Things We Like: AUTUMN Edition
As you huddle in your hobbit-hole this fall, you may begin to crave sustenance beyond the nasty, tricksy algorithm! There is a world of content and experience away from the prison walls of your timeline or YouTube’s recommended videos. To ease your pain, we’ve asked our friends, favorite Twitter anons, and a motley of artists, journalists, and podcast hosts to recommend things they like. Inspired by the spooky vibes of Halloween and the imminent gratitude of Thanksgiving, they responded with autumn recipes, religious figures, and and rabbit holes we should follow.
Jesus Christ
by @writers_life_tips, Up-and-Coming Bestseller
A YouTube video by the supercilious liberal streamer Hasan “Can’t Hyde” Piker “reacting” to Lex Fridman’s YouTube interview of The Artist Formerly Known as Kanye West began to autoplay after some other Ye-related clip on the Video Expert TV when I was at their offices in Los Angeles the other day.
At one point I heard Hasan call Ye’s “Christian evangelicalism” “act” “boring” and “played out.” Always watch for this duplicitous rhetorical device, the function of which is to implicitly undermine the motives of the accused person’s actions and statements. “It’s just…boring,”—as if the purpose of the accused person was to offer you some superficial shock and amusement. It’s not only demeaning to the accused person, but it is a debilitating habit for the accuser’s soul. It’s a hardening of the heart, a way to put scales over our eyes.
The fashion of cynicism towards Christianity yields all kinds of rhetorical and mental cheating. Back in May I posted a Therapist-Office meme (“And are these Trad Caths in the room with us right now?”) in reaction to backlash against a perceived trend in disingenuous “Traditional Catholicism”—backlash that seemed to have the cozy double-function of not only dismissing a “fraudulent Christian” strawman, but deeming Christianity itself a fraudulent pose. It seems more than obvious to point out that central to Christ’s teachings is a literally extreme emphasis on the private working of the individual soul and conscience, out of the sight of our fellow man (“But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen.”), and that a someone who merely adopts the outward aesthetics of a Christian would plainly be falling short of their own doctrine. But too many are satisfied to point out that many Christians are hypocrites, finding this fact sufficient, somehow, to nullify the possibility of Christianity for themselves.
The real fashion of the age is of course more akin to this stingy mental attitude, which amounts to a lack of true love and charity. The hardening of the heart poisons a person’s soul and infects every aspect of their life, public and personal, creating difficulties truly loving and trusting others, feeding neuroticism, self-obsession, and main-character self-narrativizing. And with the need to worship something in all of our souls, this spiritual mistake forces us to turn inward, fostering delusions in the reverent (even if we are outwardly Larry David-style self-deprecating) worship of our own personalities, and the common byproduct of our personalities, our “self-expression”, our artworks—which can provide thrilling, fleeting contact with Truth, but rarely demands a solid, constant Faith, as religion does, and at its worst leads to a drug-like relationship of chasing disparate glimpses of Truth without seeking a unified Faith to guide your conduct, a distinction made by Jesus himself in John 20:29 (Jesus said to him, "Because you have seen me, you have believed. Blessed are those who have not seen, and have believed.”). Despite supposedly being at odds with the religious worldview, the endless production of art is held in a near-religious reverence and esteem in Europe and America that could put many religious fanatics to shame.
Jesus Christ presents the solution to this common spiritual condition in His rigorous and complete moral teaching. Living in pure service of others, with little thought of yourself, free of anxiety, full of only a superabundance of mirth, a simple, graceful, trusting mind and spirit, open disposition, an endless reserve of good humor and charity, which all together yield a freedom not of this world.
“But thou when thou shalt pray, enter into thy chamber, and having shut the door, pray to thy Father in secret: and thy Father who seeth in secret will repay thee.” —Matthew 6:6 (Douay Rheims Version)
based.cooking
by BHP, Countere contributor & Photographer
The author’s carrot cake.
Bloat is destroying the internet. Some might even call the excessive flashiness of JavaScript plaguing modern cooking websites “obese.” That person would be Luke Smith, a YouTuber & programmer who created the website based.cooking as a refuge for recipes to live free of modern web bloat.
With over 250 recipes submitted, the site is becoming a catalogue of various cuisines from around the globe displayed in a way that is reminiscent of the utility of the early internet. No longer will users be required to dodge the annoyingly flashy websites that hide recipes within endless mazes of distracting content on the history of Chicken Marsala.
