Low Battery Power Mode
Dames Nation, IT US:
Our 2016 has been a little BANANA PANTS, especially in the past few weeks. SO this week we're skipping our Top Fives and instead providing you with (1) a round-up of some of the best PEOPLE & THINGS we've shared lately on Twitter and (2) a bit of writing from a Foreign Correspondent who lives in a PLACE we find nifty. NEXT WEEK, Liz Galvao of Weird Personal Emails andMeryl Williams of The Sleeper Hit will be here to make sure you receive a FULL STRENGTH edition of Two Bossy Dames.
For now, though, the only thing Dame Margaret appears capable of paying attention to is vintage glassware, so "sparse" (let's call it an elegant sufficiency!) seemed better than 100% Blendo pitchers, 100% of the newsletter. (Though Dame Sophie thinks you could make a solid case for Our Favorite Unaffordable Midcentury Etsy Treasures as a sub-newsletter. Let us know your thoughts, Dames Nation!)
People!
Deeply important: this Jessica Fletcher facial expressions appreciation post (the first of THREE!). And also: How do we love this picture of J.B. Fletcher?? Let us count the ways.
Misty Copeland's re-creations of Degas paintings are our everything.
Joséphine Baker: not content with being a revered entertainer of her age, she was also a secret agent for the Allied Forces during WWII, and a total badass!
A crucial list for Dames Nationals d'un certain age: all of Sassy Magazine’sCute Band Alerts!
Michael B. Jordan is finally going to star in a romantic (almost comedy), huzzah!
Ava DuVernay & Lupita Nyong'o are teaming up for scifi thriller, and Ava will be directing middle grade fave A Wrinkle In Time! Our cultural cup runneth over!
"Can You Tell What Band Is On A Cover Of 'NME'?" We really can’t, and weeeeee’re not sorry!
Prince's passport photo is for sure not neutral, as the State Department requires. Instead, as Esquire's Matt Miller asserts: "it is capturing the entire spectrum of human emotion. Nor is it a natural smile. It is a look that could only be mastered by Prince after many years of being Prince."
Christina of The Unfriendly Black Hotties texted THIS ESSENTIAL GIF to Dame M., who shares it now knowing that MANY in Dames Nation will have (tragically) frequent recourse to deploy it:
Places: Our Estonian Correspondent Reports!
Dame Sophie’s longtime Internet Ladyfriend Erin Crouch lives in Estonia with her family & her regular updates from Tallinn made us want to know more more more about this tiny, taciturn, and extremely charming Baltic nation. You can read more of Erin’s excellent work at The Billfold.
Sauna. Bus. This could be you right now, if you lived in Estonia.
Thanks for inviting me to write about the best country no one’s ever heard of, Dames! I live in Estonia, where we spend our time riding around on the Sauna Bus and kiiking, which I promise is nicer than it sounds.
Estonia is the northernmost Baltic state, located between Finland and Russia, and it’s full of all kinds of cool stuff, like kohuke, chocolate-covered cheese curd. Estonia has two independence days: Independence Day on February 24, and Restoration of Independence Day on August 20, celebrating freedom from the USSR. All that independence doesn’t stop the joke that the flag was stolen though. It gets pretty dark around here in the winter, so we’re all required by law to wear reflectors.
Estonia was hip before hip was a thing: there are no separate words in the language for he or she, instead, the word tema is used for both and little boys wear tights.
There is an annual film festival that is ranked in the top fifteen in the world, along with Cannes, and free public transport for residents. We have an ice roadbetween the mainland the second-largest island in Estonia, Hiiumaa, in the winter. Speaking of islands, we find new ones all the time around here.
The Song Festival grounds celebrate the Estonian tradition of singing as non-violent protest, while the Opinion Festival celebrates the Estonian tradition of being one of the countries lowest in agreeableness. Opinions at the festival also can be aired in English and Russian, in case you have not mastered Estonian, one of the 10 most difficult languages to learn, with 14 different cases. Try out a few expressions!
