Hello! We meet again. This round up is all YouTube videos again. Hopefully, there’s something in here to tickle your fancy. Many of these make for the perfect dinner documentaries to kickback with but I tried to include some lunch break sized ones too. As always, none of these recs come from algorithms. These are all things recommended to me or I stumbled onto in my searches. Human curation at it’s admittedly human. I really enjoyed these and I’m glad I get the chance to share them with you here. Hope your new year is off to a great start.

J Draper - We Didn’t Start the Class War: The Tudor Homelessness Crisis [32 min] – “Rich people invented homeless people in the 16th century and they’ve been mad about it ever since” - so opens J Draper’s excellent video. I learned so much in this one and even better still, the sources are given and quite solid. Usually when I see videos like this, it’s people who are prone to making leaps but J Draper is a professional historian and does an excellent job laying out not just what happened but how we know what happened. Ever wonder how we went from a medieval culture that saw vows of poverty as the fastest way to be close to God to our present rampant moralization of the homeless? Well this video traces that arc very handily. Highly recommend.

CPG Grey - What Are Post Codes Actually Telling You? [8 min] – I kind of knew some of this but I loved finding out some of the weird edge cases (or which our present home is one; though unmentioned). As someone who really loved getting and sending mail, I love finding out more about my beloved postal system that makes it all happen. The system is pretty elegant on the whole. Someday I hope to be the sort of person who puts that 4 digit code in addition to my zip code but I’m just not there yet.

Caitlin Doughty - Who Hid a Fresh Body in a Civil War Grave? [28 min] – This was a fascinating story that I haven’t stopped thinking about since I first saw this video a little while ago. This is the wild story of how a desecrated civil grave lead to the creation of the nation’s first “body farm”. I grew up in Tennessee from ages 1-11 and this happened not far away (though well before I moved there). I grew up hearing about this place but I had no idea how it came about or why it existed in the first place. I appreciate that there are people both willing to donate their bodies and study what happens.

Alex Boucher - The Art of Cat Acting [22 minutes] – Ever wonder how they get cats to do what they do in shows and movies? I hadn’t really until I bumped into this channel. Cat acting was by far the wildest romp. Whatever you think it is, it’s probably not that. I don’t want to spoil it so I won’t say too much more other than I have so much more respect for animal handlers, actors, and directors who choose to incorporate cats into the films. That work is hard!

Veritasium - The Man Who Killed Millions and Saved Billions [23 minutes] – CW: suicide, war crimes. This video has haunted me ever since I saw it. I think it’s an important one though as it serves as a cautionary tale. Science isn’t a moral system, it’s an inquiry system. What happens when the question someone is asking is how to kill mass amounts of people? How do we weight the actions of scientists who unleash both great advances and great horrors simultaneously. I don’t know that we’ve figured it out really. But this video was a great meditation on the dangers of science divorced from ethics.

Matt Baume - Gays and Oz: Why There’s No Place Like Homo [1 hour 5 minutes] – So I’m not a fan of the Wizard of Oz. It always felt like one of those movies adults would put on for kids that would make a nap look far more appealing. But as I grew older and came to know myself as queer, I saw references to it everywhere in the community. This video helped me see this movie through the eyes of people who love it and I better understand why it has such a grip on the queer community all these many years later. It’s still not for me personally but I’ve got way more openness to it now knowing it’s long and stories history among the gays.

Liam Thompson - I Painted the Entire Shrek Script on My Wall [8 minutes] – I don’t know what to tell you with this one. I just like watching people suffer for absolutely bonkers little projects. Also, I’m a big Shrek fan so this checked all the boxes.

Wheezy Waiter - Day in the Life of a Bridge Inspector [27 Minutes] – It is criminal this video didn’t get more views. I think about it every time I go over a bridge. My qpp and I talk about it regularly when we’re walking on a road. I’ve heard a lot about how infrastructure is deteriorating but I had no concept of how we knew that, what’s being done about it, and who even works on it to begin with. I’ve even seen a few trucks out since that were probably doing this work and I just feel incredibly grateful for them. This video showed me just how hard that work is but also how much it matters. You won’t look at a bridge the same way again.

SciShow - The Man Who Stole the Moon and the One Who Saved It [59 min] – This was a WILD ride from start to finish. I don’t even know what to say about this one other than I’m not used to stories this insane having subjects you can still interview. This is the convoluted story of catching a former NASA intern who pulled off a moon rock heist and it’s well worth your time.

My Analog Journal - Peruvian Psychedelic Cumbia, Salsa, Boogaloo, and beyond with Infopesa [46 minutes] – It’s good music, Brent. I love the energy of this playlist and the DJ is clearly having an awesome time. Great to pair with a novel set in some place warm.