The instructions for based.cooking recipes are listed in normal text and displayed prominently on the page. This site is perfect for all who might desire to achieve culinary greatness this Halloween with additions such as the sweet kettle corn recipe.
The First Two Seasons of Twin Peaks
by Jake Hanrahan, Journalist & Founder of POPULAR FRONT & BANDO
I’d recommend rewatching the first two series of Twin Peaks. Been doing that recently and it’s genuinely one of the most original and spooky shows I’ve ever seen. There’s something about it that feel always one stroke away from sinister. Fascinating to me.
Knitting
by Kirbs, Twitter Anon & Anarcho-Husbandist
A jumper the author is knitting.
I was never gifted when it came to creative pursuits. I got a D in art, and the sound of my classmates laughing at my attempt to make a pair of slippers in a textiles class still traumatizes me to this day. However, I made it my New Year’s Resolution this year to teach myself to knit, inspired by various “trad” accounts on Twitter. I buried the insecurities and asked for wool and knitting needles for Christmas last year, so that I could stop using “It’ll just be a waste of money” as an excuse not to try. After a day of watching some YouTube tutorials, reminding myself that Michaelangelo didn’t sculpt David the first time he picked up a chisel, I learned to cast-on. A week later I’d learned how to do a knit stitch and a purl stitch. Eventually I could do it without even having to concentrate, as easily as riding a bike. It feels good to actually be able to make something tangible with my own hands, to take a break from scrolling mindlessly and to do something productive. I encourage you all to take up a craft. With Christmas fast approaching it would be the perfect time to ask for some materials to learn a new skill. Good luck!
Under the Silver Lake
by Maxwell Cody, Host of SCHIZOTOPIA podcast
Upon its release in 2018, Under The Silver Lake was a critical and commercial flop. Maybe it was too long, or too artsy, or just too A24. Or maybe, as I strongly suspect, it cut too close to the bone for a lot of us aging millennial hipsters.
I should admit my bias here, I love this movie for cathartic (read: sadomasochistic) reasons. I don’t think I have ever related to a film’s protagonist more. Andrew Garfield plays Sam, a thirty something who’s obsessed with conspiracy theories and pop cultural lore. He wanders aimlessly through Los Angeles as he slowly gets closer to being evicted from his apartment (damn, he is literally me for real!). None of this seems to bother Sam, however, as he is too busy trying to solve the mystery of a beautiful young woman who recently vanished from his building. Sam quickly realizes, however, that this mystery will lead him to the dark chambers of Hollywood Babylon.
What follows is a film noir for a new kind of lost generation. One that didn’t lose their minds in the trenches or jungles of foreign combat but in the very particular form of information overload experienced by people with low economic prospects but infinite media access. There are, of course, millions of Sams out there. He represents the new hyper-autistic male who has replaced the grail quests and hero’s journeys of old with their own nostalgic and “gamified” conspiracy theories.
The paranoiac, like the pornographer, used to be fringe figure. Now he permeates our entire culture. The real terror lies not in the sorry state of affairs but in our passive, ironically detached, acceptance of it. For those who’d rather not think about this, Under the Silver Lake will look like a self-indulgent mess. For those of us who just can’t help but look, however, it will remain a cult classic for years to come.
BANDO
by Zachary Emmanuel, Journalist
BANDO looks sick. It’s the brand-new brainchild magazine project of Jake Hanrahan, a journalist & filmmaker who founded the internationally acclaimed media platform POPULAR FRONT. Just like POPULAR FRONT, BANDO represents a new wave of insurgent media that is independent, unshackled, and bursting with creativity. Let me put it this way: if VICE or VICE NEWS is the distended cantaloupe, BANDO is the .50-cal bullet. They’ll be releasing videos, a print magazine, and other good stuff in 2023. I’m personally looking forward to contributing.
Nothing But Black Metal November (NBBMN)
by Aesthetic Fanatic, Dissident Academic
NBBMN is an internet challenge that got started a decade (or two) ago where a bunch of anons on /mu/ decided to throw themselves into a fun endurance challenge: listen to nothing but black metal for the entire month of November. The challenge took off from there with anons across forums and time trying to stick strictly to a regime of nothing but Darkthrone, Bathory, Peste Noire, and whatever flavor of the month band or demo they wanted to check out. For some, it’s just a continuation of their lifestyle throughout the year, but for the more laid-back or casual fan, NBBMN can be a good change-up to your music listening routine as you dive deep into the depths of metal’s most interesting sub-genre with other anons recommending and discussing music throughout the month. If you’re going to start NBBMN, it’s now or never!
