Werner Herzog’s Nosferatu the Vampyre might be my favorite cinematic version of the Dracula story (followed very closely by Francis Ford Coppola’s lavish, erotic and blood-soaked Bram Stoker’s Dracula, though the two are very different.) I think it takes the top spot mainly because of how it doubles down on the idea of the wicked Count as a metaphor for disease and pestilence. Dracula, as a character, has always had to balance his twin needs for affection and apocalypse, and it’s cool to see Herzog play with the former as almost a victim of the latter.

I wasn’t a huge Matthew Perry fan, and I wasn’t even a super-fan of Friends. And yet, ever since his death last week, I’ve felt an intense urge to watch old episodes of the show. Apparently otherpeople have been craving Friends, too, and it’s made me wonder: where is this coming from? And also, when I succumbed to my cravings and started watching it, why did I feel such a sense of nostalgia and longing?

Welcome to Micro-Chop, a newsletter dissecting beatmaking, DJing, music production, rapping, and sampling — written by me, Gino Sorcinelli. Micro-Chop publishes on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday for paid subscribers. Free subscribers receive Monday’s newsletter. Give feedback, send questions, or just say hi by emailing me at gino@bookshelfbeats.com. Long before he programmed one of the most-famous drum patterns in hip-hop history, Milk Dee started rhyming at a mere nine years old. A true pioneer, the Audio Two MC spit his first rhymes during a time when rap radio shows didn’t exist and young listeners hunted down their favorite artists on DJ mixes and bootlegs.

It’s Sunday morning. You’re walking around your favorite local bookstore. A collection of new and used books stacked from floor to ceiling. A rickety step stool is placed in a corner to reach the top shelves. The owner’s cat is hiding beneath a plush armchair. Perhaps you’re browsing the staff recommendations. Maybe these books are displayed on a separate bookshelf (like at The Regulator Bookshop), or propped up on a round table (like at Letters Bookshop), or remain on the shelves that line the stores perimeter, distinguished by index cards hanging from the shelve’s ledge (like at Books Are Magic).

1999’s Superstar has the distinction of being the first, last and only Saturday Night Live movie with a female protagonist and a female star.  Some folks ignorantly claim that 1994’s It’s Pat was cowritten by a woman who also portrayed the title character but the hilarity of Pat comes from the fact that NO ONE knows the character’s gender. On a similar level, no one can ever know the gender of Julia Sweeney, the funny person who breathed life into that most timeless and least problematic of comedy icons.