AYESHA RASCOE, HOST:
Our crew in the NPR newsroom learned last week that the phrase winter blues hit a five-year high on Google search. Seems way more people are searching for a tropical beach vacation than a ski trip, and I know the feeling. If you need a cure for the winter blahs, we have some. NPR's Barrie Hardymon, avid reader and watcher of things is here. Hi, Barrie.
BARRIE HARDYMON, BYLINE: Hi there.
RASCOE: And also Linda Holmes, host of NPR's Pop Culture Happy Hour, also an avid reader and watcher of things - hi, Linda.
LINDA HOLMES, BYLINE: Hello, hello.
RASCOE: Let's just set the scene here. You're curling up for a cozy Sunday. What's good to have on hand if you're trying to do a little self-care, just trying to take care of yourself?
HARDYMON: Could it be a Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday or Friday?
(LAUGHTER)
RASCOE: Any day these days.
HOLMES: I think on a cozy any day - Barrie and I, while we were talking about this, agreed that you got to have a couple different things. We like the self-heating mug. You don't want to have to get up.
HARDYMON: No.
RASCOE: No.
HOLMES: Keeps your drink warm - and we're electric blanket people, right, Barrie?
HARDYMON: Hugely - lately, I have really been sort of reduced to opening up my phone and looking at puppy videos. And...
RASCOE: (Laughter).
HARDYMON: ...What I realized, actually, over the last 70 weeks of January, is that you can search for particular kinds of things. And what my favorite thing is - and I cannot recommend this highly enough - is a medium-sized, medium-aged dog getting a puppy or a kitten of its own.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: It's for you. We got you a puppy.
The first couple of days, he was kind of scared of her.
(SOUNDBITE OF PUPPY BARKING)
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: He is so tiny.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "WHEN SHE LOVED ME")
LYN LAPID: (Singing) Everything was beautiful.
HARDYMON: I felt my heart rate slow.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "WHEN SHE LOVED ME")
LAPID: (Singing) Every hour spent together.
(SOUNDBITE OF DOG BARKING)
HOLMES: Mine is less cuddly but, in my opinion, equally relaxing. I play simulator games, usually either on, like, a PS5 or - a lot of them, I play on PC. I build a city, and then you got to set up all the city services and figure out, like, where's the school going to go and all that stuff. Love those - love to make the electricity work with a wind farm instead of a coal plant, you know?
(LAUGHTER)
HOLMES: It just - it feels like a little win.
HARDYMON: Yeah.
RASCOE: Yeah.
HOLMES: You can also do, like, a fast food restaurant simulator. There's a great one that I love where you build your own zoo.
HARDYMON: I love a salon...
HOLMES: Yeah. Oh, you can do...
HARDYMON: ...Like, simulator.
HOLMES: Yes.
HARDYMON: I also love a salon, but, yes.
HOLMES: You can do salon ones. So I like to literally construct my own world.
RASCOE: (Laughter).
HOLMES: And even if sometimes there's a little too much traffic, and I have to rebuild all the roads...
HARDYMON: Oh, no.
HOLMES: ...I know that I can make things right within my city.
RASCOE: I like these. I like what y'all - but I understand y'all are also here to give us some recommendations. So let's start with what to watch when you're trying to chase those winter blues away. Linda, what do you suggest?
HOLMES: So I have two basic suggestions. One is what I would call gentle TV. And there's a whole world of kind of shows that are - they're still funny. They're still fun, but they're a little bit more kind of humane and kindhearted than a lot of television. One is "A Man On The Inside," which is on Netflix, which stars Ted Danson as a guy who goes undercover as a resident in a senior living facility.
(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "A MAN ON THE INSIDE")
TED DANSON: (As Charles) Julie, it is 7:05 a.m. To recap our suspect list, 15 staff members have been ruled out. Four were on duty during both crimes. First is Penny, the med tech. She seems pleasant and hardworking.
CATHERINE LEONG: (As Penny) Alice, time to walk.
DANSON: (As Charles) But this job may be getting to her.
(SOUNDBITE OF DOOR SLAMMING)
LEONG: (As Penny) Alice, Jerry, you got to lock the door, put a sock on the knob, something.
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #1: (As Jerry) Sorry.
DANSON: (As Charles) Dennis, the chef, was working both nights.
HOLMES: It is one of the few shows I know that gives kind of full shape and breadth and humanity to the older people who live there. And my other one is satisfying tasks on YouTube. So there are a couple of people who go out and clear drains during rainstorms. There's one of these videos that has 30 million views.
(SOUNDBITE OF RAKE DRAGGING)
HOLMES: The guy goes out and takes a rake and clears out all the drains, and eventually, all the rainwater that's flooding the streets kind of just sucks down into the drains.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
UNIDENTIFIED YOUTUBER: That whirlpool is awesome. Oh, it's almost gone. You can see the center divide now.
(SOUNDBITE OF WATER RUSHING)
UNIDENTIFIED YOUTUBER: We're making a ton of progress. I'm going to go across the street now.
HOLMES: Amazing, so satisfying - also rug cleaning. There's a video that's, like, six hours of rug cleaning to help you fall asleep...
RASCOE: (Laughter).
HOLMES: ...'Cause they clear off these rugs, and they get all the dirt off, and you - the pattern emerges.
HARDYMON: I will also note, just to combine those things, Linda, for you, if you don't know about it, there is a game on the PS5 which is just power washing. Like you power wash things.
HOLMES: I play it. It's called "PowerWash Simulator."
HARDYMON: It's good. I mean, it really helped our household until we fought over it.
HOLMES: Yeah.
RASCOE: (Laughter).
HARDYMON: I love "PowerWash Simulator."
RASCOE: Barrie, what about things to read?
HARDYMON: Well, couple things - everybody's going to feel differently about this, but I am an avid sci-fi fantasy person, which - already, you're in a different world. So let's start with my favorite of all time, which is "Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy." This is a marvelous, marvelous series by Douglas Adams. It's decades old, but it's really hilarious. You only spend a little bit of time on Earth because Earth is destroyed very early on. I just want to warn you about that. But you're kind of like, OK, anyway, Earth. And you move on, and it is truly a series of characters and ridiculous things that are exactly that sort of blend of genuine comedy and sweetness and real philosophy. Now, you can consume the books. I recommend them. You can also consume the BBC radio plays, which are incredible.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
UNIDENTIFIED NARRATOR: To tell the story of the book, it's best to tell the story of some of the minds behind it. A human from the planet Earth was one of them. His name is Arthur Dent. He is a 6-foot tall ape descendant, and someone is trying to drive a bypass through his home.
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #2: (As character) Come off it, Mr. Dent. You can't win, you know. Look, there's no point in lying down in the path of progress.
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #3: (As character) I've gone off the idea of progress. It's overrated.
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #2: (As character) But you must realize...
HARDYMON: Another thing I actually really like to do is go down to real dystopia. With this, I'm talking, like, "Silo," which is also a great TV series about a postapocalyptic world where humans are living underground in silos. The television series is also great and it's different, and it's kind of nice to be able to compare how they're different. I like them both equally. They have different things to say about being underground in a postapocalypse situation. But it's great. You have so much to consume, and I find myself - you know, like, I don't want half the baked potato at this time of year. I want the whole thing, and I want it with both butter and olive oil, which is actually my last tip.
(LAUGHTER)
RASCOE: That's Barrie Hardymon and Linda Holmes, working the cozy beat for NPR. We appreciate you. Thank you so much.
HARDYMON: Thank you.
HOLMES: Thank you.
(SOUNDBITE OF .CLOUDS' "AUTUMN SUN") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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