The Tiny Desk Concerts and High School Musical Numbers That Got Us Through the Week

It’s been something of a wacky week for the news cycle: We’ve got right-wing moms proudly quoting Hitler; failed politicians bunking with indicted former presidents; Supreme Court justices doing more awful shit; the threat of a billionaire cage match; and the unfortunate end to a heartbreaking yet entirely avoidable saga of a couple billionaires in a not-very-sea-worthy vessel. Oh, and Che Diaz is back!

Your brain is undoubtedly in need of a reset (or at least a light breather after one full year without Roe). We’ve gathered all the movies, music, and books that’ll give your brain cells the break they deserve for the first official weekend of summer.

If you’d like to recommend something for next week’s edition, drop it in a comment here, or email it to us at [email protected] with the subject line “Jez Recs.”

I love this band; that much I’ve already made clear. But I especially love this band when they switch up their sound. Their cover of Taylor Swift’s “August”? A sonic soother. This stirring rendition of Celine Dion’s “My Heart Will Go On”? Somehow made me weep harder than the original.

This week, they swung by NPR for a Tiny Desk concert and unveiled a country take on their 2021 smash “Silk Chiffon.” As ever, I am absolutely sated. You simply must watch if you’ve ever wondered what The Chicks might sound like if they were queer. The yeehawification of MUNA? I am IN. —Audra Heinrichs

Eleanor Catton’s last novel, The Luminaries, won the Booker Prize a decade ago, and her latest book is not quite so capital-L Literary. If you, like me, are a lover of a slightly highbrow thriller, that’s great news for us. Birnam Wood starts off a bit like her previous novels, reading like a series of character studies with just enough plot to keep you interested. As the first part ends, though, the plot ramps up and very quickly becomes the favorite word of many book reviewers: propulsive. We’re in New Zealand and are dealing specifically with a semi-anarchic gardening collective, a parody of a left-wing wannabe journalist, a Peter Thiel-esque billionaire, and an accomplished businessman who’s recently been knighted. The conflict between people seeking to save the planet and people seeking merely to enrich themselves isn’t the most original in the world, but Catton’s ability to fully realize these characters (while also deeply skewering them) is impressive and makes for an excellent read.

Call me once you’ve gotten to the twist at the end, I want to discuss it. —Nora Biette-Timmons

This week, electronic-music legend Aphex Twin announced the July release of a new EP, Blackbox Life Recorder 21f / In a Room7 F760 (his first since 2018’s Collapse) and previewed its glorious title track. It’s strangely chill for something that clocks in around 134 beats per minute—its breakbeats are frenetic but not furious, and its bendy main synth is as forlorn as a foghorn. It’s a moody thing that contains multitudes in its four-and-a-half minutes (it morphs in some way practically every eight bars). What I’m getting overall is difficult gorgeousness (like a weird Comme des Garçons fragrance that’s sweet but with a Silly Putty accord) and a feeling of relief that Aphex is finally back. —Rich Juzwiack

For the folks who like to watch meta television that spurs an existential panic attack about the dark future of technology, this one’s for you! The critically acclaimed Black Mirror is back for its sixth season, and its opening episode “Joan Is Awful” is awfully delicious. I think you’d be best served going into the episode with scant details, but just know it stars Annie Murphy and Salma Hayek (convincing reasons to watch, alone), and there may or may not be a scene in which Murphy portrays a deranged cheerleader defecating in a church. Shit’s gonna get weird. I’m excited for you all. —Emily Leibert

This story in the Ringer by Dan Moore broke my heart a little this week, and I don’t think you have to be an A’s fan, a baseball person, or even a sports person to feel the same. This is really a story about devotion, betrayal, and the hubris of a very rich man (hm, topical).

Here’s a passage to hook you:

History—and hell, too, probably—reserves a special place for people who relocate pro sports teams. Every sports fan knows Art Modell, for example, as the guy who wrenched the Browns out of Cleveland. And we know Clay Bennett as the Oklahoman who stole the Supersonics out of Seattle. We remember these men for the damage they caused, which extends beyond the fan bases they forsook. Rather, it corrupts the foundation of faith on which fandom depends. Fans everywhere are poorer for it.

My baseball team, the Cleveland Guardians, swept the A’s this week—a sweep we desperately needed in a so-far offensively frustrating season where our record remains stubbornly below .500. But I’ll admit, after reading this story, it didn’t feel like a clean victory! Not against a team and fanbase as cruelly hamstrung as this one. —Sarah Rense

I’m obsessed with Sophie Tea Art and can’t believe I haven’t recommended her 100 times before. The 30-year-old British artist creates vibrant portraits of the female form as well as works that I can only imagine are exactly what the inside of her brilliant brain looks like. Her TikToks mostly take you behind the scenes of her creative process in which she uses bright colors and lots of splats (her splat paintbrush is named Ian) to make these—she says it jokingly but I’ll say it seriously—masterpieces.

