We Are All in a Sporty Spice Era
Notes on: Women's hoops. Palm Royale. The Valley. Summer House. Selling the OC. American Horror Story. Beyoncé's old Tumblr + lots more.
Hi hi hi.
Happy Final Four/Almost Eclipse Weekend!
I have my eclipse glasses ready to go and live right in the path of totality, which is pretty dope. I think downtown Indy is supposed to get the full dealio for just under four minutes. It would appear that my neighborhood is going to be pretty, pretty packed come Monday.
I keep imagining this scene from Independence Day, because of course that’s what my brain would do.
I’ve read up on my own astrological situation re: this eclipse, but is everyone going to be super unhinged? I don’t really know. We’re already in a tough mercury retrograde sitch.
(You can get a little deeper on how the eclipse affects your chart on Co-Star in the Welcome to the Void section. You can ask three questions for free to start if you are so inclined.)
Speaking of charts, I added a lil something to the left arm this week. I realized that it’s become the spot for the unseen/celestial guiding forces in my life with my mom’s handwriting, the Scorpio constellation on my hand, and now this…
I love it so much. Thank you Jon at Knick Knack Tattoos. If you’re local, he’s got space inside my already amazing salon, Witch Hazel.
ICYMI, I finally got act ii out the door (no paywall!) and, honestly, there’s so much more I could say about Cowboy Carter. It’s just so freaking brilliant and keeps revealing more and more to me. Do not ask how many times I’ve listened to “II Most Wanted” today already…
I’m also just waiting for Stevie Nicks to pop up soon with one of her iconic notes, talking about how amazing it is and what she thinks about “II Most Wanted” and how much Christine would have dug “Bodyguard” and was her “protector and projector” or some such.
I will then elevate to a different plane of existence. Like when she called Fine Line Harry’s Rumours.
I lost my mind when she talked about Daisy Jones, so all bets are off…
It feels like I’m mere moments away from getting back on my TikTok bullshit. Actually, there are a few sporty ideas bouncing around in there…stay tuned.
Also, thank you to Facebook Mems for the reminder that on this day 12 years ago, our benevolent Queen B launched a Tumblr and blessed us with so much content.
Onto the rest…
Hoop Dreams
I’ve been counting down the minutes until tip-off of the first of the two women’s Final Four games tonight1. The Elite 8 certainly sure gave us all we were looking for and I had as much fun watching Iowa-LSU as I have any hoops game in a long time. Caitlin Clark and Angel Reese are absolutely incredible and I look forward to watching them battle it out from my sick new season tickets to the Indiana Fever.
(We have the #1 pick in the WNBA draft on April 15 and Caitlin will soon be bringing her massive talents to Indy! So, yes, I’m very invested in this Iowa girlie. I think she’s gonna love it here.)
I hate hate hate so many of the media narratives that currently surround the women of basketball and the racism and misogyny, both overt and sneaky, that shows itself in these moments. But we can’t ignore those and, oy, are some people you might not expect telling on themselves in their comments and reactions.
We’ve all seen it online, but I’m guessing you noticed in your own circles as well.
There are so many GREAT stories to tell. Let’s do more of that, please.
The players all understand these things. It’s a big chunk of the media (and the general public) that needs to catch up.
I love all of these trash-talking ballers much.
THEY SHOULD BE ABLE TO HOOP AND TALK SHIT JUST LIKE THE BOYS.
It’s actually pretty wild that so many pearls are still being clutched around this particular topic in 2024. Get the fuck over yourselves, losers.
And bros who hate women. Uh, I mean women’s sports.
But there’s been so much amazingness and it’s awesome to see memes and coverage and conversation outside the spaces that we know will be down to talk women’s sports. I mean, Angel dropped her draft announcement in Vogue complete with a whole shoot. We love to see it. (She’s also in Bazaar.)
We’ve been SAYING this, but you know how it is…sigh.
Tonight is going to be SO fun too. I can’t wait for more basketball and more content.
Shout-out to the absolutely killer ESPN studio team of Elle Duncan, Chiney Ogwumike, and Andraya Carter.
The chemistry! The knowledge! The natural flow of conversation! The emoting! The facial expressions! The realness! The fashions! The glam!
I love watching them so much and they’re adding our own Indiana Fever star (and last year’s #1 pick) Aaliyah Boston to the desk for championship weekend. Boom, baby2.
I actually talked about sports stuff in therapy today because all of this amazing attention on women’s sports has me super emotional. I mean, I get all Big Feelings when people pay attention to women athletes for the two weeks of the Olympics. There seems to be a bigger shift happening right now and it’s awesome. We’ve been waiting for it.
I don’t think you have to have been a competitive athlete to feel that way, but I do think it hits different if you were.
