lawrence lindell

This week, Tara and Kris start by celebrating the conclusion of the WGA strike and sending support for SAG-AFTRA in their continued quest for an equitable deal.

Looking ahead, they wonder about the future of AI. Tara doesn’t think it’s as bleak as it sounds. Kris disagrees. Luckily we have opinions on survival reality shows to bring us together. 

After getting deep into Alone Australia and Survivor, we hear more about RuPaul's Drag Race UK from Tara and then dive headlong into recommendations!

Official Recommendations

From Kris: Gaga: Five Foot Two (Netflix)

This week, Kris recommends the 2017 Netflix documentary, Gaga: Five Foot Two, which covers a year in the life of Lady Gaga as she works on her fifth studio release album, Joanne. It’s a deeply vulnerable piece according to Kris, examining long standing pain conditions that the artist suffers from. It also details the 51st Super Bowl half-time show where Gaga gave her critically acclaimed appearance.

From Tara: Bingo Love by Tee Franklin (Author), Jenn St-Onge (Artist)

After comic creator Lawrence Lindell talked about it in our bonus episode with him, Tara picked up one of the books he suggested: Bingo Love. Spoiler: she fell in love with it.

Bingo Love is a second-chance romance between two Black women that starts in the 1960s when they meet and become instant best friends at their church's Sunday bingo. Separated once their relationship turns romantic and is discovered, they go on to marry men, have families, and then meet once more sixties at another Sunday bingo when they're in their 60's. It’s a beautiful story about love, second chances, and honestly how many stories like this include Black women? We love to see it. Check it out.

Works/People Discussed

• If Books Could Kill (Podcast)
• "On the Dangers of Stochastic Parrots: Can Language Models Be Too Big?" By Emily M Bender, Timnit Gebru, Angelina McMillan-Major and Shmargaret Shmitchell
• Alone Australia (SBS)
• Survivor (CBS)
• https://www.tiktok.com/@208sportscards
• RuPaul's Drag Race UK (BBC)
• The Big Nailed It Baking Challenge (Netflix)
• Mimosa by Archie Bongiovanni
• Black Mirror, Series Three, Episode Four “San Junipero” (Channel Four/Netflix)

Support & follow the show

• Buy us a Ko-fi
• Sign up for our newsletter
• Twitter: @queerlyrec
• Facebook: @QueerlyRecommended
• Instagram: @queerlyrecommended
• Tumblr: @queerlyrecommended
• TikTok: @queerlyrecommended
• Get all our links on Linktr.ee
• Support local animal shelters by joining Kris's Patreon

Kris and Tara sit down with cartoonist Lawrence Lindell to talk about his upcoming graphic novel, Blackward (releases September 26th!).

As well as being a self-proclaimed introvert (hard same), Lawrence is an artist and educator, working in many disciplines like comics, music, illustration, and mixed media. His self-published graphic memoir, From Truth With Truth, was nominated for the Believer Book Awards, and the Dwayne McDuffie Award for Diversity in Comics in 2020.

Together, the three talk about Blackward, the choices that went into it, and what Lawrence is currently reading and recommending.

Lawrence recommends:

Bingo Love by Tee Franklin

When Hazel Johnson and Mari McCray met at church bingo in 1963, it was love at first sight. Forced apart by their families and society, Hazel and Mari both married young men and had families. Decades later, now in their mid-'60s, Hazel and Mari reunite again at a church bingo hall. Realizing their love for each other is still alive, what these grandmothers do next takes absolute strength and courage.

Mimosa by Archie Bongiovanni

Best friends and chosen family Chris, Elise, Jo, and Alex work hard to keep themselves afloat. Their regular brunches hold them together even as the rest of their lives threaten to fall apart. In an effort to avoid being the oldest gays at the party, the crew decides to put on a new queer event called Grind–specifically for homos in their dirty thirties.

Grind is a welcome distraction from their real problems: after a messy divorce, Chris adjusts to being a single parent while struggling to reconnect to their queer community. Elise is caught between feelings for her boss and the career of her dreams. Jo tries to navigate the murky boundaries of being a supportive friend and taking care of her own needs. And Alex is guarding a secret that might change his friendships forever.

While navigating exes at work, physical and mental exhaustion, and drinking way, way too much on weekdays, this chosen family proves that being messy doesn’t always go away with age.

Rupert Kinnard

Rupert Kinnard is a long-time activist and American cartoonist who created the first ongoing gay/lesbian-identified African-American comic-strip characters: the Brown Bomber (a teenage superhero) and Diva Touché Flambé (his ageless lesbian partner).

Support & follow our show

• Buy us a Ko-fi
• Sign up for our newsletter
• Twitter: @queerlyrec
• Facebook: @QueerlyRecommended
• Instagram: @queerlyrecommended
• Tumblr: @queerlyrecommended
• TikTok: @queerlyrecommended
• Get all our links on Linktr.ee
• Support local animal shelters by joining Kris's Patreon

Kris celebrates the birth of her new book… baby. Book babies are a thing, right? The book is called Cherish. You should check it out when it drops in September.

If that doesn’t tickle your fancy, Kris reveals the winning strategy to make it through the survival reality show, Alone. Tara and Kris discuss their troubled history with Mus musculus (the common house mouse), as well as the extent to which they will allow their home to be "hacked."

Programming note: the actors and writers unions currently on strike in the United States have asked for podcasts to not review or promote "struck" work, and we at Queerly Recommended stand with union asks. So until the strike ends you’ll be getting fewer movies and scripted TV series from us, and more books, documentaries, video games, etc. 

Official Recommendations

From Kris: Nothing Compares (2022)

This week, Kris recommends the documentary, Nothing Compares, which details Sinead O’Connor's rise and fall in the public sphere, surrounding her infamous appearance on SNL when she ripped up a photo of the Pope. There is a lot to her struggle and her history that Kris didn’t know before this documentary and she wishes she’d paid more attention sooner. Sinead O’Connor was a defiant, powerful, liberatory artist. The world is lesser without her in it.

From Tara: Blackward by Lawrence Lindell

Rounding it off, Tara recommends the graphic novel, Blackward by Lawrence Lindell, which will be released this September. It’s about a group of black queer people trying to create community for themselves and others like them, and the challenges they face along the way.

Blackward is written in African American Vernacular English. If you are not familiar with it, check out this quick primer to better your reading experience of this wonderful book.

Works/People Discussed

• Crush by Ana Hartnett Reichardt
• Alone (History)
• Hack My Home (Netflix)
• The Last of Us (HBO)
• Diablo IV (Blizzard Entertainment)
• Venba (Visai Games)

Support & follow the show

• Buy us a Ko-fi
• Sign up for our newsletter
• Twitter: @queerlyrec
• Facebook: @QueerlyRecommended
• Instagram: @queerlyrecommended
• Tumblr: @queerlyrecommended
• TikTok: @queerlyrecommended
• Get all our links on Linktr.ee
• Support local animal shelters by joining Kris's Patreon