Reading, Watching, Listening To (Against My Better Judgment…)

You’d be surprised how much culture I’ve been consuming over these past few weeks, in between furiously preparing my house to be listed, and dying, over and over again, in Donkey Kong Country Returns, so I thought I’d share with the group, in case you, too, need a break from tossing your large gorilla avatar into the depths of a perilous mine shaft.Anchor Baby is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.ReadingI’m currently reading The Inheritance Games, for a book club I couldn’t make, and which has now already happened, and feeling distinctly mid about it. I get that it’s YA, and maybe I’ve just read too much dark academia fantasy lately, but unless someone sprouts wings, and pretty soon, I think I’m about ready to give up on this. (And I say this as someone who wrote a lot of Annie-influenced fiction as a child, so poor-girl-from-wrong-side-of-tracks-inherits-billions books should be my personal catnip.)I did, however, recently read and love Honey and Spice by Bolu Babalola. The prose is kind of dense in a way that feels a bit self-conscious at times (you’ll see what I mean), but I think this is the first book I’ve read in approximately my entire life that has made me think, wow, these two main characters have a lot of chemistry. It’s very sexy, and for that I commend (and recommend) it.Next up, I’ve a book club on Wednesday (yes, in two days) for which I’m supposed to have read Killers of the Flower Moon, a questionable book club choice (book club is meant to be fun! Does this scream “fun” to you?!), but I missed the book club where it was chosen, so here we are (this would never have happened on my watch, is where I’m going with this).I’ve read quite a few other (smuttier) books recently, but none have been all that great. If you’re particularly interested in the dark truth of my reading habits, you can follow me on Goodreads.Also! Where possible, I’ve linked to Books Upstairs, Dublin’s oldest independent bookshop, which was damaged last night in an arson attack. I created the links via ShopMy, which is an affiliate program, but Books Upstairs isn’t signed up, so I won’t take any commission from the sales (it just allows me to get “points” on ShopMy, I hate it here) – but if you’re buying any books in the next while, please consider buying from Books Upstairs and supporting them during this, frankly, shitty time.WatchingI mean, of course I’m watching Love is Blind, the ninth season of which is based in Denver, where, clearly, no one good-looking or interesting lives. (I mean, correlation doesn’t = causation but could we surmise that winter sports attract bores? I think we could…) I’m only on episode two, because I’m watching at an absolute snail’s pace, taking regular breaks to roll my eyes or pack boxes or do anything other than suffer through this terrible season. AND YET I MUST SUFFER THROUGH IT. Why?! I don’t ask these kinds of useless questions. Suffering is character-building, I learned that from my Catholic upbringing. If you, too, are watching, please join me in discussing. Netflix isn’t all bad, though; I recently watched Sirens, which popped up on the “Emmy nominated” list, and which I hadn’t even heard about before then. It stars Meghann Fahy, Julianne Moore, Kevin Bacon and Milly Alcock and while I couldn’t tell you what it’s about, really – Fahy’s Devon travels to some bougie island full of WASP-y millionaires to find her sister Simone, played by Alcock, who’s working as a personal assistant-slash-best friend for millionaire Michaela Kell (Moore) for reasons and chaos ensues – it’s deeply funny, oddly moving and has some of the most interesting character studies I’ve seen in a series in a long time (Bill Camp is incredible as Bruce, Devon and Simone’s dad, who’s suffering from early-onset dementia). It reminded me a bit of Revenge, more in terms of vibes than anything else, but if you like watching rich people behaving badly (with some truly excellent acting), I’d recommend it.Brandin and I have also been watching The Sandman, the (ugh) Neil Gaman-penned series based on the comic book of the same name. I really struggled with whether to watch this second season, given the allegations against Gaiman that recently came to light in this podcast series by Tortoise Media, also detailed in this New York magazine piece by Lila Shapiro, but ultimately decided that, as this is the final season, any money Gaiman is going to make from it has already been made. And honestly, it’s only okay. I have the same issues with it that I had with American Gods (also by Gaiman); without having read the source material, it’s all too dense and messy to make any kind of narrative sense, and I’m finding myself confused to the point of being deeply bored. But as Brandin refuses to watch Love is Blind with me, here we are. Gwendoline Christie is, as always, a highlight.Finally, I recently suffered through watched Jurassic World: Rebirth (embarrassingly, I paid about $25 to own this piece of trash) with Atlas and it is so incredibly bad that even I – who loves bad movies, truly – couldn’t, in all good conscience, recommend it. Atlas loved it, despite its being, honestly, probably a bit too scary for a four-year-old, but it is almost entirely devoid of plot, the dialogue is laughably bad, and it just felt like so obvious a cash grab that it was embarrassing. Bring back Chris Pratt, is a sentence I never thought I’d write down, but at least he made the previous three World movies kind of quippy, in an irritating way.Listening toI mean, of course I’ve listened to The Life of a Showgirl half a dozen times, despite deciding that I was no longer going to give my time or energy to artists who haven’t said anything about the genocide in Gaza. I’M WEAK, OKAY?!? I needed to know what it was like, and what it is like is a watered-down version of Taylor’s previous albums, in particular 1989, Red and Reputation. Despite the name, there’s not a hint of “showgirl” about it – no jazz! No razzmatazz! – and it really feels a bit like the album a superstar produces when they’re so big and powerful that they no longer have anyone around them to say, “Taylor, babe, this isn’t it – maybe you should take a break to relax after your massive tour and just enjoy being in love and plan your wedding?!” I hope that doesn’t sound sexist, but really, she’s happy and Travis has a big penis (according to her, and actually so does she, at least figuratively – “I can make deals with the devil because my dick’s bigger”, to rhyme with “brown liquor”, I wish I was joking) and her biggest issues are that people don’t understand her oh, and Charli XCX found her irritating once? or something? Now, that all being said, I listened to it another five times after that early (and correct) opinion was formed, and it’s grown on me a bit. Will it be an album I come back to, again and again, like Pure Heroine or Crazy, Sexy, Cool or The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill? lololol clearly not. But I wouldn’t change the station if it came on the radio, you know? Thanks for reading Anchor Baby! This post is public so feel free to share it.Matt Bernstein’s A Bit Fruity podcast continues to be really, really good – this latest episode, which is ostensibly about liberal zionism but rooted in a discussion about Debra Messing’s messy slide to the political right, is a very insightful and interesting discussion about the contradiction of calling yourself a liberal while also supporting an ethno-state conducting a genocide.Finally! Finally, this episode of The Guardian’s Today in Focus podcast, about AI and the porn industry in 2025, was very interesting, especially when viewed as a companion piece to this episode of Em Clarkson and Alex Light’s Should I Delete That? in which they interviewed Lily Phillips, the OnlyFans star who rose to fame for a stunt in which she had sex with 100 men in a day. Their follow-up episode, in which they chat about the backlash to their discussion with Phillips, is also worth a listen.P.S. I considered numbering this piece, then worried that would tie me into yet another regular feature (that I haven’t given a Moanery Lane update in several weeks does make me feel a certain modicum of shame, but it’s actually a testament to how mentally well I’m feeling that I’m not coming up with much to moan about; like Tay-Tay herself, I am not at my most creative when I’m feeling content) and who knows if I will be reading, watching or listening to much of anything in coming weeks, as I travel home to Ireland with my two small children and spend three weeks seeing friends and (mostly) entertaining said children. So, consider this a tentative first installment, and let’s see how we go, shall we? This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit rosemarymaccabe.substack.com/subscribe