It got me thinking a lot about how athletics fundamentally shaped so much of who I am and all the intangibles that it brought into my life. Of course, this wasn’t some new thing I’d realized, but I hadn’t focused on it in a long time, or maybe in this specific way ever before.
I think there’s actually a longer piece I’d like to write about that soon, so stay tuned.
But I dug into a box the other night that was in my dad’s attic forever (and my childhood home before that). It’s been sitting in my closet now, barely touched. It was filled with high school stuff (and even earlier) inducing a ton of awards and medals, both academic and athletic. It’s legit a treasure trove and I still haven’t even gone through half of it.
There was a pretty profound letter from a coach that I’d totally forgotten about. As well as a letter from a high school softball teammate that I’ll mention here—before we get to some regular pop culture stuff—because it feels like such an encapsulation of girl’s sports to me.
This teammate was going to be missing a big game because of a prior commitment and photocopied this letter to be delivered to all of us in class. (A room number and period were on the back!) We were having a tough season and she was pumping us up and letting us know how much she believed in us. Then she went through person-by-person and called out something awesome about their game and their character for all of us to read.
I don’t think this type of energy (however it presented itself) was commonly coursing through the boys teams.
So, more to come on that front…and lord knows what else I’ll find in there. But if you’re feeling really emotional about it all too, just know that I get it. Big time.
All Along the Watchlist
A bunch of old Bravo reality shows are coming to Peacock next week and the first two rewatches on my personal list are NYC Prep and The Rachel Zoe Project.
Please join me and we can discuss over the coming weeks.
Meanwhile, here’s what I’ve been taking in.
Palm Royale
If you just said there’s a show set in the late ‘60s in Palm Beach high society with a big costume/production budget + Carol Burnett + Kristen Wiig + Laura Dern + Bruce Dern + Allison Janney + Mindy Cohn (Nat!!!!!!) + Julia Duffy (TK!!!) + Josh Lucas + Ricky Martin + Leslie Bibb + I’d be like, “How can it miss? I’m in.”
Well…
Palm Royale is indeed filled with so many things I love (or at least like a lot).
Yet, I cannot fully latch—and it’s not because Kaia Gerber is acting again. (It feels like she’s supposed to be some version of the Paulette to Kristin Wiig’s Elle a la Legally Blonde, but not exactly. Like many other things with this show, I just don’t know. )
Sidebar: This is happening.
I can’t fully understand what this show wants to be and I don’t know that it does either. Tonally it’s all over the place and so are the performances. I just want full melodramatic soap opera with something real emotion coursing underneath like a bit Ugly Betty meets old school nighttime soaps meets early seasons Desperate Housewives meets clever writing?
It is not that, sadly. I’m still watching and it has picked up a tiny bit, but there is so much potential being wasted here and that’s a bummer.
I would, however, like to possess most of Laura Dern’s wardrobe, along with a number of other key pieces worn by various women on the show. Don’t even get me started on some of those interiors…yum.
The Valley
Okay, my friend Lauren was right. It’s good. I’m all in. I truly don’t know how seasoned reality vets allowed that terrible first trailer to air. It’s because Bravo is usually so good at those that all of us assumed this show was going to be an absolute flop.
NOPE!
It’s giving some of that same energy of early VPR in terms of friend group dynamics, but make it older and with some kids in the mix. It’s still a bunch of over dramatic morons, some of whom are def still in precarious financial states, doing dumb shit and fucking up relationships, often with their narcissism and lack of emotional intelligence…or any intelligence.
I love it.
There are people to absolutely hate in a way that makes it fun to watch—”anchored” by Jax and Kristen’s lunacy and utter garbage person behavior.
I love that they threw back to how VPR started as a fade-out from RHOBH with Jax being the bridge this time. Obviously, he is the worst. But that energy he injected into the VPR boys night was electric. He and Sandoval have been getting into that same fight for YEARS and it was great to have it back on our screens. Once again, rooting for neither ding dong.
Kristen, meanwhile, is as messy as ever. I would also like to take her bra shopping.
I don’t really know who all the new people are by name yet and I get some of the guys confused facially, as well. But I am absolutely ready for the next new ep.
Summer House
The season continues to be a top notch delight.
This week featured a Saran Wrapped door, Ciara riding around on a motorized car inside the house, Kyle drukenly saying, “I’m eating cherries and listening to Hans Zimmer” to his wife on the phone (while she was in their room and he was in the kitchen), and a mention of Clay Aiken. That was in, like, a singular couple minute montage. You can’t script that shit.
