The Req Room with Mandy and Mio

In this episode, Mandy and Mio discuss The Idiot by Elif Batuman, a semi-autobiographical novel about a young woman's freshman year at Harvard College and the summer she spends in rural Hungary. Set in the mid-90s, the novel relies heavily on Batuman's own college experiences, but it also raises the possibility that the story is being recounted by an older, certainly wiser narrator. Looking back at their own college experiences, Mandy and Mio wonder if one can ever look back without feeling too cynical about the person they used to be.

cw: spoilers

Show notes:

The fourth studio album from British folk singer-songwriter Laura Marling, Once I Was an Eagle (2013), opens with a sequence that weaves seamlessly from one track to the next. The four-song sequence, referred to as "Suite", is the subject of today's episode, in which Mandy recounts her relationship to the song. Can personal experience turn you off to an entire genre of music? What does it take to recontextualize a work of art and make it part of your story? Also, Mandy asks Mio a question about the 2016 Barcelona Figure Skating Grand Prix.

DISCLAIMER: We encountered some technical issues in recovering the audio track from our usual recording platform, so some of our early episodes this summer may feature less-than-average sound quality. We apologize for the issue and hope to fix it soon!

Show notes:

When Mio first saw The History Boys in high school, he might've been too young to unpack what was going on. But fifteen years after the film adaptation's release, he and Mandy are ready to revisit it in the second episode of The Req Room's Summer Semester. How does one make sense of its problematic depictions of teachers and students? Is The History Boys the antithesis to inspirational teacher movies like Dead Poets Society? And how do the differences between the Alan Bennett stageplay and the Nicholas Hytner adaptation affect the script's tones and themes? Find out in this episode! Also, Mio asks Mandy a question about Georges St-Pierre.

cw: spoilers; plot heavily involves power abuse and inappropriate relations between students and teachers

DISCLAIMER: We encountered some technical issues in recovering the audio track from our usual recording platform, so some of our early episodes this summer may feature less-than-average sound quality. We apologize for the issue and hope to fix it soon!

Show notes:

Welcome to the New Adventures of the Old Req Room! In this bonus episode, Mandy and Mio begin to break the format, moving away from prose fiction to discuss the latest offerings from the Marvel Cinematic Universe, arguably the most popular narrative phenomenon of the day. What can a series do that the Marvel films can't? Who tells the story behind the series, and what can they bring to the table with the serial format? Most importantly, what would it be like if Marvel used that Disney connection to replace Daniel Brühl with Werner Herzog? 

Find out in this episode, and stay tuned to the end (or skip to 50:30) for announcements about our upcoming Summer Semester, which begins on MAY 8!

cw: SPOILERS for WandaVision and The Falcon and the Winter Soldier (up to Episode 5)

In the miniseries finale, Mandy and Mio enlist the help of special guest MAGS OCAMPO (Homeroom Co-op) to pick three stories from Grand Union, Zadie Smith's first collection of short stories. Through the chosen stories, they find themselves meeting Zadie Smith in different ways, whether it's laying out her philosophy of storytelling, recounting events that may or may not have happened to her, or learning history. Stay tuned to the end to hear our plans for the show this summer! Oh and also Mio announces his decision to learn how to like sports in 2021.

cw: 'Kelso Deconstructed' recounts the murder of Kelso Cochrane in a racially-motivated attack on May 17, 1959.

Show notes:

In today's episode, Mandy and Mio (re)visit Swing Time, a book they both read in the past and didn't like all that much, only to find out that they like it now! After all these years! What made reading Zadie Smith's most recent novel different this time? How do they navigate the book's sudden shifts from discussing problematic friendships to toxic work dynamics? Find out, as Mio not only tries to sing the title of the book in as many different ways as he can think of, but also tries to make a basketball metaphor that is—mm, to quote ESPN—dead on the launchpad, Stan.

cw: this novel includes discussions of slavery, adoption fraud, allegations of sexual abuse, allegations that one of the characters fetishizes black women

Show notes:

TFW you're not sure if you like a book and so you talk about it with your best friend and then after about an hour of faffing around, you both realize that the book is actually pretty good. This episode—in which Mandy and Mio talk about Zadie Smith's 2012 novel, NW—is that episode.

cw: this novel includes discussions of institutionalized sexism and racism in the British legal sector, infidelity

tw: discussion of one character's suicide attempt (1:20:18-1:22:00)

Show notes:

We're b-b-b-b-b-b-ack, baybee!!!! Our first episode of 2021 explores Zadie Smith's third novel, On Beauty, which tells the story of two diametrically-opposed (foes) families at a small liberal arts college that is totally not based on Harvard. Mandy and Mio invite Jam Pascual from The Gig is Up to diagnose the problems that characterize the liberal, mixed-race Belsey family, while reflecting on their own post-college experiences and seeing what they could suggest about a show that requires readings (meta).

cw: this episode begins with a poetry reading; spoilers, plot involves marital infidelity, power abuse, inappropriate relations between students and teachers

Show notes:

Christmas break is now in session! On the last episode of the year, Mandy and Mio check in on each other, promising not to ask questions that are "too heady" or "reflective." (Listener, they get super reflective.) Mio recites a traditional Christmas lyric, Mandy talks about different guitar tunings and the American actor Chrys-Efans (sp?), and together they each go through their favorite pop culture discoveries in the Year of Our Lord 2020.

