Hi and welcome to the Lost Friends Literary Club newsletter!
Hello Lit Clubbers! Did you miss me? As we subsequently roll back around to the third month of the year, my brain has fully and unbiasedly rejected any and all things related to the words March, COVID, lockdown, etc. I don’t want to think about it!! I know we’ve been doing this pandemic thing for a long long long long long time and that is the only mental energy I can spare on that subject. I’m tired. We’re tired. Everything is tired. You know? Speaking of tired, my recent schedule for dispatches has been pretty tired, really haphazard at best, and I’m sorry for that. I’m probably going to try harder but I also am really trying to be patient with myself in this anniversary of the apocalypse. It is what is it.
This newsletter is short, just a list of 10 things I read this weekend, but with a loose theme. I didn’t plan to make this a theme or purposely read these things and only these things, it just happened. And since the loose theme is women, I am absolutely going to capitalize on International Women’s Day and say that yes, I, a woman, read things about women to think about women and celebrate women and how women are portrayed and things like that. #girlboss. Let’s get to it:
How ‘Lolita’ Escaped Obscenity Laws and Cancel Culture by Emily Mortimer for the NYT. Mortimer is an actress and screenwriter and has a really unique position from which to write this piece. This was one of the most engrossing pieces I’ve read in a while. Also Mortimer was great in the new Mary Poppins movie. Highly recommend (the movie and this article).
Speaking of Britney… What About All Those Other Women? Following the popular #FreeBritney movement and the NYT documentary, a journalist takes a look at the other women that were harmed (emotionally/mentally/psychologically) by the tabloids and media culture of the early 90s. Great read, reminded me I need to watch that documentary ASAP (its on FX and Hulu).
The above article led me to this: Rolling Stone's 1999 cover story of Britney Spears. I truly cannot understand how this story made it to print, as the author describes her “honeyed thigh” and “ample chest” all the while glossing over the fact that she was SEVENTEEN when this story rolled out. Who approved this, why were the 90s such a mess, I have so many questions.
This Old Fashioned recipe., written by Rebekah Peppler. I’m very into her cocktail recipes right now.
This Caesar salad dressing recipe, by a personal chef I follow on instagram who is constantly doing very cool things outside of cooking. I want to be like her when I grow up.
The making of Madison Cawthorn: How falsehoods helped propel the career of a new pro-Trump star of the far right. While this article is not *technically* about women, Cawthorn was accused of being a sexual predator in a letter signed by over 150 alumni of the college he attended for a short time, and this article relays multiple accounts of his predatory behavior towards women. So.
My to-do list, which included but was definitely not limited to: writing this newsletter, cleaning my house, tracking down Girl Scout cookies. I only accomplished one of those things and I am very sad to tell you that it did not include any cookies.
My Derry Girls and Bridgerton Roles Show Women Our Complex, Eejit Selves On Screen, an opinion piece by tiny, Irish actress Nicola Coughlan. I haven’t yet watched Bridgerton but I absolutely adore her in Derry Girls and reading this was wonderful.
Gigi Butler (of Gigi’s Cupcakes)’s Hunka Chunka Banana Love banana bread recipe. I’m still working on the banana buttercream.
The first 87 pages of They Wish They Were Us by Jessica Goodman, a YA murder mystery that I had on hold at the library for literally a year. So far, so good.
Our word of the week is…
verbicide
[ vur-buh-sahyd ]
noun
the willful distortion or depreciation of the original meaning of a word.
Thanks for reading.