We find ourselves trapped inside a zoo without walls, caught between a seal, a rat and a smoked watermelon ham. This week, the ‘90s have been reasserting themselves in some unsettling ways, with the sudden return to the cultural spotlight of Geoffrey Owens (aka Alvin from “The Cosby Show”), one-hit-wonder Vanilla Ice, and the Lord of the Dance himself, Michael Flatley. Also: universities explore the canon of e-sports and force students and teachers to cohabitate in a perverse new incarnation of AirBnb. HEAR US ON ITUNES https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/this-week-in-nope/id1312654524?mt=2 STITCHER https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/this-week-in-nope SOUNDCLOUD https://soundcloud.com/user-518735966/tracks OVERCAST https://overcast.fm/itunes1312654524/this-week-in-nope In this week’s episode: The elephant in the room is Bob Woodward’s book, “Fear: Trump In the White House.” You can (and should) pre-order it here: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1501175513/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i0 Read David Remnick’s letter explaining why he had a change of heart about inviting human boil Steve Bannon to headline the New Yorker Festival: https://twitter.com/NewYorker/status/1036746441715277825 Get in on New York City’s most “viral” food--the smoked watermelon ham--here: https://ny.eater.com/2018/9/5/17823836/ducks-eatery-smoked-watermelon-viral Stop, collaborate and listen to Vanilla Ice stranded on the tarmac at JFK amid some kind of terrifying outbreak: https://twitter.com/vanillaice/status/1037395392315449344 See the Tweet from Tyler Perry offering Geoffrey Owens a job on a show on Oprah’s network (which he refused): https://twitter.com/tylerperry/status/1036944072836034560 Learn more about Michael Flatley’s self-financed spy thriller: https://www.theguardian.com/film/2018/jul/06/michael-flatley-blackbird-film-self-financed-spy-thriller-what-you-need-to-know The University of Akron is phasing out 80 degree programs to focus on...the academic field of e-sports: https://www.chronicle.com/article/U-of-Akron-Will-Phase-Out-80/244293 Elsewhere in academia, UC Santa Cruz is encouraging students and teachers to shack up in some unholy AirBnB arrangement: https://sf.curbed.com/2018/9/4/17819898/ucsc-housing-faculty-crisis-santa-cruz-students-roommates Big #YUP to… “Crazy Rich Asians,” the hottest movie of the summer, for continuing its box office domination! Get tickets here: https://www.fandango.com/crazy-rich-asians-211315/movie-overview And read Rachel’s short NY Times profile of one of the film’s stars, Awkwafina, here: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/07/style/awkwafina-oceans-8-crazy-rich-asians.html The shrike, a tiny songbird which vigorously defends itself in the face of significantly larger predators using a newly discovered beak-and-jaw motion: https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/09/this-tiny-songbird-rolls-its-head-to-break-its-victims-neck/569341/
