Buzz Guide: Say Anything, Eating Animals and Matthew Gray Gubler
I’m proud to follow your beloved bear of a community manager in presenting the second ever Buzz Guide. If you totally missed the christening of this feature, this is the 411: each week, a different Buzznet staff member (and sometimes, a band member or community member) will give praise to the best in music, movies, art, television, books, and whatever else they’re digging. AND YOU WILL LIKE IT! Or not. But come on in and enjoy the fun!
Music: Say Anything
When was the last time you got a taste of an album that was so pungent and perfect and addictive that you wanted to slather yourself in every atom of it? This is a different experience than I have from Fall Out Boy albums—with Folie and IOH and FUCT I just found myself having torrid relationships with each song. “27” and I spent days in bed pawing through old journals; “XO” and I took more than a few aimless drives looking for places we’d happily overthrow and call home (yea, Goodnight Moon reference WHAT). But this Say Anything album is something else entirely. “Do Better” makes you thirsty for the next track—should you just skip to it now? No, no the lyrics are too good right ‘til the end. You want to ingest the next track before you’ve even really put your toes in the current one. And you start wishing songs were like marshmallows you could just stuff in your face all at once. Oh, bet your bottom dollar that every individual track is worth savoring but which one first? They’re all terribly interesting children you want to dote on, endlessly. Oh, God. It’s just THAT GOOD.
TV: Lie To Me
This is a hard category for me, seeing as that I don’t own a working TV or cable or anything of the sort—HOWEVER, I will give props to Fox’s Lie To Me because full episodes are available shortly after airing so I can get my fix of non-verbal manipulation and decoding in all it’s complicated glory. The Lightman Group are the world’s leading deception experts and are called in to catch BS on a variety of cases. The program is based on the very real work of Dr. Paul Ekman. Another cool feature of the network website is a regularly updated collection of real-world stories with a bit of commentary on bodily expression.
Also, I couldn’t put Criminal Minds here because of one of my other Buzz Guide picks. Wouldn’t want to overdo it.
Book: Eating Animals by Jonathan Safran Foer
I haven’t read this, but I’m basing this recommendation on “Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close” being one of my favorite fictional novels and I know a lot of you are vegan/vegetarians who hate being preached to—from what I can tell, this is a non-fiction exploration from a man who just rules at storytelling, point blank. Plus, Natalie Portman likes it. And who am I to argue with Natalie Portman?
Blog: Life Lessons From Andrew WK
Well of course Andrew W.K. is a motivational speaker. I think he’s single-handedly starting a new wave of “posi” music. It could even be a religion. Yes, everything IS a party!
Boy: Matthew Gray Gubler
I’ve had a crush on MGG for awhile, since he plays adorkable Dr. Spencer Reid on Criminal Minds, but you know how sometimes you’re more in love with the character and you feel like a foray into their personal life might leave plenty to be desired?
NOT THE CASE FOR MGG. He is a special prism of eloquence and cuteness and you kinda want to shrink him down to a pocket-size version and keep him forever BUT he also kinda gives you jello knees because you know he makes every girlfriend he’s ever had feel like a princess and then you read this interview that Mademoiselle Robot did with him and it makes you melt like butter (OMG THE DISNEY PRINCESS PART!) and THAT makes you think of how jealous you are that he has a Twitter-relationship with Vicky-T of Cobra Starship and oh, you are head over heels in love with the idea of him. You wish this was elementary school so that you could spend months figuring out which valentine and what candy conversation heart to drop in his hand-made mailbox. OH IF ONLY.
Do you think if I made a youtube video titled “MGG, please go out with me” he’ll go for it? I mean, it worked for prom-date-turned-boyfriend. (Who may or may not read this, but if you are, just know I grant you the same gushing leniency for Regina Spektor. Have at it.) And I’m pretty much Belle, with all the book-reading and whatnot. We could make this work. DM me. Wink wink.
I should stop now.
Until next time,
-Bree
