The March of Time
A look back at past years of March Bossy Fridays
Happy Friday, Dames Nation. [Welp, I had massive computer probs last night and it’s now Saturday as I send this — all apologies!] It’s cold as rainy as I write this, as it so often is in March for so many of us, which is an excellent excuse to listen to one of my very favorite songs, “Águas de Março” by Antônio Carlos Jobim … here is a charming video of him performing it with Elis Regina and here is the Art Garfunkel English version, “Waters of March,” as heard in the excellent movie The Worst Person In The World. March-y, right? That saudade is just what I want right now, so why not join me in a nostalgic trip back to the past and check out what the Dames were writing about in Marches past? [“Nostalgia” is not a great translation of “saudade” — there IS no great translation! That’s part of its power!]
March 6, 2015: Those Cosmopolitan Corvids and Other Natural Wonders
NINE entire years ago?! Yes, and it’s a good one. Not only is it chock full of glorious links (should we bring back the Twee As Hell section?!!?!), but there’s a tribute to Corvids: The Greatest Family of Birds, which includes crows, who can remember the faces of people who wronged them for up to seven years! Petty icons!
Modern corvid-related news: First of all, a probably ill-advised but wtf I’ll see it reboot of The Crow starring Bill Skarsgard and FKA Twigs is coming our way soon. More importantly, there’s a Comparative Cognition Lab at the University of Cambridge that does ground-breaking research using corvids! That’s how smart they are! The lab almost closed due to a lack of funding but was saved by public donations and Professor Nicola Clayton carries on leading the crows in a plan to take over the world! [I hope!]
March 25, 2016: 10 Pounds of Culture In A 5-Pound Bag
Eight years ago, a reader wrote in asking for pop culture recommendations as someone who had a toddler and a baby on the way and was not up to date on new and good entertainment options. I have to say, as someone who tends to turn to the very old when it comes to just about everything I watch, read, and listen to, I am just about ready to try out most of the media on this list! Maybe you are too? Who wants to finally watch Friday Night Lights? Also it’s fascinating that “Google Play, formerly Songza” is the recommendation for playlists. When and how did Spotify take over?
Modern playlist-related news: It’s the personalization, baby. Two months after this issue of TBD, “Discover Weekly attracted 40M new users to the service, and more than 5B tracks have been streamed through the playlist feature.” (More here.)
March 17, 2017: Your St Patrick’s Day Shot of Scandalous Undertakings
This is truly wild: Seven years ago this week, Two Bossy Dames was full of … KATE MIDDLETON GOSSIP as brought to Dames Nation by Heather Cocks and Jessica Morgan of Go Fug Yourself fame. (They are also current editrixes of the delightful Drinks With Broads newsletter, as I’m sure you know — Broads and Dames forever!) The gossip concerns Will missing Commonwealth Day services in favor of a boozy ski trip which led to, yes, speculations about their marriage being on the rocks. It’s a moment of both “the more things change the more they stay there same” and “were we ever such sweet summer children?! THIS is a controversy?” Check it out:
“He and Kate seem astonishingly unsavvy about the media, almost as if they were coasting on global goodwill from their marriage and that ride came to an end without them noticing. Missing the Commonwealth Day service would’ve been a lesser blip on the radar if he’d stayed under it himself. Frankly, we wish Kate had attended without him, and if we were her, we’d be tripling down on solo royal engagements as a way of showing that she at least takes this seriously.”
Modern Royal foolishness-related news: Did you see Dame Margaret’s round up from just this week?! What about American Riviera Orchid?
March 16, 2018: Thinking Pink, Missing Bowie, & Other Sundry Concerns
I came across a Far Out Magazine article earlier this week about the final albums of Leonard Cohen and David Bowie, both of which were about the artists’ wrestling with mortality and both of which came out just before they died. I gave Bowie’s "Blackstar” a listen for the first time in years while thinking once again about my dead best friend and it helped me cope, particularly the song “Lazarus”: “This way or no way / You know, I'll be free // Just like that bluebird / Now, ain't that just like me?” Sophie’s tribute to Bowie and to missing someone who meant a lot to us also helped me.
Modern Bowie news: Speaking of the history of digital music… “Bowie’s 1999 album Hours… was the first to go on sale online before hitting regular stores — and his experimentation caused horror in the music industry.”
March 8, 2019 - Pop Goes Our Hearts
Wow, another “the people of our pop culture landscape continue to die and make us sad” entry, this time in the form of a tribute to Luke Perry, whose untimely stomach cancer death hit a great many of us right in the gut. Dylan McKay?!?!?! Gone?!?! I specifically remember feeling foolishly jealous of Brenda Walsh’s seemingly idyllic virginity loss despite being supposedly way too cool and tough for such things.
Modern Luke Perry news: Pretty excited to read Margaret Wappler’s new biography A Good Bad Boy: Luke Perry and How A Generation Grew Up after this excellent Washington Post review by Allison Stewart and this AARP (!) sneak peak of “12 Things We Learned” from said bio.
Paying subscribers, don’t forget to vote in the latest recommen-DAMES-tions poll, which closes tomorrow! Not a paying subscriber? There’s a sale for that on now! Thank you, thank you, thank you for reading us for all these years. I’m the newest Dame here and looking back at some of Sophie and Margaret’s greatest March hits makes me so proud to be here. Xoxoxo
Can't wait for the Luke Perry biography!!!
Oh my gosh! That IS a blast from the past!