Pandas & Sunnies & Nighies, Oh My!
Look, Dames Nation, plenty of things happened this week. But can we argue that ANY of them are more important than this video of a red panda being startled by a bug finally going viral?
Obviously, yes, lots of more important things happened! Here in Trump's America, something vastly more startling than a bug is ALWAYS in the offing! But for now it is FRIDAY NIGHT so we are going to take a break, look at this silly gif and our other silly links, and feel refreshed. We hope you’ll join us.
This Week in Mirth Tears
Google “funny gifs” with hope in your heart and you’ll be amazed by the bounty you find.
Because we need a respite from the horrible, horrible news & maybe you do, too, a delicious link buffet! First, and most important: did you know that Mallory Ortberg recently started a newsletter where she shares typical Ortbergian gems like “A message from Reformed theologian John Calvin to my dog Murphy, who I suspect is not a member of the elect”? Because she has, and she does, and you should subscribe immediately, if somehow you have not already. An absolute foolproof classic GEM is Clickhole’s Garbage Sons Quiz, which makes Dame S. nearly hyperventilate with glee. She tries to change her responses but somehow always ends up being The Dreaded Laramie, who is obsessed with bones-- which is ALSO Dame M.’s result! Make of that what you will!
Cute/silly animal photos and videos are another soul-sustaining source of restorative giggles, such as these cows sitting like dogs, an octopus working up an appetite for his fresh crab dinner, an extraordinarily nimble and dedicated black lab fetching a tennis ball, and a pair of birds dancing to La Bamba. An obituary may be a strange place to find a laugh, but this one for the late Louis DiBella-- which contains the sentence "A longtime Boston nightclub impresario and wholesale fruit vendor, Mr. DiBella named [his nude dancing bar The Golden Banana] in honor of his status as one of the top banana sellers in the region"-- is not just ANY obituary. Mr. DiBella, we salute you. We may even have tweetstormed about you. Maybe you want to hear Dame M. weigh in with our beloved friends Kait and Renata on just which diseases Nicholas Sparks believes can be cured by true love in her live appearance on Kait and Renata's podcast, The Worst Bestsellers, where we read The Notebook so you don't have to!
Less a gigglefest and more an “awwww” generator, Sesame Street continues their unbroken streak of excellent segment guests such as Daveed Diggs rapping over Rubber Duckie in a lavish bow tie and Billy Eichner doing the sweetest Billy on the Street of all time. Once again, Alexandra Petri has shown just how indispensable her scathing wit is, in re: Sean Spicer (who really truly ought to just quit, but so long as he’s daring to speak from the podium that is C.J. Cregg’s rightful domain, we will encourage all mockery leveled at him. Also Lauren Duca’s weekly dispatches are very important.) C.J. could further shame ol’Spicey by simply pointing out that anything he can do, she can do bleeding, as this hilarious McSweeney’s piece details. These daily bird illustrations just tickle our funny bones, as does this Twitter account dedicated to informing you whether there is a cat in the sink or not. And finally, here is Dame S.’ favorite baby video of all time: a little girl pranking her dad while he tries to trim her nails.
A Sunnies Roundup by Dame Margaret!
Holly Golightly: My platonic ideal, in re: sunnies.
If eyes are the windows to the soul, then apparently nothing makes me feel more glamorous than HIDING my soul behind cheap sunglasses. I have been known to call sunnies season selfie season because once I have the right pair, I become incapable of NOT taking pictures of myself in them literally every second. The pair featured in all but one of these pictures is the pair of sunglasses I have been looking for since my Entirely Cliche Holly Golightly Obsession at 14, and they can be had on Amazon for just $9.99! I Which is very important, because the only thing I do more often than take selfies of my sunnies is lose them. As I am headed to California next week for TEN DAYS (leaving this here newsletter in the capable hands of Guest Editors Betsy Bird and Julie Danielson, authors of the glorious children's-authors-behaving-badly compendium Wild Things), I decided it was time to branch out, which meant browsing ALL the sunglasses offered by ZeroUV on Amazon, which means YOU LOYAL READERS get to see what I deem the cream of that particular crop. My sincerest apologies to those of you who must, for reasons of poor vision and contacts-aversion, buy only prescription sunglasses. This will be salt in an open wound and I can only hope you forgive me. NOW! For the rest of you!
I love a good pair of tortoiseshell sunnies! It feels a little less severe than black frames, like the rest of what I’m wearing does not have to be fully DONE to justify my absurd frames. You can go for my classic Golightlies, which demonstrate the TRUE secret of why Ray Bans are so flattering: it’s because they go STRAIGHT ACROSS your face rather than curving with it. It’s the CURVING that convinced so many of you, incorrectly, that big sunglasses make you look like bugs. If you want to be a little more Faye Dunaway than Audrey Hepburn, you can go for this very similar but slightly more sinuous pair that read as VERY 1970s, in the best, caftanniest way. OR you can do the classiest possible iteration of the kitchiest of all possible frames with a lovely pair of tortoiseshell heart-shaped sunnies.
