Love Would Never Do Without You
Yes, you!
Hello, Dames Nationals! Do you feel like you’re coming unglued? WE YOUR DAMES CERTAINLY DO. So, we are going to open tonight’s newsletter by recommending again something upon which we can always rely for excellence: Chris Molanphy’s Hit Parade podcast on Slate.
Molanphy only occasionally focuses on the U.K. charts, but he’s the tops to us regardless.
Have we shouted about this podcast before? YES, we have, at least three separate occasions in these pixel pages! But if you’re like many people in our lives, you’re running through your available entertainment pretty quickly, and may have greater need of a 90-minute pop music history podcast than you were previously. Chris Molanphy, the show’s host, is a blessedly soothing presence: the perfect mix of curious, erudite, generous, and passionate about his subject. When we are suffering so much thanks to the crushing incompetence of many of our leaders, it is a true joy to spend time with someone so thorough, knowledgeable, and curious.
Our Top Five Episodes for Newbies (In Chronological Order)
Hit Parade: The Rogue DJ Edition -- If recommending that newbies start with the very first episode is basic, then so are we, because it truly is an excellent starting point for the show. Molanphy examines the strange turn of events that sent UB40’s “Red Red Wine” to the top of the U.S. charts five years after its initial release. Regardless of your feelings about the song [We Your Dames know it to be a banger, but we know not all souls are so enlightened], the story of pre-internet virality is fascinating.
Hit Parade: Le Petty Prince Edition -- When you have Tom Petty and Prince as your primary subjects in a podcast, it’s hard to produce anything other than excellence. But Molanphy still outdoes himself by both drawing out the parallels between these two superficially dissimilar artists and complicating the narratives that we have about each. Plus, any episode that might introduce listeners to the greatest Rock & Roll Hall of Fame closing jam session of all time is aces in our book. Come for the loving tribute, stay for George Harrison’s son Dhani having the absolute time of his life & for Prince’s guitar literally ascending to the heavens, never to be seen again!
Hit Parade: The Queen of Disco Edition -- This episode, following the career of disco superstar Donna Summer, may be Dame Margaret’svery favorite. In addition to having a truly engrossing story to relate about two epochal shifts in pop music, Molanphy’s particular affection for Summer suffuses the whole episode with special tenderness.
Hit Parade: The Show Me a Sign Edition -- No podcast about Top 40 pop would be complete without an episode about Max Martin, who is to the last 25 years of dance pop what Genghis Khan was to Central Asia in the 13th century. But, again, Molanphy delivers an episode that exceeds even its subject’s formidable reputation, creating a You’re Wrong About-style re-examination of the myth that Britney Spears was a passive, reluctant participant in her own pop stardom.
Hit Parade: The Invisible Miracle Sledgehammer Edition -- although Dame Sophie skated around many roller rinks to various Genesis, Phil Collins, Peter Gabriel, and Mike & The Mechanics songs throughout the 1980s, she was a little skeptical about this one. 80 minutes on these kinda corny auteurs of the sonic wallpaper of her childhood? Okay???? But once again, if anyone can excavate & render riveting the story of Genesis’ transformation from insufferable prog rock kings to pop kings, managing to not only not break up but to release multi-platinum smashes while their members simultaneously pursued successful solo careers, it’s Chris Molanphy. The best fact in this episode is that Phil Collins is such a fan of Earth, Wind & Fire that he hired their horn section, the Phenix Horns, to play on his first solo album to zazz it up. Those are some good instincts & Collins has risen in my estimation accordingly.
Hit Parade: The State of the World Edition-- Janet! Jackson! We could leave our acclamation at that, but could we??? Come on. Molanphy’s delight in revisiting and recontextualizing Miss Jackson’s (if you’re nasty) still-undefeated achievement of hurling seven hits from a single album up the Hot 100 (over a three-year period! Our contemporary faves could never!) is palpable and will set your rump a-shaking while you revisit -- or are introduced for the first time to -- Rhythm Nation. Chris very sensitively and deliberately put all Michael Jackson content in the episode’s first act, making it possible for those who can’t listen to his music to skip ahead to Janet. Bonus listening: the aforementioned You’re Wrong About’s episode setting the record straight on Janet’s Super Bowl wardrobe malfunction. Bonus reading: Naima Cochrane’s Music Sermon on Janet’s early years.
Here, Janet illustrates our giddy joy on realizing we can listen to a new episode of Hit Parade each month (or revisit a vintage one at our leisure any time we please!)
Dame Sophie’s Post-Pandemic Daydreams
I’ve been thinking a lot about what I miss about The Before Times. My family is four weeks in on staying at home and as a friend put it this week, we are deeply okay. We have each other, we have the supplies we need, we can talk to our friends and family whenever we want via the miracles of contemporary technologies, and as of today we are healthy. Hurrah!
