ALL ABOARD THE TOXIC GOSSIP TRAIN! Installment 3.

This week is all about screens, baby.

In video format:

• I watched Colleen Ballinger's (AKA/FKA Miranda Sings) horrible ukulele apology video. It was worth almost nothing but the header of this week's post and the discourse that came out of it, including this take about how millennials infantilize themselves and have trouble taking responsibility for things that they should as adults. Chelsea's (the creator's) point is that "adulting" marketing, which trivialized everything about an adult experience primarily for millennial audiences (e.g. I never learned how to do my taxes :( ?! Why didn't they teach this in school!!) served mostly to make millennials into adult babies; especially since she's been a YouTuber forever, and she grew up and released a book in peak "adulting" culture, I think her take is decent, and really smart. Next!
• Dylan and I are caught up with the new season of THE RIGHTEOUS GEMSTONES, HBO's dramedy (mostly comedy) about a family that runs a megachurch in Georgia. I loved the first season, which Dylan described as SUCCESSION-like, and which I remember finding novel and equal parts dramatically tense and funny. Now, it leans heavier into the comedy, and the drama has way less stakes attached. The introduction of more and new villains in the second and third seasons tend to make the Gemstones into the de-facto heroes; but it's hard to root for them--they're conservative, uber-rich bible-thumpers who (as millennials?!) can't do anything for themselves. When the options are between them and a "Christian" militia leader, it's not difficult to see who we're meant to root for, though. I will keep watching regardless, and am always tickled by Judy, who has really taken to using AAVE in a way that is the type of offensive that's acceptable to laugh at because its so ridiculous.
• Since HBO has me wrapped around their finger--even despite the wretched merger with, like, TLC, among other channels--I watched THE IDOL through to its finale. After the first episode I was pretty convinced I wouldn't watch another. But I tend to be the type that can't look away, and that's especially the case for "bad TV," even when that includes TV that borders into the pornographic, offensive-to-my-senses, etc. So I watched it. It was so bad I actually wondered how people could look away; I think it serves as a useful object for understanding how "the male gaze" operates in its purest definition. At first glance it seems like the show wants to complicate that gaze--Jocelyn (Lily Rose Depp) is a traumatized pop star needing for parental figures and guidance after the death of her mother. But immediately, and with no real indication as to why, Jocelyn is extremely into having graphic sex with Tedros Tedros (The Weeknd, with two of the same name...) and letting him move in, bringing all of his minions with him. More synopsis isn't worth it, but the point is the show is bad. It's also a great case study for what happens when a nepo-baby wannabe gets free range to write a show he thinks will appeal to teen audiences. Or something. I was always amazed that he got away with it in Euphoria, but I think the aesthetics of that one struck a chord, even if the plot was full of holes and felt unrealistic. The aesthetics of THE IDOL are The Weeknd-y, dark and brooding and hypersexual--all things that, incidentally, were in when The Weeknd came up in the 2010s, and are totally out in 2023. Plus, teenagers online are consistently leaning conservative when it comes to gratuitous sex and violence onscreen. As such, the show failed not only as a piece of art, but even as a piece of junk for people to engage in petty discourse about.

I don't know if this is an every-July thing or a this-July thing, but I watched a lot of movies this week. In order:

• PORCO ROSSO, a Studio Ghibli film about an antifascist pig-man seaplane pirate bounty hunter. I agreed to watch this with Dylan before bed though he'd already seen it; he promptly fell asleep, and I stayed up to watch the rest. When I recounted for him the generally weird vibes (e.g. pig-man is a womanizer who is seemingly stifling affection for his 17-year-old partner in crime/engineer?) he replied, "Oh, I don't remember that. I haven't seen it in like, 12 years."
• CELESTE AND JESSE FOREVER, a very 2012, rom-com where Rashida Jones plays her usual intellectual woman-who-hates-women, and Andy Samberg plays her man-child stay-at-home-artist husband. At the top, they're getting divorced, but also still hanging out all the time, which creates a weird dynamic that only gets weirder when they start sleeping with other people, getting into fights and making up, etc. etc. I thought the movie had some potential conceptually--for a second it seemed like it was going to do a decent job at portraying what it's like to be amidst a breakup with someone you're extremely attached to and best friends with. But the barely-internalized misogyny that Jones's character spouts for the entirety of the film--which, as always, is resolved and absolved, as happens with her types of character(s) every time--and the awkward stutter steps the film does in an attempt to portray the in-between state of divorce, fails majorly. It's also unfunny in the way millennial comedy from the 2010s is unfunny, which is to say, kind of pathetic and sad and often weed-based.
• NOPE, Jordan Peele's third movie which I failed to see for so long largely because of my disappointment in his second US. I didn't think either GET OUT or US were particularly scary, something which perturbed and frustrated me both as someone who watches scary movies expressly to be scared, and because of the rave reviews of both. I thought at the time, and still think that the rave had to do so much with the cultural commentary and subject matter of Peele's first two films, which I found at least a little heavy-handed (a lot, in the case of US), and flat. I found the cultural reception of the films a bit knee-jerk and awkward; was there an option, politically, to dislike GET OUT upon its 2017 release? Anyway--maybe it's the budget; maybe it's the step away from outright race commentary; maybe it's Keke Palmer; whatever it is, I loved NOPE, which scared me more than I expected, and which I ultimately found really fun. It seems like the budget had significantly less commentary-strings attached, which made for a movie about movies, about spectacle, and also about race, if subtly. I think it's exciting and fun, and I feel genuinely excited for whatever Peele does next.
• JUNO, of which not much new or interesting can be said, I imagine. I love this movie. It's just so... earnest.
• NO HARD FEELINGS, another movie I saw somewhat regrettably in theaters. It's a rom-com, though it's light on the rom and the convoluted-yet-predictable plot isn't particularly funny. Though the movie itself was bad, like, truly awful, it managed to endear me for the first time in my life to Jennifer Lawrence. (As a classic internal misogynist this is a huge win for women everywhere; I could not stand J-Law's pizza-loving, quirked up shawty act throughout the 2010s.) This, in combination with her HOT ONES episode, which I watched only because she looked so angelic in all of the promo material for it. Good for her (and her PR team). The movie itself is like a neo-FAILURE TO LAUNCH; this time it's a 32 year old seducing a 19 year old out of his pre-college shell, which makes it a lot weirder and less sensical. It's made worse by the resolution of the movie, which sees the two as best friends, despite the fact that she was hired to sex him by his parents.... Anyway.
• NICK AND NORAH'S INFINITE PLAYLIST, which I was dismayed to find was about one long night out that a bunch of high schoolers have, and not two people falling in love and making playlists for each other. The plot follows Nick and Norah (obviously--played by Michael Cera and Kat Dennings) as they wrangle a drunk friend and attempt to find a band mostly known as "Fluffy." Before we started it, Dylan described this movie as "JUNO dubbed over," which is funny because it's kind of true. It has the vibe but none of the heart or interest of JUNO, which makes it insufferable. I expected that insufferability be made up for by at least a quirky soundtrack. (It was not.) I would not recommend it.

