The Weekly Spill #19
catching up on culture, cowboy carter, and camp chicago choreo
Happy Friday! I am back, back, back again to share all of the things that have been on my mind recently. Since it has been a minute, you might have to excuse me if some of these are slightly old news. Think of it as a cultural catch up with a friend who you haven’t heard from in a few weeks. I’m that friend and you’re you and these are the things that we must to catch up on!
Cowboy Carter: I feel I must get this out of the way at the top of the newsletter because Beyoncé has taken over my brain with the masterpiece that is Cowboy Carter. Last year, I randomly decided to watch the 16 hour Ken Burns documentary on the history of country music, so this whole thing has really been fun for me. I’ve listened to the whole thing over and over, and each time I am finding new little things to love that I hadn’t picked up on before. Even with 8 months left, Cowboy Carter is the album of the year. I don’t have much to say about it that hasn’t already been said by people much smarter than me, but I did have this wild fantasy yesterday that I thought I would include below just on the off-chance that Beyoncé is looking for ideas.
My idea for Beyoncé: I am often lamenting the bygone era of variety shows, and so my dream idea is that Beyoncé would do a variety special at the Grand Ole Opry. She could have all of the artists who are on the album and other special guests. Imagine Linda Martell and her on that stage together. If we are thinking really crazy, get Paul McCartney on to play guitar for the “Blackbiird” performance. Maybe she even touches on some of the country music history that she felt inspired by, teach us a little lesson perhaps (and a peek into the mind of a genius). She could use it to tease some of the visuals. She could put it in movie theaters. Bring back the variety show. Please.
Come and Get It by Kiley Reid: I included this in a previous newsletter as one of my most highly-anticipated book releases, so I feel like I should give an update. Maybe my expectations were too high, but I was disappointed with this. There were lots of moments throughout when I felt like Reid was setting up the story to go in a great direction, only for it to not go anywhere. The book had good ingredients (particularly the characters which were very well-written), but felt half-baked. I was so excited to have a campus novel set at my alma mater, but it became obvious pretty quickly that despite living in Fayetteville for a year, the author didn’t really understand the University of Arkansas.
Kacey Musgraves’s Deeper Well: Another excellent new album. I loved the story/photoshoot that The Cut did on her leading up to the release and wanted to mention it even though maybe that is old news now. In it, she mentioned that the song “Dinner With Friends” is inspired by the essay “What I’ll Miss” by Nora Ephron. As if I wasn’t already completely sold (and I was btw the vinyl was already pre-ordered), she brings in Nora. Okay Kacey, I see you. The album is fantastic. She’s exploring a folksier sound, and I think it really suits her. My favorite song changes almost every time I listen (a sign of a great album), but “The Architect” has been one of the standouts since my first listen.
Nadia Lee Cohen’s Rhianna cover for Interview Magazine: At this point we should all be aware that I am a Nadia Lee Cohen stan, so obviously I have to include the new cover she did for Interview. I’m obsessed. Honestly, I sort of wish that she would do all of their covers the way that Richard Bernstein did all of them in the 70s and 80s.
I’ve seen a few people who are mad that this is a recreation, and are trying to use that to claim that Nadia Lee Cohen isn’t talented. I even saw someone claim that “this is the result of too much mood-boarding.” I think that those people are idiots who obviously don’t work for a magazine. References are pretty important. Also, a big part of Cohen’s aesthetic is this sort of cool, sometimes odd, retro pastiche. It’s a great reference, and a really striking cover.
Girl Historians Podcast: If you had a hyper-fixation on a historical event as a child, this is the podcast for you. The first season is about the Titanic and the current second season is about the Salem witch trials. The hosts are hilarious, and the show has the same feeling as going for drinks with your best friend and after two cocktails the conversation turns into an attempted lecture on whatever random niche subject you recently fell into researching at 1 am.
Madonna: Truth or Dare: The blueprint for the pop girl documentary. If you haven’t seen this, I implore you to do so. There is something that feels really shocking when you go back and watch Madonna be so unbothered with “looking good.” Throughout the documentary, she is bitchy, demanding, rude, and completely unapologetic about all of it. She’s also really fun, goofy, talented, passionate, and insanely hard-working. The scene where the police show up at her concert and threaten to arrest her for the choreography in the show is iconic. The performance numbers are peak pop excellence, and though not the point, her eyebrows are an inspiration. In the end, she had me completely under her spell, bitchy parts and all.
Good Material by Dolly Alderton: Another one of my most anticipated book releases, and this one didn’t disappoint at all. If Dolly Alderton has no fans, I am dead. I have rated all of her books 5 stars, and I will buy everything she writes. I was very intrigued to see how she would to tackle a male protagonist in Good Material, and I think she nailed it. She also managed the too-often-failed task of writing a comedian character who is actually funny. I’m so glad that I got the opportunity to go and see her speak about the book last month (brag). Hearing her talk about the book made me want to pick it back up and reread it immediately.
Boys & Girls State documentaries: I watched Boys State last year, and I thought it was incredibly smart, yet honestly terrifying at times. The filmmakers really managed to capture the energy of being at Texas Boys State, a place that I might go as far as describing as my personal hell.
After watching it, I kept wondering what Girls State was like. Would it be just as cringe-inducing? Would the teen girls be as scary as the boys? We have the answer now, as the follow-up doc following Missouri Girls State was recently released. Filmed in the month between the leaking of the Supreme Court documents and the overturning of Roe v. Wade, the documentary follows the teen girls as they run a mock government and fight to be taken as seriously as their Boys State counterparts by the real one. This made me angry, it made me cry, and it left me feeling like maybe together women can and will save the world. Highly recommend!
Chicago with yo-yos and TikTok choreography: The choreographer who made this decision is quite frankly looking camp in the eye.
That’s it for this week! I am hopefully back on schedule and will catch up with you next week and every week after that to spill my beans. Bye, diva!
Thank you for bringing that yo yo choreo to our attention