “Don’t Look Up.” I’m sort of a snob, and even for me, I found it overwhelmingly smug. There are clear heroes: the righteous scientists. And there are obvious villains: corrupt politicians and greedy business folk. But then the movie treats the masses of normies with just as much contempt. I wish climate communicators (and I’ll lump the filmmakers into that category) would focus more on how to reach the general public instead of sneering at regular Janes and Joes, and not the power structures they live under.
“STATION ELEVEN”
While “Don’t Look Up” left me cold, I was and remain completely over the moon for “Station Eleven,” the HBO adaptation of the 2014 novel by Emily St. John Mandel. I will boldly proclaim that it is the best piece of television I have ever consumed, and one of the few examples of an adaptation that surpasses the original — a beautiful work of speculative fiction that I read while quaranting from Covid exposure over Christmas. The story, which takes place after a freak flu pandemic has wiped out almost all of humanity, centers on a troupe of musicians and Shakespearean actors who travel around the Great Lakes region in a post-apocalyptic future.
The troupe’s performances have a passing resemblance to my college directing thesis: an outdoor production of Macbeth with a post-apocalyptic vibe. Audience and performers traveled around an overgrown meadow surrounding a defunct train tower, eating and dancing together and enjoying covers of songs by The Kinks performed by a brass-heavy live band. But besides this quirky personal connection, I found Station Eleven’s vision of life-after-apocalypse extremely compelling. Here is a world in which community matters; in which art and creation are highly valued; in which people thrive in challenging circumstances and live abundantly with very little.
I began 2021 by taking an online course called “Surviving the Future” — an exploration of the work of philosopher David Fleming and the global community that is growing around his ideas of community care and resilience. Fleming, an economist and historian, believed that civilization was headed towards collapse, based on the threats of climate change and our extractive global economic system. But instead of doom and gloom, he proposed solutions for how humans might thrive in times of struggle. He championed a world in which humans flourished in resilient communities that are hyperlocal, place-based societies in which people play and create together; responsibly steward their resources, and support and care for each other.
Fleming wrote a long meandering (and at times batty) manifesto about his philosophy for the future. But you can probably just skip it and watch “Station Eleven.” The show is such a perfect exploration of Fleming’s ideas, I would be shocked if the story’s author Emily St. John Mandel or the show’s creators weren’t intimately familiar with his work.
I get it if the idea of watching a show about a life-altering pandemic feels unappealing right now. But “Station Eleven” is as hopeful and invigorating as it gets. I’m so thankful to have experienced this story at the start of what will likely be another extraordinarily weird year in human history. I have no doubt its message of optimism will stick by my side as I navigate and discover how I might survive this future.
love,
Jackie
FRESH LINKS
🎨 Cooking With Artists | MoMA
I’m so grateful to my friend Esmeralda Conde Ruiz, a London-based composer, who keeps me up to date on cool food stuff happening in the contemporary art world. I absolutely loved this series by Mina Stone, chef and owner of Mina’s at MoMA PS1. She interviews MoMA’s artists-in-residence about their relationship to food. The whole series is fabulous, so it was hard to choose one video to feature. But I thought this interview with Suga Ray (not to be confused with Sugar Ray) was particularly moving. His recipe for vegan cheesecake, inspired by childhood adventures with his dad, looks like an elegant crowd-pleaser.
🥖🧄🍴🥕Backyard Kitchen Workshops
Want to come hang out in my backyard and learn about baking and fermentation? Sign up for one of my backyard kitchen workshops! I’ve got a bunch of fun classes on the schedule— from sourdough to tempeh to vinegar!
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Sunshine + Microbes team
Jackie Vitale is a cook and kitchen educator based in Stuart, Fla . She runs Otto’s Bread Club and is co-founder of the Florida Ferment Fest. Her newsletter explores the intersection of food, culture, environment and community.
Matt Levin is a communications strategist at the ACLU of Texas. He edits Sunshine + Microbes and contributes other scraps to each issue.