Shoegaze, Silicon Valley & Sunday Quiz

A weekly newsletter: I cover occasional musings, what I’ve been reading, watching, and listening to, plus 10 quiz questions; sent every Sunday at noon.

Jun 29, 2025

Last week’s edition is here.

Reading - Window Seat by Janhavi Acharekar

It’s been a tough time for me picking up my next book.
I sampled Moon Palace by Paul Auster from my collection because the writing was smooth, but I got bored by the third day.
Same was the case with Richard Osman’s The Thursday Murder Club—I dropped it after finishing about 30%. It didn’t grab my attention enough—too many characters and too many redundant details.

Maybe that’s the whole point of the book, but it did no good for me. I’m now reading Window Seat by Janhavi Acharekar. It includes a bunch of short stories from the city of Bombay.

Watching - Silicon Valley

Guess I’m too late to the club—many of my friends have watched and rewatched the series. I’m currently on Season 5, and I really like how the series picks up. It’s not predictable, feels very practical, and is aptly funny at times. The characters are amazing.

Listening - Slowdive and My Bloody Valentine

Continuing the dream pop and shoegaze trend from last week’s Beach House, these two bands came highly recommended. They’re considered pioneers of their genres—and all this with just four album releases.

Slowdive: I particularly liked the albums Souvlaki, Slowdive, and Everything Is Alive. The band wasn’t active for a long time—they released Pygmalion in 1993 and came back in 2017 with the album Slowdive. Here’s a live performance and my fav song Machine Gun.

My Bloody Valentine: The album Loveless is amazing, but it sounded a bit sharp on my speakers (it’s from 1991). You might need to do some tweaking and adjust the sound based on the acoustics that work for you. Their last album, MBV from 2013, is top notch—I highly recommend listening to all of it.

Quiz Questions

You may comment with your answers on the Substack post or reply via email. Answers will be shared next week.

See last week’s answers here.

Which series are we talking about?
The name of each episode foreshadows a significant event that occurs in it.
While season one took all its titles from Hindu mythology, like ‘Ashwathama’ or ‘Aatapi Vatapi’, season two’s episode titles drew inspiration from Greek, Buddhist, Islamic, and Jewish mythologies as well.
What word comes from a Japanese term meaning "savoriness" or "flavor"?
It first appeared in English in 1979, although the taste had been isolated and named seventy years earlier by chemistry professor Dr. Kikunae Ikeda.
Where do the characters from the book The Thursday Murder Club meet every week to investigate unsolved crimes?
The room, located at Coopers Chase, a retirement community, shares its name with a six-letter puzzle created by John Spilsbury, a London cartographer.
People in this country call this fermented food item straggisto, a strained version of the item.
The commonly used term today became popular because of a company called Fage, which was based in Athens.
Which food item, used to prepare the dip tzatziki, are we talking about?
Back in 2003, a nonprofit research group called SRI International began working on a US government-backed AI project known as CALO (Cognitive Assistant that Learns and Organizes).
Their goal was to build an assistant smart enough to learn from and adapt to its user.
Later acquired by Apple in 2010, which company was this?
Located at 6 East 57th Street, NYC, which company launched a café on the 4th floor of its flagship store?
The Italian fashion brand Prada made news this week by featuring a footwear design of Indian origin at its Men's 2026 fashion show.
The brand acknowledged the link, saying it was "inspired" by traditional Indian craftsmanship.
Which GI-tagged footwear is this?
Which UNESCO World Heritage Site is perched above the Urubamba River Valley in a narrow saddle between two sharp peaks—called "Old Peak" and "New Peak"—at an elevation of 2,350 metres?
Aquascutum, derived from Latin for "water" and "shield," was a leading manufacturer of this clothing item, which became popular during World War I. What is it called?
The experimental Martin Marietta X-24 was an aircraft that was retired, but its body was later used as a base in designing the Space Shuttle.
It earned the nickname “Flying ________” because its front view resembled a famous landmark building in New York. Fill in the blank.

Bonus

(read) You sound like ChatGPT
(read) How money works by Paras Chopra
(watch) PewDiePie - I'm DONE with Google, he also did a video on switching to Linux

Before you go…

Liked this edition? Share it with a friend—it helps spread the word.
Reply with what you have you been reading, watching, and listening.
Got a great quiz question? Send across—I might feature it in the next edition.
Looking forward to seeing the quiz answers from you.

See ya next week!

Brainfueled

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