dishing.
Things I thought you might want to know about, and some you probably don’t.
Back when it first came out, CRUSH Reader Rachel wrote in for our DEVOUR column to tell us that she was devouring SHOGUN. Thanks to her, I became obsessed with it too. My obsession (and evidently Rachel’s) feels validated by all the awards it garnered from the Emmy’s. For those of you who haven’t checked it out yet, I’m re-running Rachel’s DEVOUR here.
From CRUSH Reader Rachel. Watch. The remake of Shōgun (Hulu and FX). Slight new twist on a classic we grew up watching, a compelling drama and a good romance with tension. It is an epic journey, and I started listening to a couple of podcasts on the show that provided a lot of additional insight and background, and they added rich layers to the show. There is an official FX podcast and there is also Mangum Talks TV, where the host covers every episode from a reviewer’s perspective.
Actress Maria Bello wrote the most touching piece on the same theme that we cover in our Quiver series — looking back on our first love all these many years later, and what it meant in our lives — in the New York Times.
Asking “what are you most grateful for in your life right now?” and other solid first date advice for those of us out there in the wild, wild world of dating, in the GOOP newsletter.
This is crazy, but the world is about to be treated to some new Mozart scores, according to The Guardian.
An iconic 85-year old Bergdorf personal shopper knows a lot about people, and it all comes out in this wonderful article from The New Yorker’s archives. “You listen, you prescribe—clothes are a fix—and you hold up a mirror. Most people can’t see themselves.”
I am on a tear to learn how to be funnier, so even though David Sedaris says he’s not exactly sure why the Pope invited him and a bunch of the other funniest comedians on the planet to meet with him at the Vatican, I know why. Not to laugh, thinks me (though that would be a natural outcome), but to learn how to make others laugh. Anyway, Sedaris’s hysterical account of the whole weird thing is in (of course) The New Yorker.
The brilliance of Slow Horses has not let up a tiny bit and its Season 4 has (yet again) dropped to resounding praise, as you can read in this piece from reviewer Tom’s Guide.
Because a good reminder is a good thing, here’s how those who master longstanding love do it, from The Atlantic.
“A REMINDER TO SUBMIT YOUR FIRST WEEK ATTENDANCE TO THE REGISTRAR, IN THE STYLE OF CORMAC McCARTHY’S ALL THE PRETTY HORSES,” is a short, clever, slyly humorous and utterly on point diversion, from McSweeney’s Internet Tendency.
Since I’m uncertain as to the overlap of Phish fans with GQ readers in a venn diagram, for those of you devoted to Phish you’ll want to read about this guy who recently spent four days with them, from GQ.
And lastly, you don’t have to be a fan of either Anna Wintour or Naomi Campbell to chuckle over how the recent contretemps between these two divas is absolutely quintessential Anna and quintessential Naomi, from TMZ.
A nuanced consideration of the darkness that underlay Kate Spade’s witty style, from WSJ Style.
How the relationship between Harper and Eric from Industry became the most fascinating one on television, from The Guardian.
A definitive guide to the fair way to split the bill at a restaurant, from Bon Appetit.
Extremely detailed notes on hiking the Dolomites, from Ann Friedman’s substack Culture Study.
An easy, perfect, delicious no-cook pasta recipe for your in-season tomatoes, from Epicurious.
For fans of the dark Irish comedy Bad Sisters, there’s good news about a Season 2 (finally), from Deadline.
While there is no trailer yet, Apple TV+ plus released this photo “teaser” of Season 2.
I Started Nate Silver’s Latest Book on Risk. Silver’s thesis in On the Edge is that most of the richest people in the world are rich because they are big risk takers (okay, that’s not a new theory: the idea that ‘the greater the risk, the bigger the reward’ has been around), but he extends that to argue that the rest of us — 90% of of the world — would be improving outcomes across a wide range of personal and professional areas in our lives if we took a lot more calculated risks. We just need to know how to improve at risk-taking. Through interviews with an array of successful (and some failed) risk-takers, the hope is that we’ll learn.