Pumpkin Bread + Cream Cheese Frosting
by widowvision, Countere Contributor & Advisor
Here's my pumpkin bread recipe and cream cheese frosting recipe. It's nothing fancy but I hope it works!
Pumpkin Bread Ingredients:
3/4 c butter, softened
.5 c brown sugar
1.5 c white sugar 2 eggs
15 oz pumpkin puree
2 c flour
1 tsp clove
1 tsp nutmeg
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp baking soda
5 tsp baking powder
.5 tsp salt
Cream Cheese Frosting:
8 oz cream cheese
1 tsp vanilla extract
At least 1/4 c powdered sugar, to taste
At least 3 tbsp of milk, to desired thickness
Beforehand, preheat oven to 325, and grease and flour two bread pans.
Mix butter and both sugars together until evenly combined. Then add eggs and mix. Once thoroughly combined, add pumpkin puree— it will look not look well mixed and possibly grainy but this is okay. Set aside.
Mix dry ingredients, then slowly add to previous mixture. Once fully combined, put in bread pans and bake until a knife comes out clean. Let cool until just warm.
While waiting for bread to cook/cool, combined cream cheese, milk, powdered sugar, and vanilla extract to desired taste and consistency. Once bread is just warm, top as desired. Enjoy!
"The Deadmen of Dunharrow" and The Middle-earth Mixer Podcast
by Forest Seeker, Twitter Anon
Halloween was not a holiday I associated with the works of JRR Tolkien, but after rereading The Lord of the Rings recently that changed. Hidden in plain sight in The Return of the King I found a miniature horror story every bit as atmospheric as any of the works of Lovecraft or Howard; complete with abandoned halls deep under the hills, traitorous undead, and the uncovering of the skeletal remains of a doomed soul who died futilely trying to hack through the stone door of the subterranean maze which became his tomb. I am speaking, of course, of Aragorn's journey through the Paths of the Dead, a chapter that is treated to wonderfully evocative analysis by Evan Cooney at the podcast The Middle-earth Mixer. Evan's podcast combines deep investigation of Tolkien's works with a laid-back, fun-loving attitude which ensures that even those who have never read a word of The Lord of the Rings can still enjoy an episode. And nothing is more timely for All Hallows Eve than his "The Deadmen of Dunharrow” episode which sheds new light on one of the most chilling chapters of The Lord of the Rings, wherein even heroes as stalwart as Gimli are brought to their knees by the horror of the place they find themselves in, left to crawl through the darkness "like a beast on the ground." Do yourself a favor: (re)read Chapter II of The Return of the King and listen to Evan's analysis of it—I guarantee you will leave with a newfound appreciation for Tolkien's capacity for horror.
The Stalker Video Games
By FJB, Countere Discord Admin
Set in a fictionalised schizo-lore version of the Chernobyl exclusion zone, the Stalker series represents the isolated post-Soviet landscape in which it was developed, with industrial decay, alcoholic petty criminals and zany political factions all playing a part in its atmosphere. The first game in the series was released in 2007 but for its age it holds up beautifully, owing in large part to the amazing dynamic lighting system and the level design. The atmosphere this creates is really top-tier, and the dread of not knowing what kind of grotesque mutant or heavily-armed opportunist might be lurking around each corner is a specific feeling I know too well, as will anyone who has spent a substantial amount of time immersed in its world known as "The Zone". The game is also kept alive by a dedicated modding community, in which silly concepts such as "licensing" or "intellectual property" are long-forgotten, and where there is countless total conversion mods (the most notable one being Anomaly, with the OG Call of Chernobyl as an honourable mention) and enough content floating around to keep a dedicated enough NEET occupied for thousands of hours.
Turducken
by Gustavo Pierre, Countere & Man’s World contributor
Why, this here is one of the finest additions to a gourmand’s palette. Forget turkey drowned in wine, as the Romans enjoyed, or the obscure Bedouin dish of whole stuffed camel filled with sheep, chickens, fish, and dates. This here is the perfect flavor combination: chicken stuffed inside a duck stuffed inside a turkey. With every moist mouthful, you will experience delight beyond your imagination. The grotesque configuration—admittedly an affront to nature itself—will titillate every taste bud on your tongue! This November, celebrate Thanksgiving the right way: state toxic political opinions during dinner, feast on turducken, and ruin the family game night afterwards.
Mugcake Recipe
by Runescape Fren, Meme Account & Mechatronic Odinist FeudalLord
This will awaken your shamanic wisdom.
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