Pee-Wee, the quilters, Korean anime, big pharma chases a mushroom

+ digital gardening and 2 sweet tunes round out a robust Rave Tent

Jun 05, 2025

a continuous mix of shows, books, articles + more worth raving about

this week: 2 docs, adult swim’s best new animated series, digital gardening, and a screenshot no one asked for. scroll to b2b for Stereolab, Drugdealer and Weyes Blood.

Lately I’ve surrounded myself with memoirs, essay collections and documentaries. I’m looking to uncover truths, learn a history, anchor to factual things (as a way to stay grounded in increasingly fucky times?). In between all the realness, I stumbled on some exceptional animated media to balance it out.

Healing through crafting

In The Quilters prisoners in max security in Missouri make quilts for foster children. They’re incredible quilts and all the guys who work on them are so honest about what it means to them. I like how it humanizes them and is only about what happens in the quilting room. It demonstrates how a craft like quilting can change a person, as they reconcile their demons and pour their hearts into creative work. It’s a 30-minute documentary. Just watch it!

Pee-Wee as Himself

If you weren’t born in the 80s, please know there was a lot of Pee-Wee merch in the hey-day. The Pee-Wee Herman doll, of course, and the cyclist cap with a cape on the back that he used to fly around in both remind me of my neighbor’s basement in 1990. The mixed media set of Pee-Wee’s Playhouse is art school student stoner heaven. So much texture in shows. Nowadays a lot of life is disappointingly flat and flawless!

The first Korean anime on Netflix

Lost in Starlight is set in a visually stunning, futuristic Seoul, year 2050. It’s a love story about an astronaut who falls in love with a hot hunk lol just before her trip to space. Ain’t that always the way? There’s emotional anguish over her mom, who was an astronaut who died on a mission. The pacing dragged at parts, but the emotional story comes to life through the warm, lush, future-city environment.

Common Side Effects

I watched this when it came out in Feb but it’s new to the Rave Tent. Animated or not, it’s one of the best things I’ve watched all year—and it’s about big pharma! And a guy with a super-healing mushroom who tells his ex-lab partner about it (unaware she happens to work for the evil pharma company). You root for the characters to keep the blue mushroom top secret, concealed from the pharma company and the DEA, and get to the bottom of the conspiracy. Renewed for a season 2.

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Digital gardens

Anna Howard has a calming presence. She makes digital gardens seem like a good idea, even when explaining them can become quickly convoluted (e.g. source notes vs main notes). The appeal of digital gardens lies in the ability to connect themes and overall track your brain’s curiosity. I see it as another tool I could use to help myself define myself. But, similar to bullet journaling, pretty sure it’s the concept I like rather than actually doing it. But who knows, maybe I’ll try it.

The idea of ‘watching your thoughts,’ observing what your subconscious is up, and how concepts/interests change over time makes it sound like a pinterest of your brain. The end result of gardening is hopefully becoming a more mindful, thoughtful, and analytical human rather than remaining as a numb, surface-level consumer of all things, all the time, endless scroll-style.

And Just Like That…

You prob at least saw the hat lololol but—

SJP, never not a new yorker about it. It’s kinda classic that line tho. But please know, the nun is played by Rosie O’Donnell so yeahh, that’s the world they’re living in, in season 3.