each generation discovers the concept of “aesthetic” anew
plus: a most delicious pan of THAT poly book
Well, all I can say at the moment is that it’s weird vibes central over here! However, the links must be lunked. Someone’s gotta do it.
At this point in the media apocalypse, the endurance of Slate feels like a pleasant surprise, no? And they keep managing to do actually fun things, like this perfect group blog on perfect times to do things.
Gobs of mermaid lore and a deep dive (tee hee) into the queer and colonial politics of The Little Mermaid over the years/various versions in Sophie Lewis’s “Can the Sireniform Speak?” in the most recent issue of The Drift:
Obviously, Ursula is The Little Mermaid’s villain. Yet, in a squint-eyed interpretation of the kind I personally was inclined to extract as a newly pubescent viewer, one can still locate pro-Ursula, Ursula-curious, or at least non-heterosexual undertones. One might entertain, for instance, the notion that Ariel is not entirely repelled by the idea of Ursula as her mistress, perhaps viewing her as a kind of fallback, should courting the land-lubber fail. No? Fine. But let me tell you: I adored Ursula. Every time I watched her bind Ariel’s arms to her sides with her supple pink boa, and pull the mermaid up against her hips, my lips parted involuntarily.
When Simon Rich cranks out another oddly poignant Shouts & Murmurs, you click: “And so the ant marched over to the cockroach, and, while he didn’t have cocaine, he did have pills.” It gets better from there. (For a more fascinating-than-average Wikipedia career page, look at Simon’s.)
Had a lot of housebound time this winter and wound up catching up on Tom Scocca’s NY Mag essay, “My Unraveling,” in the same week that I read Evan Grillon’s “Vegetation” essay in Dirt. You might say they’re both “illness essays,” except a more accurate term might be “existential notes on physicality” essays that stare pretty openly at the body horror of, well, having a body—a reckoning, as both point out, that doesn’t become nightmarishly all-consuming for anyone until, well, it does.
Rachel Syme’s New Yorker profile of Sofia Coppola is a gourmet chocolate box-ful of prime groupchat material; the part that killed me most was the young fan approaching Coppola and saying, “You literally invented ‘aesthetic.’” One feels bemusement, then rage, then a grudging acknowledgement that every generation discovers which words they most like to describe their own bewildering come-up.
Flaming Hydra is the latest Defector-esque media co-op project from the Brick House Cooperative folks, though I never totally figured out their deal when they launched in 2020. Could be cool? Based on that rather impressive contributors list, I’m assuming Flaming Hydra is more of like, a freelance showcase than a business that could actually sustain 60 writers and artists full-time, but hey, please prove me wrong!
So far, I’ve gotten into Anna Merlan’s wicked little pan of that polyamory book/the latest poly discourse. Two favorite lines: “The path is made easier, seemingly, by the fact that Winter does not appear to go to work very often” and “This kind of polyamory conflict—sexual jealousy, without many concerns about strained resources—seems to make good copy.” Hehehe.
Ultimately, when it comes to link roundups, Rusty Foster remains the best in the game, and this Today in Tabs roundup from last week written in King-James-Bible-speak is a testament to the literary form he’s been pioneering since 2013. I like the part where it veers slightly into pirate-ese (“it was the time of lunch and science be hungry work.”)
TV shows I Actually Liked And Have Recommended To Real People In My Life, sponsored by Netflix (Not really) (Unless???)
Singles Inferno Season 3, especially if you want to observe a tall, hunky basketball player be extremely transparent about how bad he is at juggling the attention of three people at once.
In terms of wholesome-seeming Korean reality TV, I also adored Physical 100, which is a show where they got 100 super-fit people in South Korean to compete in like, the Ultimate Field Day. Really, it’s a feat of reality TV production. The challenges—which include breaking into teams and dragging a huge ship across a room, hanging from the rafters above an open pool—are dramatic enough that the most regular degular person can understand the stakes (as opposed to trying to care about grown men move a ball back and forth for a few hours).
Also, one forms allegiances and opinions pretty quickly about the different types of contestants present, which I separated into 1) the occupationally fit (i.e. mountain rescue guy and the military bros), 2) the athletes (predisposed to winning nonsensical challenges!), and 3) the vanity fit (CrossFit influencers, bodybuilders). So many extremely different ways of life intersecting! Yet it’s cute when they all get excited about the supplements room! (If you find yourself enjoying the show too much and wondering why American reality TV can’t be this cheery, google “Physical 100 controversy” afterward lol).Griselda, because A) it’s nice to see Sofia Vergara act and like, speak Spanish under non-joke circumstances, and also B) it’s funny to think about how one might refashion a Narcos-y narrative for the female gaze. Plenty of “she’s just a protective mother” character filling, check. Hot henchmen, check. Very stylishly shot; I liked this way more than the new Mr. & Mrs. Smith thingy and its horrific grasp of banter.
Animal TikToks I’ve Actually Sent To Friends Personally Even Though They May Not Have RESPONDED In Kind Yet About These Nice, Hand-Curated Tokens of Affinity
French cat, which also led me to…
Dancing mushroom (not animal but worth it)
Not a animal one but extremely worth it
P.S. Do you guys like this format? I for sure cribbed the divider lines concept from Choire Sicha and the NY Mag Dinner Party newsletter, but isn’t it much nicer to read these little chunks than a list of bullet points? Also, JUST CURIOUS, this is a SUPER THEORETICAL QUESTION, but do you guys prefer a bigger links list like this over tiny, daily dispatches? THEORETICALLY, I mean.
slight preference for daily snippet but I'll take what I can get! (so nice to see deez links in my inbox!)
Theoretically yes!