Estonia makes beautiful socks.
Adorable earrings are also a key export.
In case you’ve had enough adorableness, you can see a Soviet prison and the historic, restored Old Town in Tallinn, which happens to be a UNESCO World Heritage site, when you visit.
I’m contractually obligated to mention our e-residency program, which allows people outside of Estonia to use our super convenient electronic ID cards, with which we can vote, sign documents legally and get our medical prescriptions electronically. Estonia also invented some stuff you might have heard of, like Skype. Companies set up business here because of the flat tax, which also makes filing income taxes a snap. Your bank pre-populates the tax form and the Estonian ID card allows you to sign online, so most tax returns take less than five minutes to complete. That leaves plenty of time to go to the Pickle Festival.
I could talk about Estonia all day, so thanks for giving me the chance, ladies! Head aega, or until next time!
Things!
We are rebus & pun conoisseurs, so believe it when we say this 1909 farmer’s love letter is the best-ever use of a cantaloupe. (h/t #Damespal Nyn!)
Your Dames would watch lit'rally all of these proposed kind-hearted reality TV shows. Indeed, if more reality TV were this gentle, Dame S might become a fan.
We are utterly smitten with Terminal Presents' Etsy shop of lovely, lovely movie posters.
All of Vitor Martins's art is extremely delightful, but his Poe/Finn work is ESPECIALLY strong.
These have already appeared in even our newsletter before (thanks again tothe Black Hotties) but we like these ~~free-to-download~~, stunning NASA space tourism posters so much that we can’t help highlighting them yet again.
In a similar vein, we're obsessed with Recovering the Classics, a non-profit project wherein designers create A+ covers for copyright-free books, ones you can ALSO buy as posters!
Twee as Helllllll!!!
The heretofore unimagined intersection between TWEE AS HELL and HOT AS HELL.
Because we love you, here is a gif of Daveed Diggs in footie pajamas. (Get your own copy here!)
If you loved us BACK, then you'd bake these gingerbread corgi cookies for us. (h/t #Damespal Laura K.!)
Sorry, beloved friends and family! We're deserting you, because thismesmerizing embroidery-style cookie decorating video is our home now. We've no need of anything BUT it ever again.
The whole Suddenly Cat website is verrrrrrrry dangerous, but ESPECIALLY these notebooks, AND THIS PILLOW COMMEMORATING TUBBS, the adorable fatty from Neko Atsume! (h/t #Damespal Jennifer)
Alexandra Kehayoglou's one-of-a-kind, made-to-mimic-moss rugs are a MUST for the Bossy Aerie.
Delicately macabre is such a key part of the Bossy Aesthetic, so when Colossal shares things like these models of internal organs made our of flowers, we feel really SEEN and UNDERSTOOD.
AND FINALLY, to Naomi Driver’s beautifully cross-stitched UGH, we can only say AMEN!
This Week in Hamilton!
Lin-Manuel Miranda's LONG-AWAITED interview on Another Roundwas finally released, accompanied by-- you guessed it-- a Reader’s Digest listicle of the conversation's highlights: 14 Things You Never Knew About Hamilton's Lin-Manuel Miranda! LMM announced that the cast will be heading to the White House next week to test out their educational program which, sure, was exciting, but not nearly as exciting as the fact that, in the midst of this video, Daveed Diggs slid his glasses down his nose and peered over them like a sexily annoyed History teacher.All of Dame Margaret's Pop Culture Happy Hour friends went to see the show and didn't even invite her, which is FINE, she GUESSES, because it led to Gene Demby writing this really thoughtful piece about being the practically the only brown person in the audience of a show full of brown people. Philippa Soo proved herself even more viciously adorable by discussing her beatboxing in "Take a Break" with Refinery 29. And finally, after... centuries? of benign neglect, Alexander Hamillton's grave at Trinity Church is having a bit of a moment.