Jez Recs: The Books, Shows, and Chaotic Doll TikToks That Got Us Through This Week

Happy Friday—we’re thrilled to see you here. After you’ve caught up on, processed, digested, and inevitably dissociated from the batshit events of this week, you may find yourself in need of something a little more pleasant to dissociate to.

Which is why we’ve rounded up a delicious and colorful Easter basket (God Bless to all who celebrate, He Is Risen, etc.) of treats for your eyes, ears, and hearts. Our Jez Recs this week span a wide range of culture—from a devastating personal memoir to a five-star album by one of humankind’s best-ever musical groups (yes, this is a fact) to the unhinged TikTok account of a mangled, feral doll that might have you screaming, “IF YOU KNOW, YOU KNOW!,” from the rooftops. Enjoy, and may you also find yourself rising from the dead on Sunday.

It feels too reductive to label pioneering feminist cartoonist Aline Kominsky-Crumb’s work “unapologetic” or some other girl-boss platitude. Her unfiltered thoughts alongside crudely drawn depictions of herself and others are honest, while at the same time fully warped by the paradoxes of womanhood and desire. Shit gets fucked up in her world, and we’re all the better for it.

After she passed in December, I picked up the more recently reissued edition of her original 1990 collection of comics, Love That Bunch. Grotesque, funny, inappropriate, and brazen, the collection, which Kominsky-Crumb started writing in the 1970s, follows her alter ego, The Bunch, through the lows, ultra-lows, and occasional manic highs of the femme womanhood experience: crushes, love, sex, date rape, marriage.

As soon as I read the panel featuring an older Bunch playing horse with her grandson and wondering, “Is this sick?,” as she fantasizes about raunchy past encounters with sexual partners riding her, I, too, was along for the ride. As she ends her own comic: “I hope not…cause we’re having fun!” —Kady Ruth Ashcraft

I’ve been a MUNA devotee since 2018, but because the band’s been a little busy opening for Taylor Swift and preparing to embark on their own tour, they haven’t released a new record for nearly a year. Thus, whenever I get the craving for sexy, sad girl synth-pop (weekly), I’m compelled to revisit their discography.

MUNA’s third self-titled album (released in June 2022) is the definition of no-skips—from the Phoebe Bridgers-backed opener “Silk Chiffon” (She said that I got her if I want/She’s so soft like silk chiffon) to closer “Shooting Star” (I wish I may, and I think I might regret this either way/If I let you in my heart or keep you in the dark)—but no track delivers a gut punch quite like “Kind of Girl.” I mean, this chorus?

Yeah, I like tеlling stories
But I don’t have to write them in ink
I could still change the end
At least I’m the kind of girl
I’m the kind of girl who thinks I can

The track is pretty much the sonic summation of MUNA’s ethos: that only we can decide who we are, and regardless of the government, polite society, or our shitty parents, we can redefine ourselves as often as we’d like. Don’t believe me? Do yourself a favor and watch the video. —Audra Heinrichs

As someone often transfixed by the glint of a Baccarat dish through a shop window, the title of essayist Katy Kelleher’s upcoming book was enough to lure me in like a gnat to a vat of vinegar. The Ugly History of Beautiful Things, a collection of essays due out later this month, expands upon Kelleher’s already gorgeous body of work on fragrances, colors, design, and art. Here, however, she reckons with the carbon footprint of her own possessions, torn between the ecstasy she derives from collecting shells and fine silk and the moral implications of her thoughtless consumption. “Beauty is ugly,” Kelleher writes. “There are no pure things in this world: everything that lives does harm; everything that exists degrades. Yet many of us are drawn to these pretty, depraved things. We want to possess and caress the very things that frighten us.”

While stunning in its prose, this book is not for the faint of heart. With deeply researched excavations into the origins of flower petals, turquoise, ambergris, and porcelain, Kelleher forces readers to sit with the discomfort of the true cost of chasing and hoarding pretty things. Still, by book’s end, I got the sense that I’d spent 10 chapters with someone who experiences life so fully and with such agony that even shiny ornaments have the power to bewitch and undo her. Life is like that for me, too. As Kelleher says, “...those delicious oil paintings of browning petals…have only increased my desire to hold on to this world, even as I watch it wither and die.” —Emily Leibert

The plot of this dramedy admittedly relies on some pretty tired tropes: big, fancy magazine writer in New York City; gay brother who’s a personal trainer; woman who eats and drinks too much and now needs to Get Healthy. But Celeste Barber, the Australian comedian known for recreating hot celebrities’ Instagram photos and getting blocked by Emily Ratajowski, is sensational as the protagonist, Liv—the aforementioned fancy magazine writer in NYC who gets herself stranded in Australia after she fails the physical to get a green card back to the States.