Or, if you’d prefer to have your kitsch served with a side of EXTRA kitsch, you could treat yourself to one of ZeroUV’s many shades of POLKA DOT heart-shaped sunnies or a pair of RAINBOW REFLECTIVE heart-shaped sunnies. The secret of wearing sunglasses like these is understanding the Moxie Markup: by choosing to wear something that most people imagine is IMPOSSIBLE to pull off, you appear both super cool (like you’re ABOVE caring about plebeian things like what’s FLATTERING) and also like the item flatters YOU (because most people actually look pretty good in most things as long as they feel really happy while wearing them). So grab yourself a pair of glitter-framed reflective sunglasses, grin like anything, and wait for the compliments to flood in.
If, like me, reflective lenses are the trend you’ve decided to conquer this summer, there are a lot of options for you! How about a pair of Golightlies, but with translucent pink frames and green-magenta reflective lenses? Or maybe a pair of Dunaways in blue with mirrored lenses the color of the sky RIGHT after the sun’s dipped below the horizon? Or you can match me exactly by treating yourself to a translucent blue cat-eye pair with gold-magenta lenses. These are waiting for me on my doorstep at home and I can't WAIT to see how they look on.
And finally, maybe you want to go REAL retro with a pair of proper cat eyes. Then maybe you’d like this darling pair with brown lenses and pearlescent olive frames? OR you could pursue another one of this summer trends and treat yourself to this cream pair with smokey tan lenses and a fashion-forward metal bridge?
Whichever pair-- or pairs!!-- you pick, PLEASE be sure to take a lot of satisfied selfies in them and tweet them at Your Dames! Remember my fashion motto, now immortalized bythe incredible Kady Yates:everything matches and there’s nothing you can’t pull off.
A Tasty Links Smorgasbord!
Charlie and Lola know what's up.
Sorry, nobody can tell Dame S. that the bathing in pink milk aesthetic on Harry Styles’ forthcoming eponymous album is not a direct homage to CBeebies’ tv series Charlie & Lola. It is just fact.
Now that you’re equipped with the absolute perfect pair of sunglasses, you should revisit this piece about the subversive charm of day-drinking-- preferably while day drinking, ideally on a patio somewhere. Trust us. You’ve earned it.
Our beloved Kathryn VanArendonk is on fire this week with her End of Girls thinkpieces. We love her HOT TAKE (bwahahahaha forever) on why it always seems to be the dog days of summer in Girls-land, and her searing critique of Hannah’s absolutely unrealistic lifesaver of an academic job.
We are strongly considering investing in charmingly mismatched service for 12 of this vintage dinnerware emblazoned with the visages of musical heroes, to be split evenly between Prince and David Bowie.
As longtime readers know, this is a pro-badger newsletter, but we are not sure whether to be really impressed or faintly terrified by this video of a badger burying a whole entire cow (and then, off-camera, feasting on it for the better part of a month). Circle of liiiiiiife!
Lorde will be back with a second album in June, which is great news for music lovers. Also great and fully in line with this newsletter’s musical leanings: her abiding love and appreciation for Katy Perry’s song Teenage Dream, which she accurately describes as “holy” and “let[ting] you feel something you didn’t know you needed to feel”. Lorde: right on Teenage Dream, right for Dames Nation.
Two music supervisors, alike in...well, maybe not alike in dignity, but certainly in negotiating skills and quality ears: this interview with Karyn Rachtman, who put together such classic 90s soundtracks as Clueless, Reservoir Dogs, Bulworth, and Boogie Nights, made Dame S. also think about Alexandra Patsavas, whose work as a music supervisor for The O.C., Grey’s Anatomy and the Twilight films has probably influenced your taste in music more than you realized. Patsavas’ career trajectory has been a lot smoother than Rachtman’s, but I suspect Rachtman has a memoir worthy of comparison with The Dirt in her.
This list of 21 Indecently Cool Things I Will Buy When I Become a Millionaire (gleaned from the fabulous Rose Lerner’s newsletter) is the purest possible escapism, and full of BRILLIANT suggestions. It WILL led you to buy a lottery ticket tonight, we bet you anything.
Recently, NPR Music dug up their very first interview with the inimitable Tracy Chapman, from 1988 to celebrate the release of her still completely devastating self-titled debut. Much like the album it’s about, this 6.5-minute interview is really fascinating and wonderfully/depressingly still relevant.
Not at ALL depressing, however, is #damsfav Fran Hoepfner’s tribute to the special genius of Bill Nighy over at the wonderful film magazine Bright Wall, Dark Room. Did it leave Dame Sophie imagining this scene as a as a glimpse into Harry Styles’ potential future? Who can possibly say.
But Harry probably ALREADY owns this red floral shirt.