110: please be normal

THIS WEEK: Hung Up Live; RHOA; morning movies

COMMUNITY BOARD

Goodreads / Letterboxd / Instagram / Writers Against the War on Gaza (WAWOG)

• RAFTM¹ Hunter Harris and her bestie, Peyton Dix, just launched their podcast, Lemme Say This. You don’t need me to tell you it’s incredible!

---

A woman with something to say. photo by emma trim

On Wednesday night, I had the GREATEST honor to be one of nine writers to perform at “And I’m Glad You Brought It Up,” the first IRL event for

Hung Up

. Day one readers (i.e. my friends) know that I’ve been a fan of Hunter for a long time so to be asked to be part of her event and to speak alongside people I’m obsessed with? Honey, I couldn’t handle it. The night was so much fun!² Everyone was obviously fantastic, but Sydnee Washington and Peyton Dix were my favorites (and Hunter’s chosen winners in fact). Each of us were prompted to come with a three-minute spiel on a piece of pop culture history that we were convinced we were the only ones that remembered it. I talked about what might be my favorite Instagram post of all time: Hilton Als’ post about Maggie Rogers’s first ever SNL performance, in which he calls her “unmusical” and essentially expresses his disappointment that she doesn’t realize that she’s a pawn of the music industry.

the post in question; you can FEEL the disappointment

Here are some of the other moments that I debated talking about:

• The incidents that led to the end of Michael Fassbender and Nicole Beharie’s relationship (obviously that would have been too dark).

• twelve, the movie starring Chace Crawford and 50 Cent as best friends who deal drugs to Chace’s former UES classmates. Basically edgy Gossip Girl. The movie also stars Emma Roberts, Rory Culkin,³ and (as Google tells me) The Bear himself, Jeremy Allen White.

• The Cut Priyanka Chopra golddigger piece — the satire that never was!

• Rashida Jones and Ezra Koenig being married and having a son.

• E!’s SoCosmo reality show (the show that inspired The Bold Type basically).

• Jude Law and Sienna Miller’s affair. I’m definitely not the only person who remembers this—if you lived through it, you can’t forget it!

You can read Hunter’s event recap here:

PARTY REPORT: “And I’m Glad You Brought It Up”

---

Between psyching myself out for Wednesday, packing for an upcoming trip, and finishing one last final (thank GAWD I’m done), I haven’t felt like doing much in my free time but gorging out on episodes of Real Housewives of Atlanta. I’ve never watched the show from the beginning but now I’m obsessed. It’s all I want to talk about. There is nothing that screams 2008 more than that first season: the way they say African-American; Kim Zolciak’s insistence that she is “a black woman trapped in a white woman’s body;” all of their home decor. I am currently on season five and cannot get over new cast member Kenya Moore suggesting that winning Miss USA in 19whatever makes her president-level important. (The exact line: “Moore, Obama, Clinton—I am a part of history.”) I know that at the best of times American democracy is little more than pageantry but girl, please be for real.

I also steamed through the new episodes of Bridgerton and forgot about them as soon as I was done. As RAFTM Olivia Crandall pointed out in her newsletter, the season had already flopped before it started because of Netflix’s choice to release half of the season now and then release the rest in June. Bridgerton has never really been a show about edging—even their slow burn isn’t all that slow—so I’m not really sure why they thought it’d be a good idea to start now. More so, Nicola Coughlan’s talent is unfortunately unmatched by her leading man and there are two many secondary plot lines going on. As someone who has watched the previous Bridgerton seasons at least twice,⁴ they are never going to do better than Jonathan Bailey and Simone Ashley’s season.

Inspired by

Katie Merchant

, I’ve been sneaking in some morning movies over the last few weeks: I finally watched Party Girl which was incredible ofc; Mothering Sunday, just because Josh O’Connor is in it; Alice Rohrwacher’s Happy as Lazarro as a follow up to La chimera; and this morning I watched my favorite, Gone Girl (I love this movie but maybe a little too long for a morning movie?).

Quote of the week: “I need everyone to stop pathologizing everything to make the weekly newsletter quota…Free yourselves!” - Marlowe Granados, with exquisite words of wisdom as always

In case you missed it (and are not already exhausted by the discourse), RAFTM Raquel Alvarado and I recently chopped it up about Challengers. (And if you still have it in you after that, I’ve also removed the paywall from my Challengers line reading.)

1. RAFTM = Reader and Friend to Me; coined by Rachel Tashjian

2. I definitely feel like at some point my brain went completely blank and cannot be held to anything I said or did!

3. Coincidentally, I was telling RAFTM Rachel Davies about this movie on Wednesday night and then on the train home who do I spot other than Mr. Culkin himself, making out with his girlfriend.

4. Ok obviously I have seen the second season a lot more than twice…