Volume 21: August 18, 2023
Scroll on for some of our signature pop culture-related snark as well as what we're reading, watching, and listening to at the moment.
Gilmore Girls Corner
This week’s episode is for all the people that can’t take criticism very well, for the people who cry at work, for the people who’ve always tried their best… You get the picture.
Three years ago, Jenny Singer wrote an article in Glamour about the ridiculousness that was Rory’s decision to steal a yacht. While most people look back on this episode with hate or disdain, Singer has a different take:
“For others (well, for me) it is a high point: It is both the most hilariously entitled, absurd, rich-person decision anyone on the show makes, and it is also the only time Rory experiences consequences. On both levels, it is immensely satisfying.”
When you think about the elite world that the elder Gilmores live in - which is on full display in this episode, what with Emily trying to purchase HUMAN BEINGS - it conjures up images of the top 1%. EAT THE RICH.
The article is well-worth reading. Enjoy!
What We’re Reading
Eleni: The Celebrants by Steven Rowley
Steve Rowley’s writing is great, but the ideas don’t always resonate with me. I didn’t really enjoy Lily and the Octopus even though the writing was very moving. The Editor was also well-written, but I couldn’t connect with the plot. But The Guncle was one of the best books I read in 2021 and made me want to read everything Rowley writes. I was hoping The Celebrants wouldn’t make me regret that decision and it didn’t.
When their college friend Alec dies unexpectedly right before graduation, a group of friends gathers in Big Sur to celebrate his life. They make a pact to throw each other “living funerals” where they express their love and appreciation for the “dead”. This book is kind of a coming-of-age story for adults. And as an adult who often thinks about how my life didn’t really turn out the way I thought, I resonated with the characters’ crises.
Wanna hear a super heartwarming story? Rowley’s fiancé is also an author (I mentioned his book Big Gay Wedding a few newsletters ago) and you gotta read their proposal story.
Jeffrey: Tell Me Everything by Minka Kelly
You might be thinking, “What has Minka Kelly done to warrant writing a memoir?” As an actress, she’s best known for her roles on Friday Night Lights and Parenthood, and she’s since done some philanthropy and charity work. This memoir first piqued my interest, of course, when she appeared on The View to promote it, and there’s nothing I love more a B or C-list, possibly misunderstood actress pouring her life experiences into a memoir. Preach, mama! There’s a lot to digest in Tell Me Everything, which deals mostly with Kelly’s unstable and abusive childhood. She overcame a lot to get where she is today, and it’s definitely applaudable. If you liked her characters on Friday Night Lights or Parenthood and like a good celebrity memoir, it’s worth picking this one up.
What We’re Watching
Eleni: Parks and Recreation
Bababooey! I’m deep into my summer depression which means that I cannot consume any new television shows. I cannot afford to get invested in new storylines and relationships and character dynamics and get sucked down the Twitter rabbit hole where I watch edits and read other peoples’ opinions about different scenes.
The only way to get around this slump is to rewatch old favorites. Parks and Recreation was overshadowed by The Office, which was at its most popular in 2009 when NBC picked up Parks and Rec. But the writing is super smart, the stories are cohesive and the acting is outstanding. The fact that the cast and writers never won any Emmys is a travesty. I think Gilmore Girls fans can relate. You know what they did win, though? A GLAAD Award for an episode where Amy Pohler’s characters marries two male penguins at the zoo. It’s so charming.
Eleni: Three Months
Jeffrey picked my movie this week. I would like that to be known.
Is Troye Sivan an amazing actor? No. But he gives a pretty charming performance, even if his delivery of what I’m sure was supposed to be a moving monologue about death was a little robotic. He plays “annoying twink who hates life and is obsessed with pop culture” really well, though.
Sivan plays a young man who has a one night stand where the condom breaks. He then finds out that his partner is HIV positive and has to wait three months to get his test results back. I think there’s great value in a film like this - because even though it’s 2023, there still aren’t enough movies out there for queer people and the struggles they experience with their health. There are so many coming-of-age movies and television shows out there for heterosexual young adults, it’s time for the film industry to catch up for the queer community.
Jeffrey: Heartstopper Season 2
Everyone who’s close to me knows that I am borderline maniacally obsessed with everything Heartstopper and especially everything Kit Connor. (Eleni’s going to object loudly to the use of “borderline” in that sentence.) I’ve been slowly making my way through season 2 of the Netflix adaptation of the widely beloved graphic novel series by Alice Oseman. Heartstopper is definitely a series that would benefit from releasing new episodes one by one every week, because there’s so many little details to appreciate in the writing, production, acting, and cinematography. But alas, they just drop 8 episodes in our lap at a time and make us wait over a year for more.
