Art Against Brain Rot
What I've Been Loving in Quest to Stop Doom Scrolling
Lab Rats, Live Jazz, and Going Out with Friends for a Good Time
Under this never ending Tule Fog, it’s really important to let your extroverted friends drag you out of the house for a good time. That friend for me is Noah, who introduced me to Torch Club’s Sunday Sessions. Going to watch LabRats, the hottest jazz quartet in town, marks a cultural moment in Sacramento. It’s an event to see and be seen with your best NSFW outfits. Think black leather jackets, vintage mini skirts, western boots, and button-downs showing a cheeky bit of chest. The house is packed wall-to-wall as the house band opens the first hour with an original jazz progression. The core band then breaks for open-mic night, and artists line up on stage for their solo moment. The LabRats - Jacob, Joey, Zach, and my personal favorite, Miguel - hold down the flow for seamless transition between solo acts. With no cover charge to get in, all performances are donation-based and often benefit a good cause. For a preview, stream the sultry and somber Jef Costello is Cornered on your favorite streaming platform.
Fraiser
As early as I can remember, I’ve always had a favorite sitcom. As a kid, it was The Nanny. In my college years, it was Golden Girls. Now, working in wine, it’s Fraiser. I initially loved the show for its sharply dressed costumes. Fraiser in corduroy on cashmere. Niles in double-breasted Armani suits. Even Martin, I bet, was wearing Pendleton flannels. They’re so dressed up that it became a running bit at how irrationally serious Fraiser takes the delivery of his hand-stitched Italian wool blazer. My personal style icon is Roz. A perfect sleek 90’s blowout, always casually dressed in sleek nineties neutrals. Then there’s Fraiser’s Seattle condo, which was an eclectic design lover's delight. The soft layers of cherry wood, Chihuly glass vases, and Martin’s La-Z-Boy chair are soft on the eyes. To top it all off, there’s the on-brand meta humor where the jokester is also part of the joke. Realizing the Crane boys and I are the same fussy, talk-radio niche-interest types, watching an episode of Frasier is like laughing at myself. Yet the most touching moments are when Martin gets into a tet-a-tet with his sons, and it sounds like me versus my dad. Hi, Dad. See the episode where they go to a specialty grocery store and end up getting kicked out for being too much. Yet the storyline is always heartwarming because, at its core, the show is about Fraiser and his love for family.
Moderation, Josei Manga, and Going to the Bookstore
On my days off with a few spare dollars in tips, I’ll drive out to my favorite locally owned bookstore, East Village Bookshop in East Sacramento, for some yummy bookstore time. With starting memberships at $25 per year, the cozy store with a thoughtfully curated selection of books is always a fun little treat.
Moderation by Elaine Castillo, one of the featured novels I picked up on my last trip, has easily become one of my all-time favorites. Beautifully cathartic, this one’s for the oldest daughters club. Written out is the quintessential NorCal Southeast Asian-American experience I’ve lived. Wingstop, multifamily house with community gatherings and all. Think Crazy Rich Asians, where no one is rich, and everyone makes the best out of living in this grim post-recession reality. If you grew up watching Asian soap operas like me, the working class girl wins by marrying a sardonic prince trope gets flipped for a more satisfying ending that feels real, and scarily enough, hopeful. Castillo also writes about some pretty dark topics, all of which I’ve experienced and are not up for discussion outside this blog. Yet the writing is the most tender and earnest I’ve come across, for which I am deeply grateful to Castillo. One of my favorite scenes in the book is the memory of Girlie and her mom, linking arms for dear life as they walk down their Milpitas neighborhood for the last time. Oh, and if you’re a fan of immersive role-playing dreamscapes, this is the book for you.
In the mood for more work by Asian women writers with very good style, I went back to reading Josei manga, one of my favorite old pastimes. In the wild world of full-fantasy manga, Josei is a genre intended for adult women. Arguably, the most famous being Nana and Paradise Kiss by Ai Yazawa. Typically falling into the slice-of-life meets romance category, the stories usually explore topics such as the realities of aging, existential crises, and unrequited love. With most works written in the 2000’s, the illustrated sceneries and outfits are nostalgic of my time growing up in Metropolitan Asian cities. Some of my favorites over the years have been Honey & Clover by Umino Chica, about college friends navigating life, and Jellyfish Princess, nerdy girls also trying to navigate life. For darker reads, try Sekine’s Love by Haruka Kawachi - sad boy meets manic pixie dream girl who knits a whole bunch. & by Okazaki Mari, a lost twenty-something girl meets Japanese Dr. House. Ran and the Gray World by Aki Irie, a mischievous magical version of Amelie.