The thing I think I miss most right now is errands. Yeah, I said it: errands. Do you know what I’d give for an afternoon with, like, a good Target run and maybe a swing past that cute store where I like to buy overpriced but beautiful greeting cards? Good grief, this is boring! But it’s my truth! I know that when things are safe enough to re-open for business, everything should happen incrementally, and how we socialize is going to have to look different. With that caveat in place, here’s a list of my wildest extremely banal post-pandemic fantasy outings:
Going to the pool. I still entertain some small hope that our pool will be open for partial hours, for members to go at staggered times in alphabetical order or something, this summer. I long to lie on a lounge chair and read something wildly absorbing in the heat, under the big blue bowl of sky, the cicadas all chorusing at top volume in competition with the Dad Rock burbling out of the tinny speakers attached to trees all around the lounge areas
Bookstore browsing! My beloved local indie, Inkwood Books, is continuing to fulfil online orders while they also prepare to move to a larger space. I can’t wait to visit them in their soon-to-be-new digs
More bookstore fantasies: I want to go to New York so I can revisit Three Lives & Co bookstore and do some serendipitous browsing and get some readers’ advisory from the amazing staff there, followed by a very early dinner and a neighborhood stroll
While I’m in New York, I think I should reserve a huge table at Balthazar and have breakfast there with all of my friends who can join me. Can you imagine just going to restaurants again? What a world!
I want to go to the movies. I want to overpay for an enormous fountain Diet Coke and terrible yet delicious popcorn and watch something utterly transporting. Like...oh, honestly, I have no idea what’s going to be out when at this point. I definitely want to see the new Bond film, so let’s go with that. Movies!!!
Water ice! Ok, as I write this list, I’m realizing that I have a real summer focus going on here. My favorite order is either lemon & cherry water ice in layers OR black cherry water ice with vanilla custard (we call this a gelati here in South Jersey, even though that’s wrong on two counts: it features no gelato and also it is plural for no reason at all)
I want my kid to be able to play roller derby again and to have a really meaningful 8th grade graduation. I want all the kids who are missing milestones big and small -- dances, class trips, driver’s license tests, graduations, birthday parties, regular old weekend hangouts, finals, clearing out their lockers, all of it -- to know that their losses are real! And to know that the adults in their lives are working their asses off to make sure their important dates and times are celebrated the very best we possibly can manage!
I want to go to Staples. I freaking love Staples. I have all the pop-up post-it notes I’ll need for the next two years bc I bought in bulk a few months ago but I want to go test pens & see about acquiring another pack of those amazing good-smelling markers that remind me powerfully of the art room at the summer camp of my youth
BRUNCH. Oh my god, guys, BRUNNNNNCH! Brunch brunch brunch brunch brunch brunch. I’m the Ron Burgundy of brunch!
Venice. My parents are re-listening to the Inspector Guido Brunetti mysteries audiobooks and none of us has been to Venice and now all I want is to plan a multigenerational family trip to Venice. (With what dollars, I do not know, but this is fantasy, so I am going to indulge as fully as I can and make no apologies. It could come true!)
Baseball. I went to a Phillies game last summer with darling DamesPal, past guest editrix and my neighbor Jen Miller, and want to go again so bad. I don’t even sports, but now — now that I can’t — maybe I do, after all! Time makes fools of us all, I guess
Earlier in the week, I invited Dames Nation to talk about the #content that is helping you through this weird weird time. That thread is still open & I’d still love to hear what you’re relying on. Take care of you! Your Dames love you & hope that you and everyone in your circle of care is well.
Dame Margaret is (Maybe????) Going to Emerge from Quarantine as a Person Who Cooks
In the kitchen, I display the same effortless grace and competence as this animated baby deer.
Historically, I have not been much of a cook. It is not strictly speaking that I am bad or incompetent— I can boil a pasta as well as the next girl!— but more that I am so much of a novice that every recipe takes forever and, often, ends up not as good as I’d hoped it would be. I have never liked this about myself, but nor have I ever really cared enough to be different. UNTIL, you know, a global pandemic came along and forced my hand.
I had been hoping that working from home in my new job would make cooking for myself easier, but I hadn’t anticipated that every non-essential worker in the country would be joining me in the pursuit simultaneously. I still have a long way to go towards mastery, but I made something last week that was easy, delicious, and gloriously affirming of my conviction that, while my cooking skills may be lacking, my cooking instincts are sound: a slightly modified version of Smitten Kitchen’s miso sweet potato and broccoli bowl. I could not find the white miso required by the recipe on the picked-over shelves of my local grocery store, so I had to make do with what was in the house. Taking inspiration from the yogurt tahini sauce described in Mollie Chen’s ferociously helpful Recipes and Grocery Staples Google Doc, I added yogurt to the base of tahini and rice vinegar recommended in Smitten Kitchen’s recipe and then, from there, I followed my instincts about what else to add. Ginger and garlic to taste. Sesame oil. Many swirls of Sriracha. And the end result?? It was spectacular. My vastly more culinarily-skilled roommate was even impressed. So it was nice to know that, if I have a little help as to proportions and combinations, I am knowledgeable enough to freestyle effectively.
Similarly encouraging is Samin Nosrat’s new podcast with Hrishikesh Hirway, Home Cooking. Like everything Samin does, this podcast is supremely informative and delightfully wonkish without ever being intimidating. The first episode, which features an interview with Josh Malina about his family’s latke recipe, is so winning.
And, of course, the excellent advice of our own Cassie Niespodziewanski has been a guiding light as well. Knowing what to buy at the grocery store in order to have a well-stocked kitchen is exactly the kind of help I need to go from being tied to recipes (where results can so often fall short) to being a cook with sufficient skill to throw something together. Hopefully, my growth in this arena will continue: watch this space for updates!
Two Bossy Dames is brought to you by:
Dua Lipa’s album of wall-to-wall bops,
This exceptionally weird 90s one-hit-wonder song that said album samples,
Strongbad giving the people a great gift of 180 songs, jingles, and other musical tidbits from Homestar Runner!
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