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The Brunch round-up for October 10: The week and how it made us feel
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This week, we’re looking at Namjoon’s art, going back to wired earphones, calling out racist novels and loving the East of Eden remake
Sharing notes. English majors, calm down. East of Eden is playing on Netflix and Cathy is not as evil as John Steinbeck wrote her. Creator Zoe Kazan makes some sympathetic tweaks. We watch Cathy drive her teacher to suicide, burn her parents alive and abandon her infant twins, and we still end up on her side. Because what other choice did a woman have in the late 1800s?
Hanging it up. Namjoon has opened up his art collection of 142 works to the public. Yay! He also announced it in the most Namjoon way ever, saying he felt guilty about amassing so much art and being “a boring rich snore”. One part of the exhibit is titled I Don’t Know But I Like It – works by Cy Twombly and Felix Gonzalez-Torres, and a Pikachu animation. They’re on view at San Francisco’s Museum of Modern Art until February. The gig we want tickets for.
Getting spousal benefits. No matter how long you doomscroll, a Reel of Sonakshi Sinha and husband Zaheer Iqbal being a chaotic, mushy couple will eventually show up. She’s teased him for spending too long fixing his hair. He’s pranked her by hairspraying her locks while she was asleep. Now, they’re both starring in the romantic thriller Tu Hai Meri Kiran, about love turning to obsession. Heart this.
Giddying up. Remember those steamy Western romances featuring dark, brooding heroes, innocent virgins and “noble savages” who were not like other indigenous villains? Danica Nava’s book, Bodice Ripper, flips the tropes with relish. The Native American main character has to deal with racist White settlers, escape from domineering cowboys and save her tribe in 1800s Oklahoma. Our hero!
Weirded out. Netflix knows how to rage-bait us with dystopic reality TV. First, they dropped Wonka’s The Golden Ticket, in which contestants lick candy walls for cash (the opposite of the book’s “greed = bad” message). This month brings The New Stanford Prison Experiment, inspired by the panned 1971 IRL version. Maybe the real experiment is finding out just how much bizarre TV we’ll watch.
Plugged in. Wired earphones are back – and not just because we saw Harry Styles and Zendaya wearing them. Bose’s model has noise cancellation and a USB-C port. It means cheaper brands will follow suit. Bliss. Let’s bring back the iPod too.
Swiping left. Hinge says safety is a big concern for its Indian users, particularly women. So, it’s blocking screenshots in India and verifying users before they join the app. Wait. Screenshots actually help women circulate red-flag profiles among friends. And should they not have been doing verification checks all along? We’ll keep sharing our location with our besties and carrying pepper spray, thanks.
Plotting something. Imagine asking Rhysand from ACOTAR to tell us how he fell for Feyre. Or getting Adam Carlsen from The Love Hypothesis to open up about his past, in his own words. Audible is rolling out a new AI-powered feature that lets users talk to audiobook characters and ask them about the book and its world. We have questions. So many. Hear that? It’s the sound of dark romance fans losing their minds.
From HT Brunch, October 10, 2026
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