I Also Bought This Memoir Written by an Escort Worker. In CRUSH Letter No 170, I told you that the excerpt in The Cut from An Honest Woman caught my attention because it is focused on the escort’s married clients and their relationships, rather than on her and/or her relationship with her client. Meaning, it has the possibility of giving insight on the primary romantic relationship her clients’ are in. I am curious about that: the reasons for marital infidelity, how that infidelity is “managed” by the couple (openly and directly, open but ignored, or as a secret), the client’s feelings about ”outsourcing” (so to speak) that element to a paid sex worker. Well, now book is out.
The Only Reason to Watch Season 4 of Emily In Paris Is to See Sylvie. I find Emily herself to be uncompelling: predictable and garishly dressed, not in a fun way. But Sylvie is an inspiration. I wrote Merci! to Emily In Paris for One of the Most Compelling Women in Pop Culture. Sylvie. Sylvie is the reason to check out Season 4. Let’s just hope her story moves closer to center stage.
And, I Can’t Wait for the Upcoming Clooney+Pitt Male Bonding Flick. I love to see all kinds of depictions of friendships at the stage — whether among men, among women or coed/mixed up. And Wolfs has potential, don’t you think?
Having Said That, I’m Bracing Myself for the Next Season of This Midlife Female Bonding Series. I’m not sure I even finished the last season of RHONY. Honestly, I can’t remember anything that happened after seeing Jenna Lyons’s closet, except that there were a lot of annoying product pushes by its stars. That won’t stop me from checking out the newest season when it airs.
I love this quick televised interview with the great French actor Alain Delon. And not just because when asked (at the end) what animal he’d like to be reincarnated as he responds, immediately, with “a malinois. It’s a Belgian Shepherd.” (And that’s what my dog is.) I love that he does not come across as studied or overly pondering - he responds naturally and with ease. For instance, his response to one of the first questions he is asked “Favorite drug?” Is “L’amour.” (Love.) So French. And so true. It’s a drug, for sure.
Wondering how polyamory became so popular? I wasn’t, but how could you not notice it? I started seeing it ever since I saw Tim Ferriss’s 2015 twitter post asking: “If you’ve had a winning “polyamorous” relationship, how the fuck did you make it work?” A year after that I was at a (professional!) cocktail party in Silicon Valley when not one, but three, tech executives “let it drop” that they were polyamorous (followed by a lengthy pause, apparently giving me an opportunity to respond). Anyway, if you were wondering about why, Jennifer Wilson reviews American Poly, a new book by Christopher M. Gleason, for the New Yorker. Along the way, Wilson does a scan of recent pop culture for all the loaded references to this lifestyle choice increasingly popular with those from Park Slope to San Francisco.
Rich Dudes Driving in Circles is an excellent podcast episode to listen to if you (like, ahem, some of us) were thrown off by the whole F1 thing. In it host Anne Helen Peterson of Culture Study talks with Nicole Washington about what’s behind the rich dude F1 craze that started for a lot of people with Netflix’s Drive to Survive over the pandemic. (You can listen to it with a free 7-day trial.)
People have gone crazy for Saltburn (Prime Video), the ultra stylish, sinister British class film by Emerald Fennell, even (uncomprehendingly) comparing it favorably to one of the best movies of the nineties The Talented Mr. Ripley. It‘s too long by at least a half hour, but what’s worse is that the last half of it collapses into something resembling more of the 1976 Carrie horror film. The best scenes start (and end) with Rosamund Pike’s off-hand upper-crust cruelty about 40 minutes through. My suggestion is to take it from there and fast-forward all the way through to the end, when Barry Keoghan (as the newly triumphant Oliver Quick) closes the movie with a hypnotic, sexy, nude dance scene (and what a body).
