Staunchly, vol. 121: Congratulations to Those Men

1/16/20

I promise I’ll be back to our normal Monday delivery soon. Or maybe I won’t! Life is messy. I’m trying. Everyone’s been crying a lot in their cars this month, right? It’s not just me?

P.S: if you find yourself in London on March 31st, one of my oldest friends is debuting her one-woman cabaret show at the Crazy Coqs. :) I can’t think of a more delightful evening. She’s talented to her bones. Buy your tickets here.

I didn’t watch the debate. It’s nice to take a break! Instead I went to a friend’s home and she made me 4-hour bolognese with fresh tagliatelle and unbelievable crumb cake from scratch. Crumb cake is such a sacred treat to me because I grew up eating it in the summer, when I visited my grandparents in New Jersey—never anywhere else. Like my family didn’t trust anyone in California to make it right, even though I’m pretty sure the one my grandpa bought was an Entenmann’s from the grocery store, with a slightly sour but not displeasing yellow base. Nevertheless, crumb cake maintains the allure of a properly exclusive, regional treat for me. It reminds me of my sweet grandparents, and drinking coffee with a slice in the kitchen, on a laminated, floral tablecloth that stuck to your elbows. How cool to have my friend’s version, double-crumbed with gingersnaps, as an adult in Los Angeles, and feel these two completely different worlds connected.

I don’t know what to make of the tension between Warren and Sanders. Warren is my candidate. I am team #notawhiteman but also #notamyklobuchar until the moment that becomes untenable. But I have softened to Bernie this past year in a way that has really surprised me. I can’t pretend like my perception of things isn’t tainted by the fact that the woman who tried to shut down my piece about sexism in my Senate office runs communications for Warren. This is a woman who attempted to intimidate, gaslight, and outright lie to me (she said a very problematic guy in our office had been fired when he had actually been promoted to a job in the White House) in an effort to kill the piece, and her hiring completely fucks up my ability to view Warren’s official comms with a clear eye.

I believe a woman when she calls out sexism. From the clips I saw of the debate last night, Warren nailed the question on female electibility. I also think there’s something kind of off about this whole thing. I also also think my feelings of “offness” don’t really matter. I liked Rebecca Traister’s piece on the perils of calling out sexism. This election is swallowing us all.

I swore off France for a few years after some not so pleasant experiences on my trip last fall, but I’m revising that abstinence pledge to just Paris, because a gallery in Figeac is hosting an exhibition of Britney Spears’ original artwork this month. According to the gallery’s website, the show, titled “Sometimes you just gotta play!!!!!!,” goes from “18 janvier 2020 - till the world ends.” I googled how to get to Figeac from Los Angeles and found a breezy $4,322, one-way “premium economy” ticket to Toulouse with a brief layover at CDG. From there it’s just a swift two hour car or bus ride to Figeac. Please join me if your dream, too, is to honor America’s greatest pop product in the mid-Pyrenees region of France in deep, gray winter (to sweeten the deal with more good news: the area’s wolves are back).
Here’s a good piece on climate change activism without shame or centering the self, which is the point I was sloppily trying to make last week when I ranted about how it’s ok that I shop at Daiso sometimes.
I don’t know how to feel about all the royal news. On the one hand, I don’t really care about any palace narrative until I see it on The Crown. On the other hand, I love drama. I’m not shocked to see that a country who built global relevance through an empire of colonialism is unwelcoming towards persons of color—I liked this piece by Afua Hirsch in the Times (of New York, not London) about the particularly onerous types of British racism Meghan Markle likely/definitely faced. I have also heard whiffs of some not so great industry gossip about Meghan, which is not pertinent here but has prevented me from going full “yes queen” at her more rebellious actions. Also, I have no patience for disingenuous rich people in 2020. You cannot be “financially independent” if you have an inheritance or a trust. That is not ever going to be your story, sweet bb Harry.
When is the Bill Clinton reckoning coming?
Stephen King stepped in it. Who are these little white men that can’t see past their own privilege to realize that everything, even/especially their fundamental understanding of “quality” is skewed by centuries of patriarchal white supremacy in art, politics, law, sex, literally everything??
The story behind Teen Vogue’s extremely sketchy pro-Facebook post.
A generous guide from The Root: How to be a Better White Person.
It’s easy to understand Trump’s conception of presidential power as governed by a central tenet: not being Carter.
The story of America (/the world???) in four words: Shitty Men Failing Up.
Is “don’t fuck an Academy voter” the new “don’t fuck a Republican” (I tweeted that but no one sees my tweets). Mark Harris summed it up well in Vanity Fair: “Three of the four most-nominated movies—The Irishman, Joker, and Once Upon a Time…in Hollywood—are stories about white men who feel culturally imperiled. The fourth, 1917, is about white men who are literally imperiled.” I’m not a superfan of J.Lo’s by any means, but her best supporting actress snub is a joke. Her performance was groundbreaking and her thighs could crack Martin Scorcese like a walnut. Justice for strong women, strong stories about women, and strong stories about strong women’s thighs.
Joe Biden Doesn’t Deserve Black People.
“Two women doing whatever the hell they want in public after spending two decades with absolutely zero agency” — on why it’s so soothing to look at pictures of the Olsen twins smoking.
Every night as routine, I wash my face, apply my retinol, and pray to the spirits that we’ll never learn something horrible about John le Carré.
I must start cooking again. I must start cooking again. I must start cooking again. Perhaps I’ll start with this soup, Roberto.

Here are some (mostly) micro reviews of films I’ve seen recently.

Little Women

People have always called me an Amy and tried to act like it was a compliment. By “people,” I almost exclusively mean: women and girls who self-identify as Jos. The last time was three years ago. I pretended like I hadn’t heard it before, and that it wasn’t a condescending and backhanded way to call me a brat. Fuck that noise! Justice for brats! Justice for Amys the world over! Yes I am a writer with unkempt hair (indisputable Jo territory) but I shall always define my spirit by the rapidity with which I would burn your priceless manuscript if you ever dismissed me—double yes if you coq bloq’d me during my precious Hormone Years.

The movie as a whole is practically perfect: graceful, emotionally precise, and visually stunning. In fact it’s that precision that keeps the film from falling into a treacly fantasy trap, as it so easily can for those of us who didn’t have sisters (well I have two half-ones, but there are more of the Cinderella variety) or homes that felt like if a Yankee Candle fucked a Pottery Barn. Mostly though, all my gratitude to Greta Gerwig and Florence Pugh for a feisty, redemptive, bratty, wise, effervescent version of one of my favorite characters. Amys of the world, unite!