Among those ’toks are videos like, “Today I’m going to paint a masterpiece in one minute,” “Today I’m going to hide in a bush and the first person to find me is going to get a copy of my new book,” and, “Today I’m going to try and make an ice sculpture up the mountain and sell it on the way down.” She’s been popular on Instagram for years and has garnered a considerable amount of media attention in the U.K. and Australia for her backstory and the fact that she’s shunned galleries and is “revolutionizing the art world.” She’s excited, she’s fun, and, above all else, she doesn’t take herself too seriously.

She also has a series where she paints a punch of small canvases in five minutes which all go in her “free” pile, that she plans to give away once she hits one million followers on TikTok (She’s currently at 688,000.) I don’t expect to be selected, but please go follow her anyway so I can have a few moments of believing I might win “Sad Bouquet”—a true five-minute masterpiece if I’ve ever seen one! But also follow her because a Sophie Tea Art TikTok will never fail to massively brighten your day. —Lauren Tousignant

No Hard Feelings is a confluence and renaissance of things I love dearly: a good Jennifer Lawrence blockbuster and a banger of a classic, raunchy comedy loaded up with slapstick, deeply cringe sexual innuendos, and lots of summer fun. I’m going to level with you: I’ve been unable to contain my excitement about this movie since the trailer for it first dropped in March. I’m also going to respectfully disagree with my colleague here—whose review you should absolutely read—and say this movie was everything I could have hoped for.

Lawrence portrays a pure mess of a woman who sets out to seduce a sweet little loser of a rising college freshman. He finds her advances off-putting, but she gives him a summer to remember nonetheless. All of this, mind you, so that Lawrence’s character can win a free, used Buick from the kid’s parents. Yeah, it makes a lot more sense when you actually watch it. Which you should!! No Hard Feelings is, to me, the movie of the summer that everyone’s missing out on in their needless obsessions with Barbie and Oppenheimer; it’s the return of something as simultaneously pure and filthy as a nasty adult-fucking-comedy—with a splashy summer release, no less!—and if we all don’t get our asses into theaters to see it, who knows how much longer we’ll have to wait for another?? Just watch it. Please. For me. —Kylie Cheung

It’s hard to briefly state the iconic status of High School Musical 2. While once chastised as a saccharine Disney vehicle (and let’s be real, it is), its resurgence in popular culture has led to a new interpretation of the series as a camp masterpiece, with apparent queer undertones.

“I Don’t Dance,” a delightfully upbeat bop, is at the center of this. Ryan, a queer-coded character (who later was confirmed to be canonically gay) teases Chad, a totally not bisexual athlete, to indulge in something new but familiar, and to let go of toxic qualities that kept him from “dancing” and experiencing joy. It’s hard to read the song as anything but flirtatious. You also can’t ignore their costume change at the end there. Happy Pride. —Vicky Leta

I have never felt such joy upon opening a social media app as I do when a wikiHow video is at the top of my feed. Do you want to know how to practice French kissing? How to make yourself happy? How to get your girlfriend to love you again while Lana del Rey plays quietly in the background? How to prevent camel toe? Every video is so cute yet deranged. Someone was paid (hopefully) to animate a booty barre workout video! Even the real-life ones are fun, but I have grown to really care about my little wikiHow friends who don’t know how to do a single goddamn thing. Luckily wikiHow is there for them—and me. —Caitlin Cruz

If you’re the type of person who would enjoy hearing three brilliant women rip new assholes into the comically corrupt Supreme Court justices and hopelessly naive political pundits, please welcome the Strict Scrutiny podcast into your earholes.

Law professors Melissa Murray, Leah Litman, and Kate Shaw cover abortion news, billionaire SCOTUS sugar daddys, deranged SCOTUS wives, federally indicted former presidents, and more. They haven’t yet released an episode since Justice Samuel Alito ran to the Wall Street Journal in advance of a devastating ProPublica investigation, and I literally cannot wait for it to drop. Yes, they sometimes talk a leetle fast when summarizing lawsuits but that’s what the playback speed setting is for. —Susan Rinkunas

If you’re in the market for an achingly effective and refreshingly simple film, go see Past Lives this weekend. As my colleague Rich Juzwiack wrote in his review and interview with filmmaker Celine Song, the “mundanity of Past Lives had struck me as key to its appeal.” It’s a story about a woman in her 30s caught between the nostalgia of a childhood romance and the true contentment of her relationship with her husband.

What I found so remarkable was the abundant love present in the story. It was a forceful reminder that tension and drama in storytelling don’t necessarily require a villain or ulterior motives. Witnessing Greta Lee’s first-rate portrayal of Nora, the central protagonist, felt like a deep belly breath of air—satisfying and affirming. Go see it!!! —Kady Ruth Ashcraft