Ponytail Picks #4 - Bees
Read on to find out what’s been buzzing around in our heads lately…
LISTEN
3 Songs About Honey or Maybe Something Else
“Honey Bee” - Mountain Man
One of many animal songs from their 2010 debut album Made the Harbor, “Honey Bee” showcases the trio’s smooth and sweet harmonies as they flit about in the “golden air,” singing a little major-key love tune that ends with a surprising minor sting.
“Honey Honey” - Feist
Picking up where Mountain Man left off is this eerie ballad from songwriter Leslie Feist. The metaphors mix in a sticky pot as she sings of her honey “up in the trees” dreaming of “fields of flowers.” Will he return or be “food for the bees”?
“Honey” - Monster Rally
Ted Feighan has been one of my favourite artists for a while now, combining retro-tinged tropical collage work with lounge-ready beats sampling old exotica records. In this one, the bees buzz about in tense excitement before the golden flow of the groove kicks in with its subtle bass and guitar lick.
-JB
WATCH
A Show About Hive Mind
Severance on Apple TV+
Since I started watching this show, I’ve wanted to write about it. Because with it, Dan Erikson, Ben Stiller, and their cast pull off some golden-era worthy TV.
I could bore you with an elevator pitch (The Office if the Black Lodge was in Scranton instead of Twin Peaks), but you can find a decent synopsis literally anywhere else. I’m much more interested in discussing the layer underneath the plot.
A quick scan through reviews or articles about the show will have you believe it’s about office culture. And it is. But it’s also about much more than that. The “company control of labour” bit is the timely hook that draws you in. Once you’re following it from episode to episode, the concept expands.
What Severance really deals with is hive mentality—how insulated environments and hierarchal structures influence beliefs and behaviour. It starts with the obvious, showing the fallout of its hypothetical, extreme version of the corporate-culture nondisclosure agreement. But the groupthink absurdity pollinates the “outtie” life of main character Mark Scout (Adam Scott of The Good Place and Parks & Recreation) as well.
Even the show itself, with its angular set design, cold lighting, and breadcrumb plot-scheme, develops its own hive using the same tactics as its malevolent workplace. Watching the show, you’re made to feel confused and disoriented. And in time, you’re asked (through your empathy with Mark) to adjust your own values and excuse behaviour you’d normally find abhorrant.
Anyway, I could go on, but I don’t want to give too much away. Just watch the damn show. And make sure you give yourself some time and space to digest it afterward. You really want to get past the sugary coating with this one.
-AK
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READ
A Book That Turns Bees Into a Symbol of Hope for the Future
Generation A by Douglas Coupland
The guy who popularized the term “Generation X” returned to the era-labelling game in 2009 with this novel. Just like the first time, he takes a pre-existing term and expands on its central idea.
Ironically, “Generation A” first popped up as a reaction to the reaction to Coupland’s novel from 1991. A fellow writer he no-doubt admires—Kurt Vonnegut—decided there was some necessary correcting to do. Seemingly as to avoid being misunderstood as term-coiner again, Coupland starts the book off with Kurt’s quote. Here it is, verbatim:
“Now you young twerps want a new name for your generation? Probably not, you just want jobs, right? Well, the media do us all such tremendous favors when they call you Generaction X, right? Two clicks from the end of the alphabet. I hereby declare you Generation A, as much at the beginning of a series of astonishing triumphs and failures as Adam and Eve were so long ago.”
Kurt Vonnegut, Syracuse University commencement address, May 8 ,1994
Coupland doesn’t obey Vonnegut’s declaration to the letter. Instead, he starts his story in the near future, slyly avoiding any exact dates but insinuating that his characters were born around the turn of the millennium (Gen Z, technically).
The story follows five newsreel-celebrities who attract the world’s attention when they are stung by suspectedly extinct bees. Think of them as a sort of a global version of the Breakfast Club.
The environmental element, along with the fixation on the internet, roots Coupland’s sci-fi-lite tale into an unfortunately believable reality. But it’s the hope the story preaches—in the power of re-generation—that keeps you reading.
-AK
That’s all for this edition. Keep your antennae up for the next installment coming to your inbox on May 6.
So many honey and bee references made this a rather sweet and sticky read! I could tell you must have enjoyed yourselves writing this.