“It felt like that.” Morris joined the Times the following year and the two have been close friends ever since. “There are moments in life where you show up somewhere and it feels like that’s exactly where you’re supposed to be,” says Wortham. It wasn’t super accessible so once you arrived you were sort of locked in for a little while.” Both had heard friends rave about the other it felt as though their meeting was an inevitability. “Even though it wasn’t fancy,” says Wortham “It felt like an occasion being there. “I thought, ‘Oh god! Wesley’s so cool, we can’t talk!’” The remoteness of the venue added to the atmosphere that evening. I did not feel cool enough to join that table.” “I had the same feeling about you!” remembers Wortham. “All the light from that part of the bar was coming to you. “You were lit by a street lamp,” he remembers. It felt really shiny.” When Morris arrived, dressed in a tuxedo from a previous event, Wortham was holding court, shimmering in a gold jacket at a table in the corner. There were a lot of talented people in the room. “They were publishing some incredible writing, some incredible critical thinking. “At that moment in time The Awl was hot shit,” says Wortham. Morris, a critic at ESPN’s Grantland at the time, had been invited by a close friend to an Awl party in New York’s Gowanus neighbourhood. “It’s funny thinking about it now,” says Wortham, “because it makes me so nostalgic for Brooklyn summers.” After several months of missed phone calls, trading voicemails back and forth, Morris and Wortham met for the first time in the summer of 2014. Returning to the show’s early beginnings is an uplifting, if slightly surreal exercise. It’s just a really good thing to dive into right now.” “And if you don’t finish it by the time we come back, no worries, no spoilers, we promise. “It’s a really, really sweet escape of a show that’s a great reprieve from everything else, which is why we’re recommending it,” says Wortham. This week’s assignment? Watch Zoë Kravitz’ High Fidelity remake. Now in its sixth season, Still Processing will focus on coping strategies for this new normal, as listeners are invited to take part in a make-shift, audio-collective culture club. Since its launch in September 2016, the show has always offered a thoughtful and entertaining mix of conversation as the hosts pore through TV, music, movies, art and the internet to ask ‘Can we cancel Michael Jackson?’ ‘Has J-Lo managed to evade the wrath of cancel culture?’ and ‘How does Green Book’s Oscar win give proof, if proof were needed, that history continues to repeat itself?’ The podcast has scooped up an armful of awards and nominations, receiving glowing reviews from Nylon, Vanity Fair, The Financial Times, New York Magazine and AnOther, among others. Perhaps now more than ever, Still Processing’s return, with Morris and Wortham’s blend of familiar intimacy and incisive criticism, is a welcome comfort. While we’re only beginning to understand the vast social and economic impacts of this pandemic, we’re first having to deal with the much smaller but equally necessary question of how to keep busy, how to stay connected and how to stay sane while separated from friends and family. It’s late March, and both the UK and US are entering an accelerated phase of the Covid-19 outbreak. “This experience is going to turn me into a better cook, for sure.” ’” “Could you forward that to me?” urges Morris. When I read that, I was like ‘ Hell no!’ Then this morning I said to myself, ‘I’ll do that tomorrow. The first part said three hours to make the marinara. Wortham joins in with her own cooking suggestion: “A friend in a group chat shared a photo of his eggplant parmigiana, and I was like, ‘Give me the recipe!’. Their conversation has a warmth and familiarity to it that’s instantly recognisable to Still Processing listeners, a tone The Atlantic described as “sharp and intellectual, goofy and raw” when it selected the show as one of their 50 best podcasts. Fittingly, Wesley is wearing an apron Jenna is surrounded by plants and books. Like the vast majority of us, both writers are confined to their flats for the foreseeable future and have settled into a discussion about ways to cope with an extended period of social distancing. “Then, the next day, turn the pot onto a low, low heat, whisk steadily, add a little butter, a little sugar, and it turns into picture perfect oats.” We’re dialled into a Zoom conference call with his co-host and Times’ magazine writer Jenna Wortham. “You get rolled oats, soak them in a pot of cold water, leave them for an hour or 90 minutes, or overnight,” says Wesley Morris, critic-at-large for The New York Times, and one half of Still Processing.
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