A New W̶o̶r̶l̶d̶ Girl's Order

Plus: Crying at the AMC and a great SNL episode!

First of all, LSU women’s basketball: March Madness Champions!!!!!! GEAUX TIGERS!!!!

This week we’re talking about the new Teyana Taylor movie, a “girl power” show on Amazon I’m a little obsessed with, and the best SNL so far this season! Let’s do it!

Sisters doin’ it for themselves (screenshot)

Greetings, friends! Between navigating April Fool’s Day [pranksters and liars off their leashes] and the NYC Triple-Threat Special [pollen/pollution/construction dust from next door], I spent a lot of this weekend hiding under the covers.

When it comes to allergy season, I’m like Nicole Kidman’s photosensitive ghost kids in The Others [pale, coughs a lot, can’t go outside]. I got an allergy test last year, and my forearms looked like bubble wrap — the big kind! My silly little daily Zyrtec is like that meme of a SWAT team breaking through a door held together by a single Cheeto. I’m accepting home remedy suggestions until I finally schedule allergy shots. 🙏🏼

Re: April Fool’s Day, even though pranks give me supreme anxiety, I do love the capitalist tradition where brands try to trick us with their wiles. My favorite this year is the trailer for the fake Duolingo/Peacock movie “Love Language.” I even overheard a guy at The Fox in Harlem tell his date about it thinking it was a completely real show. GOT ‘EM!!

Are you a pranks person? One of those sociopaths people whose love language is pranking their unsuspecting, innocent loved ones? Do you help pranks or accidentally ruin them [me]? Let us know!

Just Three Fun Things

Here are three things entertaining me this week:

artbutmakeitsports

A post shared by Art But Make It Sports (@artbutmakeitsports)

• ^ArtButMakeItSports. An Instagram account that my friend Clara showed me, which is just some guy taking photos from the sports world and remembering art he’s seen that looks like it. It does not miss!

• Whichipedia. A very simple, very addicting game where you guess which of two Wikipedia pages is longer! I hate to brag, but I am truly exceptional at this!

• Guessdle. Like Wordle only in the sense that there’s only one solution per day. Otherwise, it’s like “20 Questions” but with AI. I am very, very, very bad at this one, I fear! [But I would argue peanuts aren’t “produce,” which messed me up for Saturday’s guess!]

Gwynnocent!

SaintHoax

The trial of the century litigious nonsense between Gwyneth Paltrow and a retired optometrist, who looks like if the Six-Fingered Man in The Princess Bride got really into Antiques Roadshow, is over. The jury said she wasn’t at fault, and now we can all go back to putting her on unofficial trial for peddling bullsh*t vagina steamers. Anyhoo! I enjoyed it while it lasted. A ~literary study~ in high-society, passive-aggressive, mean-girl social warfare! Whispering “I wish you well” to the man you just defeated? Telling the prosecuting attorney her shoes were “very nice”?!? DIABOLICAL!!

Saturday Night Live Highlights - Quinta Brunson

Outstanding! Best episode this season! Quinta Brunson hosted the April Fool’s day episode, and boy, you really can tell when they have a writer and comedian as the host.

She’s the creator of the fantastically popular and feel-good ABC show Abbott Elementary, which, if you aren’t yet watching but you like Parks and Rec/The Office/Brooklyn Nine-Nine, you should start watching PRONTO! I don’t watch much “network TV” in my life right now, but I do watch Abbott Elementary.

• Highlights: (1) Bridesmaid Cult Documentary, (2) Drug Dealer, (3) Traffic Altercation, (4) Please Don’t Destroy “Street Eats”, (5) Quinta’s monologue [with a beautiful appeal for teachers!] (6) The jokes themselves weren’t standouts or anything, but I loved Colin Jost getting pranked on Weekend Update.

Watching: A Thousand and One

I’ll never forget back in 2015, Ben was watching some Cleveland Cavaliers game, and I suddenly paused the TV and said, “WHO IS THAT!??” pointing to a person I would soon be deep-diving on a google search: Teyana Taylor.

Up to now, she’s mostly known for her music, dance, and choreography prowess [she choreographed a Beyonce music video at 15 years old!]. Now, she’s expanding her acting repertoire, and all I have to say is she’s the one to watch!! Award-winning performance, an absolutely stunning combination of power and subtlety.

It was a small, quiet movie about a mother trying to protect her son — the kind of movie that walks along with a person in their life, doesn’t ask for huge events, and simply explores one woman’s everyday attempts to create a safe life in an unsafe world. That the plot was cast against the backdrop of the changing scenery of NYC in the 1990s/2000s made the movie feel both “bigger” than her individual story, and yet also like her individual story was the story of a whole city; she the avatar for every woman who has loved and protected her children through the injustices of the world.

It was a bit slow and definitely faltered at the end with a plot twist that was corny and not needed. But the story stood on its own, mostly thanks to Teyana Taylor’s formidable, powerful, tender performance.

Reading and Watching: The Power on Amazon Prime

We have discussed here how I can’t seem to get through a single book these days. So, please join me in celebrating the fact that I BLAZED through this Naomi Alderman book last month! [Nothing like an impending TV adaption to motivate me, it turns out!]

It GRIPPED me. Without giving too much away, the concept is that suddenly teenage girls develop the power to electrocute people. They teach older women to do it, and the book follows the global, political, and societal consequences of that single change.

Spoiler alert: The world doesn’t become utopia just cuz women are in charge!

Quite the opposite. It’s a thought experiment not just on the idea that “power corrupts” but also what the capacity for violence does to us as humans. As one reviewer put it:

“Is our entire world order—our familial, sexual, governmental, economic, and religious structures—all predicated on who has the greater capacity for violence?”

A cynical point of view. But it’s fascinating to think about and to watch the story unfurl the implications if that were true. The most powerful part to me is how it exposes accepted or tolerated evils in our real world by inverting power dynamics in the imagined one.

Anyhoo! The first four episodes dropped on Friday. Ben and I watched the first one, and we’re hooked. As a Book Reader (🤓) I was so impressed with the casting and how well they’ve adapted the novel!

Also, sweet Sam from Ted Lasso — Toheeb Jimoh — is in it!

Listening - Sad Girl Songs

The High Priestesses of Sad White Girl Music have bestowed upon the public their gifts:

Lana Del Rey released her ninth studio album on March 24, only to be followed by the holy trinity of Sad Girl Music, Julien Baker, Phoebe Bridgers, and Lucy Dacus [under their “supergroup” moniker Boygenius] dropping their full full-length album this Friday.

This really gums up my annual mood calendar, where “Sad Girl Music” is usually scheduled exclusively for the Fall. I guess I can start my 2023 Sad Era early? Ugh. [What do they not understand about our first few days of 60-degree weather?]

In other news, Beyonce’s Renaissance music videos seem to be FINALLY ON THEIR WAY.

That’s all for this week, folks! I’m so grateful to you for reading! I’d love to hear your thoughts, opinions, and recommendations in the comments! And if you have time, drop a ❤️!