Are You Ready for a Brand New Beat?
Summer Summer Summer TIIIIME!
Dames Nation, though we have seen some of our friends’ adorable children heading off for their first days of school this very week, we cling to the old ways: til that last cicada sings out from the treetops in September, summer is here! The time is still right for dancin’ in the streets. No, no, sit down,Mick & David.Martha & the Vandellasare the experts we’re consulting.
Dame Sophie is swooning over Songza’s 100000% perfect Summer Fling playlist. Also Summer Fridays, which she has other assorted thoughts about, all basically cribbed from Choire Sicha.
Cricket still makes only very limited sense to Dame Sophie, even after loving a cricket fan for 15 years, but she is utterly swept away by this year’s Ashes, a historic rivalry between the English & Australian national teams. England demolished Australia in yesterday’s play, breaking approximately 1 zillion records in the process. Well done, chaps!
Had you ever thought that still lives could show the evolution of fruit over time? NEITHER HAD DAME MARGARET until she scrolled through this nifty-as-heck piece from Hyperallergic doing just that with still lives of watermelons. It also made Dame Margaret long for watermelon. So refreshing!
Atlas Obscura (which has been killing it lately) shared this totally fascinating piece about the history of illicitly cracking open fire hydrants in New York City, which (1) explains the origin of the term “plug uglies;” (2) connects Teddy Roosevelt to Spike Lee, (3) provides helpful #ServiceJournalism about the civil, obedient way to crack your fire hydrant, and (4) SO MUCH MORE!
And because there can never be too many playlists, we (but mostly Dame Sophie) made a new one for you. Feast your ears on Steamy & Sentimental!
Tunes!
This mashup of The Commodore’s “Easy” and The Cure’s “Just Like Heaven” is, well. Heavenly.
Dame Margaret is trying not to read TOO much into the fact that the Abbi Jacobsen v. Ilana Glazer Lip Sync Battle suggests that she and Ilana Glazer share “Hey Ya” as a karaoke go-to song but like…. it DOES seem significant, doesn’t it?
JB Dunckel’s score for new-to-us movie Summer is out & exactly as swoonily electro-dreamy as you’d expect from half of the electro-dreamy French band Air.
After more than a year of frantic anticipation, Dame Margaret finally saw the world premiere of Waitress: The Musical and it's kind of a miracle that she's spoken of anything else since. It's SO GOOD, GUYS! Get out ahead of the Tony's and give a listen to Sara Bareilles (the musical's composer) performing a couple of the songs on a recent episode of A Prairie Home Companion: "She Used to Be Mine" and "Take It From an Old Man" (sung in the production by none other than , a.k.a. Headmaster Charleston from Gilmore Girls.)
It’s like, you think you’ve gotten past the point of being bothered by anything Noted Asshole Noel Gallagher says, and then a very smart article laying bare the racist underpinnings of Kanye West-hatred quotes the former Oasis front man saying the following:
and you’re like
so just UGH SERIOUSLY. Shut up, Noel Gallagher.
Public Art We Totally Dig
A group of street artists called The German Crew collaborated with the Mexican government and painted an entire neighborhood, to predictably stunning effect.
Dame M. did not see any of these stunning billboards created by Brian Kane on her travels through MA last weekend, but she hopes to catch the one that projects parts of the Milky Way before it’s taken down.
And finally: how could we not share Calvin Seibert's BRUTALIST SAND CASTLES!?!!? Basically a love letter to your Brutalist-obsessed Dames.
Literary Tastes, Passions, and Pursuits!
#IfHogwartsWasAnHBCU is just wonderful. God bless Black Twitter.
Dame Sophie was so excited to learn that Harper Lee was publishing a new book, but the story of how Go Set A Watchman came into print left such a nasty taste in her mouth, she couldn’t bear to read it, until our beloved Lizzie Skurnick wrote about why gender is the more fascinating aspect of the story. Library hold: placed.
Reading diversely is a habit of mind. Damespal Kelly Jensen has written a great primer on why, and just as importantly, how to read diversely. Dame Sophie has recently stocked her GoodReads with some tantalizing fantasy titles from BookRiot’s recent list. The noir-fantasy Aztec series Obsidian & Blood looks especially good!
It was Beatrix Potter’s 149th birthday last week, and The Armitt Museum -- a museum featuring only artists and writers from The Lake District -- has an amazing digital exhibit of her watercolors for you to enjoy. Did you know she was a super-awesome amateur botanist? PS YOU GUYS IT’S THE REAL-LIFE OLD BROWN FROM SQUIRREL NUTKIN! We’re pleased to see that he still has zero fucks to give.
Miscellany (We love you, Amy!)
Two recent pieces on today’s new media giants - one on VidCon in Vanity Fair, the other on GeekyCon & the development of fandom generally, by Damespal Danielle Henderson, are major must-reads.
Dame Sophie had forgotten how very, very white MTV was when it launched. This list of their 10 videos ever is...an interesting document of the time.
In re: Atlas Obscura killing it, take a minute to read their great piece on the invention and phenomenal branding of Swarovski Crystal. Then buy your Dames some Swarovski-encrusted Alexander McQueen hats, please. Tiny ones, lest the excess weight tip us right over.
This one goes out especially to our #girlgang pals & Kelly Sue DeConnick superfans Ally & Amy: Badass Women to Read if Kelly Sue DeConnick is Your Hero.
Aaaaand, finally, Caitlin Dewey’s excellent newsletter brought us this gallery of cat GIFs over the years.