Murder in Boston: Roots, Rampage and Reckoning (Max) is a documentary produced and directed by Jason Hehir (of The Last Dance) that wrestles with the well-deserved reputation Boston has long had as one of the country’s most racist cities. It examines the city’s systemic racism through the lense of Carol Stuart’s murder by her husband, which was falsely pinned by him (and then the police, media and politicians) on “a black man in a track suit.” I just moved out of Boston after twenty years, and I remember reading the Pulitzer winning Common Ground about Boston’s turbulent busing decade when I arrived in 2001 and thinking the same thing then I felt after finishing Murder in Boston: “holy shit, can this city still really be that tribal?”
Speaking of Flight of the WASP, (well, not right this moment, but we were in The CRUSH Letter No 138 because it is on Dish’s Bookshop “shelf” Up Next: On Dish’s Nightstand, this story from Messy Nessy, complete with archive photo’s on New York’s Forgotten Outpost of European Aristocracy, is a fascinating look at the history of Gardiner Island in Long Island.
My good friend Nina and I started playing backgammon regularly from afar using the cool Backgammon NJ HD app. One of us sends an invite to the other through the app, and then, if we’re both free we also call and chat over speaker phone while playing. It really feels like being together.
The PBS documentary The Gilded Age (from 2018) is delightful, gossipy, informative look at the world covered far less compellingly in HBO’s series. If you want to know what really went down during this fascinating, volatile, formative period in America’s social and economic history, check out PBS’s full American Experience treatment.
The Most Beautiful Book Cover Art of 2023. A great book cover evokes the tension of the story itself, while startling us with catchy graphic design. Here are two of my favorites, but the full list is gorgeous.
Film at Lincoln Center published its Film Comment list of Best Films of 2023. I haven’t seen most of them (lots of esoterica here), so in some sense it’s aspirational? But I did see May December, its number one film of the year, which I had told you earlier I thought was “exquisitely well-acted.” And creepy as shit. Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon was on the top of a lot of the individual lists contributed by critics I admire to Film Comment, as were Anatomy of a Fall, Past Lives And The Boy and the Heron (all on my list).
Radical Wolfe, the documentary on American writer Tom Wolfe, is now out on Netflix. When it aired in theaters in NYC this past fall I wrote this to a friend: “It covers a bibliography of his life and major works, putting both into cultural context (of the period, as well as situating him outside of New York intellectual elite circles). There is some great footage, since he was in the media so much. Lots on his brilliantly written 1970 piece skewering the fundraiser the Bernsteins threw for the Black Panthers. But at 100 minutes there’s too much ground to cover. (In contrast, the Didion documentary was 40 minutes longer, though she was not nearly the cultural blockbuster). So it is an appreciative, fun and entertaining, but I’d argue, thin treatment.”
The Atlantic Theater’s off-Broadway production of Buena Vista Social Club is a fun, joyous ride, raking in great reviews. It is the musical story behind the wildly popular original album released in 1997, which inspired a critically-acclaimed 1999 documentary by Wim Wenders. Written by playwright Marco Ramirez, the new theater production was a thrill to watch, agreed me and my friend Philip, as we walked out. The fine music and dancing carry the narrative, which is more of a backdrop.
Kendall Roy is a teenage girl and that‘s why women love him. From The Face‘s ”best of” articles, this one dissecting the millenial tik tok “love” of Kendall Roy is incisive and fun. “A chunky subset of the always-online world loves and nurtures the media mogul’s second eldest, hopeful inheritor of dad’s “dinosaur” media empire. To them, Kendall (played by Jeremy Strong) is a misunderstood teenage girl – a baby girl or Kendoll, whichever feels cringiest to you. They stan him with the ferocity of the BTS Army …
Picture a montage of Kendall’s most vulnerable moments on the show, each one embodying the overwhelming “please, just love me” mood of a volatile teen girl.“
Sex & Good, which sells good sex products, just published this post These habits are bad for your V. And it’s good, but it’s missing one thing. Bad lube. And by that I mean lube that has bad ingredients in it. Please, CRUSHes, check the ingredients in your lubes. I write about what to avoid, and which safe lubes our PrimeCrush Toy Testers like in Everything’s Better Wetter.
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