Style and Substance and Silliness
We need all three!
In which Dame Karen shares with us
*aggressive old-timey teletype machine noises*
THE MOST IMPORTANT CASTING NEWS OF 2022!
KING OF WEIRDLY HOT WEIRDOS! LISTEN, WE DON’T MAKE THE RULES, WE JUST KNOW AND FOLLOW THEM
A text from Sophie usually brings good or at least fascinating news and yesterday’s note reading “Today in headlines I did not anticipate reading” did not disappoint. The headline was, blessedly, “Jason Mantzoukas is voicing Tommy Lee’s penis in Hulu’s ‘Pam and Tommy’.” What a rush! Writer and director Robert Siegel adapted the screenplay from the 2014 Rolling Stone article by Amanda Chicago Lewis. [The Behind The Story video, in which Lewis describes how she found the man who stole The Tape in the first place and discusses the cultural impact of The Tape is available on YouTube, crams a lot of information and analysis into just under four minutes, and I recommend you watch it.]
I had been wondering what, if any, other source material Robert Siegel used in writing what is surely going to be my personal television event of the year. I was DELIGHTED to learn via this announcement that Tommy Lee’s indescribably ridiculous and beloved (by me) 2005 autobiography Tommyland is once again making history. Has any other celebrity turned over the reins to not only a ghostwriter but also their very own genitalia in the course of writing the story of their life? Well, Tommy did just that. His penis introduces “himself” in Tommyland as Dick (which, ok, not very creative,Tommy Lee, damn) and, um, enters the Tommyland narrative several times. Dick’s contributions are indicated by a font that I described in a 2016 Brooklyn Magazine article on the greatest trashy celebrity memoirs as “look[ing] like Papyrus distressed with a Photoshop grunge brush.”
Well, “Pam and Tommy,” per Variety, features “a specific scene in which Tommy, who had just met Pamela, wonders whether he’s falling in love — and discusses it in a heart-to-heart talk with his penis.” Not only will viewers witness Sebastian Stan converse with an animatronic penis puppet, “Dick” [unclear if the name is carried over to the miniseries] will be voiced by human Photoshop grunge brush Jason Mantzoukas and I am THRILLED. Mantzoukas has made a career out of adding much-needed texture to all sorts of productions and I’m never not happy to see him strategically deployed as someone’s chaotic, unexpectedly sexy, and wildly inappropriate love interest. His character Derek on “The Good Place” starts out as a malfunctioning prototype of an ideal boyfriend whose creator accidentally placed windchimes where his penis should be and by the end of the series he’s “the perfect being…a floating head made of stars hovering above a galaxy being orbited by two martini glasses, each containing a smaller version of his head,” according to The Good Place Wiki. There is literally no one else who could voice Tommy Lee’s penis and I commend everyone involved for making this happen.
Dame Karen On The Passing Of Yet Another [COOL IT ALREADY, 2022] Icon
Forever!
André Leon Talley died on January 18th at the age of 73. He once called himself “the only Black man among a sea of white titans of style” and among other roles was the longtime creative director at Vogue as well as, according to Hilton Als in The New Yorker in 1994, “the last editorial custodian of unfettered glamour.” I’m listening to his second autobiography, The Chiffon Trenches, right now and it’s wonderful. [There was an excerpt in the Washington Post when it came out last year.] Talley narrates the audiobook himself and it’s perfectly gossipy and glamorous but also shocking and infuriating and an amazing meditation on what it is to devote one’s entire life to one’s work. He was outspoken about his complete lack of balance when it came to having a personal life in addition to a professional life and his vulnerability and honesty are as powerful as his ever-untouchable style. His story of the lack of response from his colleagues at Vogue after writing an opinion piece on the historic Blackness of the September 2018 Beyoncé cover shot by Tyler Mitchell and sending it to all of them is particularly galling but how lucky are we that it exists, that he existed? This NYT article by Vanessa Freidman that coincided with the release of the documentary “The Gospel According to André” kicks off with the pull quote “Fashion does not take care of its people. No one is going to take care of me, except I am going to take care of myself,” and just goes and goes and goes.
Tributes that weren't too little too late, looking at you, Anna Wintour:
An Ode To André Leon Talley by Saeed Jones from his newsletter Werk-In-Progress
This Twitter thread from @TheNateIsGreat on ALT’s role as a judge on America’s Next Top Model and his talent for “seeing the vision and fantasy when others didn’t.”
Thank you @Fabulousity201 for spotlighting Talley lovingly and enthusiastically narrating Rihanna’s red carpet walk at the 2015 Met Gala in that sweeping, opulent yellow dress and cape by Guo Pei. “I want more train and more train!”
Dame Sophie’s Cultural Pick & Mix Assortment
Note to Cher Horowitz: embrace unexpected combinations of color, texture, and more!
One of my favorite Unexpected Good Things That Happened During The Pandemic is the large number of middle-aged stylists and fashion folks I started following on Instagram. I think it started with learning about Carla Rockmore when Dodai Stewart tweeted a thread of her short videos. Carla is not a stylist working with clients; she’s a curator with eclectic taste, an exquisitely well-developed eye, and apparently unlimited storage space. Someone who can make a strong case for the practicality of a sunshine-yellow Prada coat is my kind of person. In swift succession, I started coming across more fellow clothes-lovers such as Mikaela Pabon (who’s also the owner and designer of Dressed In Joy, which lives 100% up to its name), and following actual working stylists such as Paul Julch, Erin Stroll (who has recently left her day job to work as a stylist full-time), and Dawn Roth. Each of them has their own niches, and they’re part of a mutually supportive community, but I think my favorite part of the work they share with us is how much fun they have with fashion. Their commitment to thoughtful experimentation and trying new-to-me approaches is so encouraging! And although they clearly enjoy shopping, that’s not their sole focus. They create both literal and metaphorical space for everyone to do the same, right now, with what they already have.
Nominees for the 2022 Edgar Awards were announced this week and I was pleased as punch to see that one of the few books I was able to read this year, Last Call, is nominated in the Best Fact Crime category. Mazel tov to Friend of the Newsletter Elon Green on this nomination! If you haven’t read Last Call, both Dame Margaret and I continue to endorse and recommend it most enthusiastically. To get an idea of the book as a whole, and Elon’s research and writing approaches, check out our interview with him from March 2021
The delightful, well-informed, and witty Joe Kwazcala and Kristen Studard invited me and fellow return panelists Ben Merlis and Jamison Webb back to their podcast Who Cares About The Rock Hall to predict and recommend future inductees of the classes of 2032 to 2037. Although we’ll never agree about the Rock Hall merits of Alice in Chains and Stone Temple Pilots, I’m hopeful that the near-immediate consensus our rowdy group reached regarding artists like Aaliyah, Thin Lizzy, and Kate Bush will bear fruit among actual Hall voters in due course. Of course, because I can only be who I am, I’m also hopeful that I helped plant some seeds with my enthusiastic & occasionally aggrieved yelling about poptimism and icons such as the very deserving Sinead O’Connor, Gloria Estefan, Bjork, and the Replacements. As Kristen always says, just put ‘em in!!! Completists among you may enjoy listening to my previous appearance on the show, making a case for inducting the Bangles. Please, my dear darling Nominating Committee kings Questlove & Dave Grohl, get to work on these crucial matters!
Two Bossy Dames is brought to you by:
The wisdom of Linda Holmes (you can look forward to a single-topic issue on this in the next month!)
Being a Renaissance Woman – it’s easier than you think!
And Maria Nguyen’s beautiful, haunting artwork for the titular graphic novel in Station Eleven
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