I’m also taking my time with season 2 of Heartstopper not only because I want to make it last, but also because I find it very overwhelming to watch. Not just in the “omg so cute SWOON” way, but in a more serious manner. There have been so few productions that have captured the queer teenage experience in such an effective and tasteful way, and that makes me very happy and sad at the same time. Happy because I can invest in it wholeheartedly and (borderline) maniacally, sad because there’s just crumbs of it to consume at a time, and the experiences of these characters often happen very differently in real life. It’s both escapism and not escapism. You feel me?
Jeffrey: Wild
Look, the objective of this edition of the newsletter was to assign movies to each other again, but I’ve had just a bit going on over the last few weeks (road trip across a country border by myself, started my first ever full-time job at my local library). So I haven’t had a whole lotta time to watch new movies, or any movies, for that matter. I’ve been working shifts that end at 9pm and the only brainpower I have left is to watch episodes of Desperate Housewives I’ve seen a gazillion times, OK?
But I did need a movie to include in this week’s newsletter, so I thought I’d include one that I watched on my road trip a few weeks back. I went to Ithaca, New York, the setting of one of my all-time favorite books, The People We Keep. Upstate New York is known for its vast selection of waterfalls and state parks, so I figured I’d do some solo hiking while I was there. And during my first afternoon of hiking through a relatively small area of botanical gardens, I started thinking to myself, “I am schvitzing half my body weight right now. What the hell was Cheryl Strayed smoking?”
So, that night in my hotel room, I rewatched Wild, a movie I first watched during the pandemic and one that I think awakened emotions in myself I wasn’t yet ready to deal with. Since then, I’ve acquired an appreciation for the story and the movie that I didn’t have before. I think it ended up being the perfect movie to watch while I was travelling on my own, a week away from starting a new phase of my own life.
What We’re Listening To
Eleni: Bloom by Troye Sivan
It’s only fitting that I listened to Troye Sivan’s album after watching him on screen this week. Bloom is a mellow album. The songs aren’t all winners, but it was still really easy to find some new obsessions. “Lucky Strike” is the perfect song for a mellow summer night sway and “What a Heavenly Way to Die” makes me feel like I’m in a trance. Not bad, Troye.
Jeffrey: Orphan Black: The Next Chapter Season 2
I’m a huge Orphan Black fan as most of you should know by now, and I’d made it my mission earlier this year to start listening to the podcast continuation of the series called The Next Chapter. Season 1 was narrated entirely by Tatiana Maslany, with her playing all of the characters both clone and otherwise. I listened to the first half of the first episode of the second season and wasn’t as enthused by having other actors from the original cast join the podcast. But then many months went by before I got back into it, and let me just say season 2 of Orphan Black: The Next Chapter is PHENOMENAL. Unlike season 1, with all of the actors from the cast playing their own respective characters, plus the same musical score, it feels like an actual new season of the original show. The episodes are also a bit shorter in the second season, so it’s easy to blow through them on the edge of your seat. It makes me want to get into other scripted audio/podcast series like this. If you know of any good ones, please send them to me!
Hot Topics
As we mention on this week’s episode of Coffee With a Shot of Cynicism, I (Jeffrey) recently a wrote a listicle for Book Riot of 8 overrated literary classics and 8 books to read instead. It received a very passionate (read: negative) response from people on social media, mostly boomers who still can’t accept criticism of white cis male authors from the ‘50s. I’ve also learned that Jane Austen has an ardent fanbase who also don’t take criticism lightly.
You might be wondering why this is laughable, you might not. The thing is, the list I wrote was in no way a serious piece of journalism, as most of my commentators went to great lengths to point out. (Shoutout to Audrey who sent me a novel-length email, yes email, explaining how and why each entry on my list was wrong.) Book Riot is not The New Yorker or The Washington Post. That isn’t to say we are not reputable, we absolutely are.
But we mostly run easy, breezy content; some of it is meant to ruffle feathers, since we tackle our fair share of hot literary topics. But this listicle of mine, dear reader, was not one of those topics. The assignment notes said, “Be prepared for some angry comments,” and whew, people were angry. But please get a grip. The world is literally burning right now, and you’re out here dedicating headlines (yes headlines) to how a writer from Book Riot doesn’t like Lolita.
And at the end of the day, I always have the last laugh, since at least I’m paid to write. Audrey will never be compensated for the time she spent typing out that email to me. I also broke the sound barrier with the number of views of this list. I will say, however, this reaction pales in comparison to the time I received death threats and online harassment for almost a month when I panned Camila Cabello’s last album. Being a writer on the Internet in 2023 is fun!
And that’s how Sue “c’s” it.