I Have Some Recommendations

Maybe you'll like them too

Hi pals,

Sophie and Margaret are off this week and so I’m flying solo and I’m just going to offer up a few things I have enjoyed lately.

1. The television show Loot

Loot is on Apple TV. It stars Maya Rudolph, who plays Molly Novak, who is obviously based on MacKenzie Scott, who is the ex-wife of Jeff Bezos, who in the Loot world is represented by Adam Scott playing John Novak, who is basically the opposite of his “I like you and I love you” turn as Ben Wyatt on Parks & Recreation.

The Novaks were a billionaire couple; he is some sort of tech bro made good and she was his loyal wife who stood by him and supported him in the making shit in the garage phase and then proceeded to shop and vacation for twenty years after he made it big. He’s busted cheating with a young assistant within the first five minutes of the show and Molly divorces him and the settlement of $87 billion makes her the third richest woman in the world.

After a Lost Weekend that lasts for several news cycles, Molly learns that she has a foundation and an office and she decides to Become Her Own Person and Get Involved and Make A Difference, with a wide variety of results. Her loyal assistant is played by the flawless Joel Kim Booster and the director of the foundation is played by the flawless Michaela Jaé Rodriguez, who I have missed so much since Pose ended, and employees at the foundation include Nat Faxon, who I have missed so much since the little-seen, criminally underrated Married ended [he was Married to none other than JUDY GREER, ok?] and Ron Funches, whom I knew from several episodes of Drunk History and is so funny.

In some ways it’s a typical workplace comedy in that a bunch of people thrown together randomly are living and learning and getting to trust one another, which has never been an experience I had in a workplace but what a fantasy, right?

Speaking of fantasy, it’s really fun to experience the reedick world of billionaire Molly [her clothes are amazing! Her jet is amazing! Her spa is amazing! David Chang is her personal chef!] as she sloooooooowly realizes that billionaires are bad, actually, and shouldn’t exist at all. Best of both worlds, right? The fantasy of having all that, well, loot, as well as the fantasy of a billionaire realizing the inherent harm present in their very existence, all wrapped up in a cozy, gentle comedy blankie to take to the couch with a drink and a snack. ALSO, did you know Maya Rudolph and Natasha Lyonne are pals and have a production company together?

2. This profile of Judy Blume by Sarah Larson for The New Yorker. “Margaret’s conversations with God are the kinds of openhearted expression that we all long for but might fear actually having, even with — or especially with —those closest to us. Such intimacy of feeling is also what many of us seek in a book, and, when kids pick up “Margaret,” that’s what they get.”
   

3. I love love love telling people to free themselves and unsubscribe from The New Yorker but here I am recommending another article! Of course “What Little Richard Deserved” by Hanif Abdurraqib is amazing. I’m really looking forward to I Am Everything. Little Richard deserved the Dolly Parton treatment while he was still alive; he is everything.

   

   
   

4. Speaking of Dolly Parton, check out the work of British photographer Alice Hawkins, who spent a decade taking pictures of herself and other people dressed as Dolly and now has a book coming out, Dear Dolly, that collects her work into one volume. I’m working on my own Dolly project right now and spoke with Alice this week and loved every second of it.
   

5. RIP, Harry Belafonte. SNCC Digital has a beautiful tribute to his work alongside Sidney Poitier in the civil rights movement, including a harrowing trip to hand deliver $70,000 in cash to fund the 1964 Mississippi Summer Project. Speaking of beautiful, here he is performing “Day-O” on The Muppet Show.