In text:

• I'll be frank. I've been catching up on work and not reading much. But still.
• I started reading Dennis Cooper's THE SLUTS which is, frankly, too fucked up for me. It's unlikely I will continue. I mention this only to direct anyone who doesn't know about it to the Internet Archive, a website which contains hand-scanned copies of books from libraries, which is basically the best type of internet ephemera ever. It's free to sign up, and you can borrow books for either an hour or longer, depending on the book. I feverishly read the first ~50 pages of THE SLUTS knowing I only had an hour to borrow it, but it did disturb me and I did regret it a little. We'll see.
• In preparation for a youth camp I'm teaching next week, I revisited some sections of Ross Gay's THE BOOK OF DELIGHTS, which I haven't read in full but have a fondness towards because of the way it took with my undergrads in the spring. I have two copies; my original hardback, and one which a student gifted me, which is signed by Gay and addressed to me. A delight unto itself!

Other things consumed include:

• About half of the first season of COVER STORY, NY Magazine's podcast which, in its first season, deals in the drama of the psychedelic "therapy" community. I don't love what I'm about to say (and genuinely apologize to K & A, who recommended it kindly!! I love you both and value your recommendations forever...), but I kind of hate this podcast, mostly on account of the weird victim narrative espoused by the main character turned lead investigator/journalist, who is telling a story of her own assault and subsequent shunning from the psychedelic therapy world. It's not that I don't believe that abuse goes on in that space. It's that the reporting and fact checking seems to have massive blind spots, including an incredibly obtuse lack of acknowledgement of the fact that no psychedelic therapist is accredited or doing anything legal in almost any state. It seems blindingly obvious that there would be a culty aspect of control attached to a pseudoscience therapy run by woo-woo French people in California. A more interesting story, and a less obvious question to parse, might've involved exploring more closely why people--who are often already traumatized, who might need real and serious therapy, and who (also not really clearly discussed in the 5 episodes of the show I listened to) are frequently extremely rich white people--turn to a fake therapy space, involving MDMA and Ketamine and Shrooms, to solve their mental problems. This, I genuinely wonder about. Less so the seedy, abusive underbelly of the space itself.
• The entirety of the giant room in Santa Fe's INTERNATIONAL FOLK ART MUSEUM, which is maybe my favorite museum in the whole country. The room, collected by two random folks, contains folk art mostly from the 60s on from all over the world, and includes a little guidebook so you can follow along with each numbered thing. There's truly hundreds of pieces of art, most of which are miniatures or papier mache, and all are handmade and incredibly special. I love the museum because it's unconcerned with capital-A Art--it's specifically a collection of the handmade, the personal, the religious, the home.
• Apparently the entirety of forty-four minute YouTube video which contains fifteen different Spam recipes. This after eating my first bite (and many subsequent bites) of Spam at the local coffee shop, which sells multiple kinds of burritos, including one with Spam (duh), nori, veggies, and fried rice. A friend of Dylan's visited in the spring and wouldn't stop raving about this burrito, which he ate thrice (at least) over the course of his four (?) day visit. I can't say he was wrong for any of it; the burrito sticks out in my mind so clearly that I am practically dreaming about it. If he reads this I'm sure he'll be happy and smug, since my initial estimation of the burrito was that it isn't "the best in the world." Maybe not, but those are unfortunately not the metrics on which my daily life runs.
• As I post this, I'm listening to Margeaux's AKA marg.mp3's show on NTS Radio. I unfortunately spent most of a day recently on TikTok--a thing I sometimes let myself do, for just a day--and am always delighted to see Margeaux's content, which introduces me and many others to really great music. I've followed her since the beginning (and in fact we know each other IRL a little!!) and not much has changed, except that now she has a following; I don't really get music recs besides the Spotify AI (which tends to suck), so Margeaux's content feels fresh to me. I am, admittedly, jealous of someone who can write and think about music in the way she does, but always glad to follow her since she recommends albums from all cultures and sounds. Listen to her show for the next hour if you're reading!!! :^)