Show notes:

The Autograph Man (2002) is the second novel by Zadie Smith, following a British-Chinese-Jewish man who deals in famous memorabilia to an almost religious degree. Although this novel has had the least cultural impact among Smith's works, it lays the foundations for questions on stan culture, social media, and the form that our unending quest for real human connection has taken today. Mandy and Mio talk about their near-stan experiences, the different schools of British-people-doing-American-accents, and why this book is so weirdly transfixed with East Asians and Little People.

cw: spoilers

tw: references to yellowface (16:40-18:00), slight ignorance on the hosts' part re: Judaism

Show notes:

When White Teeth was published in 2000, Zadie Smith was quickly lauded as the newest sensation of Western letters. However, the book did have its fair share of critics - including James Wood, who lumped Smith into an emerging trend of writers he dubbed 'hysterical realism.' This week, Mandy and Mio give a broad overview of this trend, go a little crazy while trying to connect the novel's many side characters, and talk a bit about the time Nick Joaquin crashed a university stageplay.

cw: spoilers, plot involves mentions of Nazis, religious extremism, arranged marriage, age difference, young pregnancy, marital infidelity, and mentions of spousal physical abuse

tw: Mentions of a rape scene - 1:00:55-1:01:05 and 1:09:30-1:09:40

Show notes:

Hello, we are the shining contemporary podcast, Req Room with Mandy and Mio! This week, we decided to take a... erm, break from reading, and throw some questions to our listeners on Instagram. During the episode, Mio explores why his failure to know what cakes and trees are is his greatest weakness as a writer. We also talk about our favorite spoken word poets and short stories, and which of Mandy's celebrity impressions Mio is most jealous of.

cw: explicit language

Show notes:

Circe (2018) is the second novel by Madeline Miller, shifting the lens to focus on one of The Odyssey's most compelling and overlooked characters. But where did all the other stories surrounding Circe's early life and post-Odyssey life come from? How do you tell a gripping story about the growth of a person who spends thousands of years in isolation? (Not that we can relate.) Also, what exactly is Mio's special connection to Madeline Miller? Find out as we close the book on this miniseries and reveal the next writer we're reading on The Req Room!

cw: spoilers

tw: Discussion of an assault and implied rape scene - 1:17:25-1:19:13

Show notes:

It's the start of a new miniseries at The Req Room! Madeline Miller jumped onto the scene with the breakout of her first novel The Song of Achilles (2011), which gained a massive following through fandom communities on Tumblr. Mandy and Mio take a trip down memory lane to revisit their college classrooms, and make sense of what Miller's retelling of Homer's Iliad set out to do—all while mispronouncing just about every Greek name they find. [Knock knock knock!] Hey, sounds like someone's at the door...

cw: spoilers for both The Iliad and The Song of Achilles

tws: mention of rape - 1:06:04; mention of assault - 1:15:37; ensuing discussion of post-trauma - 1:16:16-1:17:06

Show notes:

Or as John Legend calls them—ordinary people. In this week's episode, Mandy and Mio explore how Sally Rooney's sophomore novel became the sleeper hit limited series starring Paul Mescal and Daisy Edgar-Jones. Along the way, they discuss young adult anxieties, parent goals, Unwashed Hair Energy™, and the single best character (they think) of Rooney's entire oeuvre. Stay tuned till the end of the episode for the announcement of The Req Room's next miniseries!

cw: spoilers

tws: Minor implications of physical and verbal abuse - 21:00-23:00, Descriptions of “consensual” physical abuse and sexual harassment - 1:09:20-1:12:10 & 1:20:40-1:23:42, Descriptions of physical and verbal abuse - 1:12:47-1:13:40, Descriptions of depression and therapy - 1:18:55-1:20:43, Mention of suicide - 1:16:28

Show notes:

Welcome to The Req Room! In our first ever episode, we dive deep into Conversations with Friends (2017), the debut novel from Irish literary wunderkind Sally Rooney. Is Rooney really the "First Great Millennial Author"? While trying to answer the question, we call for more PCOS representation, wonder why some people send memes in emails, bawl over the difficulties of getting started as a writer, and discuss how Rooney's writing revamps some of the most timeless themes in English language literature.

tw: descriptions of self-harm (from 1:09:43 to 1:11:56); cw: spoilers