Staunchly, vol. 46: I miss Bob Costas' Millennial Pink Eye

(Originally posted: 2/16/18)

Hi Staunch friends,
 
I hope you all had a lovely Valentine’s Day. I spent it beginning The Sopranos for the first time, swapping a phenomenon that celebrates bodies finding bodies for one that celebrates bodies finding trunks (or riverbeds).
 
Since we last talked, the world has changed dramatically. I discovered I’m Jewish. (Please save the date for my forthcoming bat mitzvah—am currently crowdsourcing themes.) The Obama portraits were revealed in a beautiful gut punch—sending leftist nation into a collective nostalgia spiral from which we may never recover. Kim Cattrall catalyzed a third world war (a threequel we did *not* ask for) with the assassination-of-Archduke-Ferdinand of shady Instagram posts. Quincy Jones started some fabulous gay gossip. And a Russian figure skater performed a routine at the Olympics whose theme was the precise moment the soul leaves the body at the point of “clinical death.”

I decided to start this week’s letter off on an irreverent note because I don’t really have the bandwidth to talk about gun violence right now. To be honest, I haven’t read many of the stories about the massacre in Parkland. I’m allowing myself some distance from the tragedy and I think that’s okay.
 
In time, I’ll do my homework. I’ll read about the shooter’s seething white anger, his toxic masculinity and proto-fascist views and how a man like that got hold of a gun like that. But not today. Today, I am only going to read about the victims and listen to Frank Ocean’s cover of "Moon River." And commit to throwing my body into the fight to elect Democrats in November. I think that’s alright for now. 

Two little treats for you today…
 
First off, my beautiful friends Macey and Jenny made a thing! Their short film Pink Trailer was just accepted into this year’s South by Southwest. It’s a perfect gem of a movie about two girls hiding from an obsessive neighbor in a dreamily-hued doublewide. Also they have perfect skin in it. That’s beside the point but seriously there’s not a pore in sight.
 
So stop what you’re doing right now and check out the teaser for the Pink Trailer, co-written, co-starring, and co-executive produced by Macey Isaacs & Jenny Leiferman, hometown queens of Austin and my teammates on our Golden Girls trivia squad, ~Behind These Hazel Lanais~.

Secondly, it was brought to my attention by a breaking news edition of the Bitch Sesh podcast (my version of a Walter Cronkite special report) that there exists in the dark Knockturn Alley-corners of the internet a video of Kim Cattrall scatting. Yes. Samantha Jones. Scatting.
 
Proceed with caution. But please do proceed.

I miss Bob Costas’ pink eye.
 
Suicide is contagious, and the way the media handle a celebrity’s suicide can stem or enable its spread.
 
Jia Tolentino’s piece for the New Yorker on how an ambitious research project at Columbia may shift our understanding of campus sexual assault, and thus help prevent it, is very worth a read. It also includes this dynamite pull quote: “We have to stop working one penis at a time!” Damn, if that ain’t the truth.
 
Michelle Obama’s Mount Rushmore Moment.
 
I’ve been saying it for years: there’s nothing sexier than a good, chunky turtleneck. Finally the fashion set has caught up (minus the chunk).
 
These stories of digi-stalking gone horribly wrong will make you feel less alone in your creepiness.
 
I’m living for this poetic read of the New York Times contrarianism (ironically from the godfather of contrarianism itself, Slate).
 
Rob Porter’s History of Domestic Abuse Wasn’t a Secret. It’s Just That No One Cared.
 
“Abortion care workers are human rights workers”—How telemedicine and feminist health clinics help women maintain their right to abortion in the wake of natural disasters.
 
Lastly, I’m obsessed with the French figure skaters who performed in moody grayscale existentialist tones and gender-bending silhouettes (she wore pants!) to a soft metal cover of “The Sound of Silence.” Apparently “L'enfer, c'est les autres” doesn’t apply to pair skating. 
 

Staunchly yours, 

Carey