New Feature

So a lot of people are accusing me of being Jon Hamm because my old site ended just before Mad Men started filming and my new site came on-line just after it ended, and because my writing oozes raw sexuality. I'm not going to come straight out and confirm this because it's really not the way I wanted this all to come to light. I mean... I don't know... can we just drop it? Let's just move on.

When Michael Close used to do the reviews in Magic magazine, he had a section called, It's Not Magic, But... This was a section for him to talk about things that he enjoyed that were off the topic of magic. When Steve Brooks started his site, he came up with a really cool and wholly original name for his off-topic forum: Not Very Magical, Still....

Inspired by that originality, the name for my off-topic post feature is: There Are Those Things We Would Categorize, However Loosely, As Magic Related, And Then There Are Those Things That Would Land Outside Of That Designation. These Things That Follow Will Fall Into The Latter Category, However...

If you have Netflix, one of your friends has probably pestered you to watch Black Mirror, a kind of modern Twilight Zone(esque) series out of Britain. Your friend is right, It is a good show. (And if you like it, try and see the movie Ex Machina which feels like a lost Black Mirror episode). But it also tries to be a bit highfalutin. And I'm not highfalutin. I'm straight-up Piper Smurf (low flutin').

So my recommendation for the best anthology series on Netflix is Darknet, which is geared less towards the snobs and more towards the slobs like you and me. If you like horror, EC Comics, urban legends, or things like that, you'll like the show. It doesn't try to "make you think" like Black Mirror does, it just tries to scare you or gross you out. But if you feel dirty slumming it with the riffraff, then just say to yourself at the end of each episode, "They make a good point. These technologies that are meant to bring us together often just push us further apart." And then it will be like you're watching something smart.