If you’re feeling stuck in a streaming rut but sick of rewatching all your old faves, this eight-episode season is funny, digestible, and will satisfy the need to turn off your brain for a bit. And Barber’s performance makes it more than worth the watch. —Lauren Tousignant

ProPublica broke a huge story this week that Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas accepted hundreds of thousands of dollars of luxury travel from a billionaire GOP donor without disclosing any of it, which is a violation of federal anti-corruption laws. The travel included several trips on a 162-foot superyacht, despite Thomas’ insistence that he’s an everyman: “I prefer the RV parks. I prefer the Walmart parking lots to the beaches and things like that.” Uh-huh.

This piece from satire columnist Alexandra Petri brilliantly skewers this terrible man. Petri writes, “Please keep in mind, my fellow Americans, that each moment I spent on the yacht was torment! That is why I did not disclose it…I bit into the meal prepared by the chef and wrinkled my nose with disgust, sad the instant I noticed that it was not a DiGiorno pizza.”

I think conservative Supreme Court justices deserve to be mercilessly dragged— not only for their many scandals but for their absurd philosophy that a document written by white men, who didn’t believe women or Black people were full citizens, is the bar for deciding legal disputes today. Elon Musk’s Twitter disagrees with my view; and in a totally unrelated thought, please follow me on my new account. —Susan Rinkunas

With wedding season rapidly approaching, I recommend Dorothy Baker’s achingly self-aware 1962 novel Cassandra at the Wedding, which follows a self-destructive lesbian grad student at Berkeley who’s plotting to sabotage her sister’s wedding. The novel famously flopped in its time, probably due to its core themes being a bit too ahead of their time—only to experience a long overdue renaissance last spring. I find it, generally, to be a perfect read this time of year—a timeless tale of family, codependency, the dark side of love, and, possibly, a guidebook to sneakily ruining any wedding you may disapprove of. —Kylie Cheung

Earlier this week, my TikTok algorithm delivered me to the hallowed corner of JasperTok, and it felt like nothing short of an honor. My initial introduction was a video of someone impersonating Jasper the Doll (there are many), which made for a jarring entry into this manic, mystical, slightly terrifying world. But the comment section inevitability brought me to, I guess I’d say, a place I’ve been searching for my whole life. Jasper is a mangled, chaotic, 22-year-old doll who uses both he/him and she/her pronouns and whose deep, raspy voice sounds wrecked by decades of cigarette smoke—and Jasper will inspire you to be your most unapologetic, manic self.

These videos are short, slice-0f-life-clips of Jasper arguing/hanging/begging for snacks from their roommate & bestie; Jasper playing computer games; Jasper doing a face mask; Jasper finding a “SPHIDER IN THE KITCHEN!” I wondered whether or not I should include Jasper as a rec, because I’m not sure that you should seek out Jasper...Jasper the Doll needs to seek out you. But it also feels wrong to gatekeep anything that made me involuntarily laugh out loud on the subway.

One TikTok user put it best: “What trauma did we all collectively have that made this pure comedic gold? When Jasper finds us, Jasper starts healing us with every single video they post. There needs to be a study on what part of the brain Jaspertok activates.” I think the less we question Jasper’s impact, the better. That said, I feel healed, I feel joy, and I feel I’ll never find a “gWoRl LiKe” Jasper. —LT

There is not enough money in the world that could get me to listen to an entire Lil Dicky song, let alone album. Absolutely hate his music. But his show, Dave? It’s stupid how much I am moved by it—by the layers of friendship, love, and anxiety it explores as Lil Dicky the artist blows up and Dave the man implodes. I also believe it to be the best ensemble cast on television right now. I have crushes on every character. Except for Dave.

The first two episodes of Season 3 released on Hulu (via FX) this week. In the premiere, Dave learns that Texas can be hell for a straight white man, too, especially if he has a crooked dick and about a trillion hangups around sex. In the second episode, he walks the line between tortured genius and whiny man-child as he shoots a music video with his high school crush. These episodes aren’t quite at the caliber of the Doja Cat episode in Season 2, for example, or the entire Season 2 arc of Dave’s hypeman GaTA, which made me ugly cry. But they’re promising. —Sarah Rense

Bestselling author Nicole Chung’s new memoir, A Living Remedy, was published on Tuesday, and it is devastating. Chung writes about losing her parents as well as coming to grips with the limits of reaching the middle class. It’s also the first thing I’ve read about living through the covid pandemic (during which her mother ultimately dies from cancer during its height) that didn’t make my skin crawl. We all lived through—maybe are still living through—traumatic years, but each experience is so different. I know memoirs can be a hard sell (and it sounds sad!), so here are two excerpts that I think may draw you in. —Caitlin Cruz