Cocktails, Cartoon Violence, and a Rare Non-Rec

Rec Center #7: March 2025

Welcome to the March edition of Rec Center, my miscellaneous recommendation series! You can find recommendations from previous months in the Rec Center archives. Otherwise, the Lillian Review of Books publishes book reviews, mainly of classic and/or Jewish and/or speculative literature.

Batched Boulevardiers

My friend turned 23 this month and she invited me to her birthday party. As a younger Millennial (31) who often feels like an elder Millennial, I was at a loss as to what to bring to a Gen Z apartment party. Had I ever been that young? I decided that I must play the part of sophisticated, aspirational big sister, so I mixed up a batch of my favorite cocktail, the Boulevardier. I haven’t tried batching it in advance before, and it turned out beautifully. I highly recommend it as a hostess gift for the next party you’re invited to—requires just a little bit of planning but feels much more special than re-gifting a random bottle of wine.

Grandma and grandpa at the function. (My spouse prefers anonymity.)

I gotta say, I was expecting vodka shots and Red Bull chasers, but these kids were pretty tame. Beer and soju seemed to be the drinks of choice, and I didn’t see anyone have more than 3 drinks. I guess it’s true that the Zoomers aren’t drinking or drugging like previous generations did in their youth. This is probably healthier for them, and more fun for me to not wake up with a hangover after partying with them, but it makes me a little sad, too. Isn’t 23 for ruining your life through excess and then picking up the pieces and rebuilding yourself? No? Just me?

Adapted from the recipe by Rebekah Peppler at the New York Times:

• 9 ounces bourbon

• 6 ounces Campari

• 6 ounces sweet vermouth

• 4 ounces filtered water

• a few dashes of Angostura bitters

• orange peels for garnish

Combine in a 750ml bottle and chill overnight.

Invincible Season 3 (Amazon Prime)

I’ve been musing over a way to turn Invincible, an animated, ultraviolent series about a teenage half-alien, half-human superhero, into thinkpiece fodder about mixed race marriages and hapas. Mark Grayson (voiced by Steven Yeun), aka Invincible, is the mixed-race offspring of Nolan Grayson aka Omni-Man (a vicious alien superhero who appears to be a Caucasian male) and the Asian human Debbie Grayson (voiced by Sandra Oh). As far as I can tell, Invincible is the first half Korean superhero. He’s just like me!

This season sees Invincible increasingly alienated from his former allies and compatriots, including the US Government, as his capabilities develop and he teeters between the goodness and the darkness in his nature. The show reaches new heights of fucked-up-ness. There’s a B-plot about an alien prison break that drags for several episodes and doesn’t seem to go anywhere, but overall it’s entertaining and worth watching if you could stomach the violence of the first two seasons.

Severance (Apple TV+)

You don’t need me to recommend Severance to you. You probably have several people in your life telling you to watch Severance. This Friday is the much-anticipated season 2 finale.

The show is mysterious and important. Just watch it, or devour feculence.

N.B.: this show is NOT an adaptation of Ling Ma’s pandemic novel Severance (2018)

NON-REC: Silo (Apple TV+)

My husband and I started watching Apple TV+’s Silo in between new episodes of Severance. We binged its two seasons in about a week. 20 hours of viewing; 20 hours of my life that I’ll never get back. That’s a part-time job. 

In theory, it ticks many boxes that I’m into: a post-apocalyptic dystopian closed society, mysterious rules and origins, a resistance/revolution plot. But in practice, it’s off-brand Fallout. The characters are thinly written, most of the acting is poor, everyone makes unnecessarily stupid decisions, and the revelations are not a satisfying payoff. The cliffhangers were always just compelling enough to force us to try to ‘get through it,’ but I honestly would have preferred just looking up spoilers instead of slogging through the episodes. Season two is slightly better than season one.

The two best characters/actors in Silo.

Bright spots in the show include: Tim Robbins as the awkward/sinister head of IT and Steve Zahn as an unsocialized survivor introduced in season 2. They’re both stellar actors who can’t be hampered by a wooden script. Rebecca Ferguson (aka Jessica aka Reverend Mother in Dune) is a surprising dud as the main character, a headstrong (to the point of idiocy) engineer thrust into a position of power in the Silo. Mostly, it’s the writers’ fault—she’s given no opportunity to show any range at all, so she just broods her way through the show, one hasty bad decision after the next. But the weird inconsistent accent she has is entirely Ferguson’s fault.

Skip Silo; watch Fallout on Amazon Prime instead. That one at least has a dynamic and engaging strong female lead, instead of a stupid and boring Strong Female Lead™.

Partly Fiction (2014) by Harry Dean Stanton

Iconic character actor Harry Dean Stanton released an album of country and traditional song covers in 2014. It’s quiet, rough, and intimate—exactly what I love in folk music. My favorite song from the album is his cover of Kris Kristofferson’s Help Me Make it Through the Night, which I originally encountered in the excellent John Huston film Fat City (1972). Stanton’s world-weary voice adds another layer of heartbreak to the plaintive song.

Still from Fat City (1972). Truly outstanding film and performances from Stacy Leach and Susan Tyrell. Also features a young Jeff Bridges.

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A Plea To My Readers

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See you in a week or two with another book review.

-Lillian