We are getting the perfect mix of fun times and humor mixed with the absolutely toxic drama of Lindsay and Carl. Like, holy shit I cannot believe the new layers mess we are bearing witness to in that relationship…that we already knew was messy btw. We get to juxtapose that with Paige (who I’ve always loved) and our Craigy all grown up and looking better than ever. West is the best addition to any Bravo show we’ve seen in quite some time—and Jesse Solomon isn’t bad either.
It’s just firing on all cylinders.
If you dropped this show from your rotation, now is the time to bring it back.
American Horror Story: Delicate
The second half of this season with Emma Roberts and Logan Huntzberger and Kim Kardashian cosplaying her mom has begun on Hulu. I truly am powerless against a Ryan Murphy show. Though I still haven’t bothered to watch the final episode of Feud: Capote vs. The Swans. Is that growth?
Loot
This Maya Rudolph vehicle Apple TV+ is also back and I’m so glad it got a second season, which I sorta thought would’t happen. I bet it if was on Netflix, they would have given it the axe.
I enjoy this show in a casually fun way (complimentary). It genuinely makes me laugh and I feel like it deserves more eyeballs.
It’s the one where Maya plays a sort of Mackenzie Bezos type in that she gets a boatload of money in a divorce from her douchey tech-bro billionaire ex-husband, making her one of the wealthiest women in the world. She is way more out of touch than Mackenzie appears to be (because: comedy!) and decides to start running a foundation she forgot she even had.
The ensemble really works and you should check it out if you’d like something light, but not dumb. (No shade to dumb, obviously. We also love dumb.)
Selling the OC
Okay, it’s not back yet. But we do have a trailer for S3 which arrives May 3. I love this dumb (see!) candy of a franchise so much. I could probably write 2500 words simply analyzing what I think each person’s eyebrow choices say about them.
What am I missing that I really need to see right now?
File Name: Random
Well, I’ll be…also, I need Challengers NOW.
Separately, I don’t know that I ever need to see this movie. But I will appreciate Gaga’s press tour. She always gives us performance art in that space and we thank her for her service.
Yes.
Also yes.
Are you all playing the Cinematrix game on Vulture? I hadn’t myself until my friend Jess told me about it last week when we were having dinner in NY. I’m fully obsessed and I don’t think we’re far out from a Vulture/NY Mag game app.
“Candid Girlfriend” explainer is def in the running for my favorite Subway Take...
Congrats Karen Karen + Edward!
I know I’ve slipped back into a bit of a “Annie irks me” era, but I’m pretty sure these Versace ads are objectively not good.
I can’t believe it’s been 30 years today since Kurt died. I actually have very vivid memories of walking into our softball locker room and having to tell everyone what I’d just heard on the radio while moving my car over to the stadium ahead of practice. Anyway, Frances Bean wrote a gorgeous post about her dad and grief. I’ll link to the whole thing, which I recommend reading. But this part got me good.
Also on the beautiful but heartbreaking front, CBS Sunday Morning did a wonderful segment on a family we’ve known since I was a little kid and my sister was even closer with. It’s amazing what they’ve done in the face of unimaginable grief.
Ick Me Once
Sorry for the downer, but you know how I am and how passionate I am about grief conversations. Anyway, let’s pick up the mood.
Here’s what gave me the ick this week and I think we can all feel okay about lightly mocking this tool…
Honestly, I’m so traumatized by that Sandoval scene on VPR that I shudder even reading the words “breath work”, let alone when they’re paired with Dean McDermott and he’s wearing those glasses.
Gen X Moment of Zen
Possible ongoing section? Possible tagline for it: Remember, just because something’s not for you, it doesn’t mean you can’t enjoy it?
I already had that post dropped in here when Maggie Rogers hit pub on this on IG. I spy you my beloved Sports Walkman. Also, witch shit?!? Maybe.
(Sidebar I can’t believe we have Maggie’s new album next Friday and then AHHHHHHHH, it’s time for The Tortured Poets Department. I’m not ready but I’m so ready.)
Oh, and…
It would appear ticket sales for J. Lo’s upcoming tour are as “Not great, Bob” gif as the current vibes about her on TikTok … You will not be surprised to learn that Jennifer Garner wrote a very beautiful post about her father, who sadly died last weekend3 … I need to see this Silver sketch immediately. I mean, if it’s anything as good as Wells for Boys and The Actress … I’m counting the seconds until Hacks is back … Trent Reznor’s amazing career trajectory and genius never fails to boggle the mind.
Until next week, here are Harlow + Sparrow Richie/Madden. Congrats, we are all 1000 years old.
xA
Coming to you almost under the wire. Close enough???
Shout-out fellow Hoosiers. IYKYK.
I didn’t mean to put the “ennifers” from separate Bennifers right next to each other, but here we are.