The Buildout
After hours of doom-scrolling through wine industry news, watching the Buildout interview with successful bar operators has brightened my drinks media consumption. Formerly the Cocktail College, host and VinePair CEO Adam Teeter brings on iconic New York cocktail bar operators to talk through how they built their businesses. What makes the podcast entertaining are the operators. Their public-facing professions have built up their star power, making them naturally entertaining storytellers to watch on video. So while it’s fun to listen to the Maison Premiere episode, it’s cooler to watch Joshua Boissy in a three-piece suit tell his story over video on Vinepair’s YouTube page. Keeping it real, Adam brings the interview back down to earth by asking the sticky business questions. Like the realities of running Sunken Harbor Club cohesively with Gage and Tollner. Or how the European style bartending at Schmuck translates in an American setting. The Dead Rabbit and Long Island Bar episodes have been my favorite so far. Dead Rabbit, because the conversation feels like it could be overheard in the snug of an old Irish pub. Long Island Bar, because Joel Tompkin and Toby Cecchini’s storytelling of their unique bar could have been a Wes Anderson movie crossed with an episode of Cheers.
The Art of Rom-Coms
Anyone who knows me knows that I am a rom-com connoisseur. While most film buffs write them off as paperback romance novels, romantic comedies are historical art forms rooted in classic playwriting. Early examples would be Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing and Taming of the Shrew. Then came the age of Neil Simon, who set the standard for New York-based comedies with Barefoot in the Park. Yet when we think of rom-com classics, we think of Nora Ephron and Richard Curtis. Notting Hill, When Harry Met Sally, and Bridget Jones Diary are classics within the category. With protagonists just believable enough to be true, their comedic plotlines and witty theatre dialogue have kept audiences coming back over the years. The Roses, an adaptation of 1989's War of the Roses, is now set in Mendocino instead of Nantucket, where Benedict Cumberbatch and Olivia Colman play the modern-day yuppie couple at odds with each other in their crumbling marriage. Gut-punchingly funny, The Roses is the perfect choice if you yearn for the golden age of rom-coms.
No summer fling? No problem. We’ve got you covered with Regency and Victorian era romances. While anxiously waiting for the start of harvest, I binged read and watched all things Jane Austen. Continued it with North and South by Emily Gaskell. Dabbled with the Kate and Anthony arc in Bridgerton. Then finished with Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre. On an evening call with my cousin Natasha, who re-read Pride & Prejudice for the fifth time between on-call veterinarian shifts, we fantasized about our Regency romances as if we were little again. Would the handsome stranger be stubborn like Darcy? Dependable like John Thornton? Or worse, a Byronic grump like Mr. Rochester? As young girls raised to be career-oriented, we were taught never to let romance get in the way of our ambitions. Yet feelings of fancy are inevitable. So we learn to push those feelings down for the sake of our futures. Again and again, the practice of self-heartbreak. Which is why these rom-coms, silly as they may be, are solace for girls like us who continue wait until the day someone lovely comes around.
Tower Theatre and Rewatching Classic Films
On my day off from harvest, I spent the morning in a catatonic state and decided that the minimum amount of productivity would be to finally watch The Sound of Music. Although I’ve never been a big fan of musicals, something about watching actors kick-flip into the air while Julie Andrews twirled in vivid color on 70 millimeter film is deeply moving. Somewhere in between nuns quietly praying in the abbey and Captain Von Trapp ripping the Nazi flag is when I began to quietly sob. Later, to celebrate the end of harvest on Halloween, some friends and I went to a showing of Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho playing at the Tower Theatre. Going to the independently owned Tower Theatre always feels like time travel. The very retro building, with its rickety seats and softly salted popcorn, made for a special night as classic film lovers of all ages gasped in unison at the bathtub scene. Watching these films reminded me of how indulgent the classic film-watching experience can be. With each crew member a master of their craft, these films aim for the highest level of artistic entertainment as they served audiences who were incredibly grateful to have a day at the picture show.
A$AP Rocky and Don’t Be Dumb
Danny Elfman, Winona Ryder, and Ted Levine in an A$AP Rocky music video? Tugging at my emo kid heartstrings. My core memory of Rocky was when he rose to fame alongside Tyler the Creator during the Tumblr era as rappers who integrated alternative music into their sound. His tracks featured Skrillex, Lana Del Rey, and Clams Casino while always maintaining his own distinctive flow. Fast forward to 2024, we saw him lean harder into the arts with his Taylor Swif video shot in Ukraine which mixed absurdist visuals with meme culture. Now, like a Bat signal where Gotham is in dire need of a true recession-era artist, Rocky came to save the day with his release of Don’t Be Dumb. The first half of the album is classic A$AP: an unbeatable freestyle-like flow getting off his chest everything that’s happened since we last saw him. The second half of the track is classic experimental A$AP featuring the Gorillaz, Imogen Heap, and once again Clams Casino. Referencing both himself and what I’m calling Y2K boy nostalgia with early GTA visuals in Helicopter and a major collaboration with Tim Burton in the Whiskey/Black Demarco music video, Rocky still is the fun and artistic Pretty MF we’ve always known him to be.
We gotta go to that Jazz venue next time😉 say Elvi & The Benito Spirit