This has been the rainiest, coldest May in recent memory, and I fucking LOVE it. I don't want it to get hot; the sunshine is not my friend. I want a spring/summer that feels like autumn. Not one of those autumns where it's regularly 80 degrees until one day, it's suddenly 50, and then the next day it's snowing. I want perpetual autumn weather from a goddamn Ray Bradbury novel. Or better yet, summer weather in Brittany where a sweater is so necessary it basically becomes an appendage. "Portrait of a Lady on Fire" (Céline Sciamma, 2019) summer. Summer from Margaret Kennedy's "The Feast" (1950) or Tove Jansson's "The Summer Book" (1972). My skin is the color of Elmer's glue, and we all know how well the whitest of white people age (not well, bitch!). I need a few more decades before I look like a crumpled piece of toilet paper stuck to someone's shoe. Give me the gray, overcast weather, the chilly rain and the fog.
Yesterday morning, Jo (who lives in Louisville, KY), texted me this:
It truly does not get any better, and I intend to enjoy every second of it while it lasts. "This is KAB, Antonio Bay. Stevie Wayne here, beaming a signal across the sea." Over and out ✌🏻
"Pee-wee as Himself," shot in the two years leading up to Paul Reubens's (AKA Pee-wee Herman's) death, is one of the best celebrity documentaries I've ever seen. From the jump, director Matt Wolf frames Reubens as a person who craves control. Throughout their many interviews, Reubens often jokingly (but seriously) expresses his desire to usurp Wolf and make the film himself. When he talks about his life, all the pivotal moments revolve around control: taking it, losing it, or trying to wrestle it back. Pee-wee was a figure full of infinite freedom, creativity, and joy but in exchange for his existence (and success), Reubens suppressed vital parts of himself. Was it a worthwhile bargain? He says, "I kept who I was a secret for a very long time, and that really worked for me. Until it didn’t."
I was born at the end of the 80s, so I wasn't introduced to "Pee-wee's Playhouse" until it started airing in syndication on Fox Family one summer in the late 90s. I had already seen shows that clearly took inspiration from it, like "Big Comfy Couch" and "Rocko's Modern Life," but watching "Pee-wee" felt like stepping into another world entirely. Each episode contained the good type of stimulation overload where you don't know what to focus on because every inch of the screen is appealing. Any time some random childhood image that I can't place pops into my head, there's a good chance it originates with "Pee-wee" or "Faerie Tale Theatre." Decades later, I still sometimes dream about the Playhouse's puffy red zig-zag door. The whole thing — from the set design, costumes, characters, and music — was queer and subversive in the best kind of way.
As a kid, I remember my parents having a weird distaste for Pee-wee that I didn't understand until years later when I found out about his arrests: for indecent exposure in 1991 and possession of child porn in 2002. My grandma was a big fan of tabloids, so I probably read about the accusations in one of her supermarket rags like the The National Enquirer. The 90s/early aughts were a time of "that's so gay" (derogatory), and the framing around Pee-wee post-arrest was very much of the "this gay deviant isn't safe around your children" variety. Even though Reubens was closeted for his entire (public) life, he was ultimately still persecuted for his sexuality. It's a tragic story that made me think about the trajectory of LGBTQ rights and where things are currently headed if the fascists get their way. This T Magazine article is well worth the read for a deeper look.
Fans of Jane Austen will obviously enjoy this movie, along with anyone who breathes and has toes. For years, I've been prattling on about how no one makes good romantic comedies anymore. We either get shitty Netflix originals that all look and sound the same or movies that have the rom but lack the com. There is no modern day "Crossing Delancey" (Joan Micklin Silver, 1988) or "You've Got Mail" (Nora Ephron, 1998). If you've been longing for something to make you laugh, cry, and believe in love again, you must see "Jane Austen Wrecked My Life."
This is the premise: Agathe (Camille Rutherford) is a flailing, 30-something bookstore clerk in Paris who has been creatively and romantically blocked since the death of her parents. Her friend and colleague, Félix (Pablo Pauly), submits her writing to the Jane Austen Residency in England and pushes her to go when she is accepted. Before she leaves, they kiss. As soon as she arrives in England, she meets Oliver (Charlie Anson), Jane Austen's great-great-grandnephew who hides his heart of gold beneath a douchey exterior. Sparks fly, chaos ensues, trauma is processed, and everything works out as it should in the end. I can't believe this is Laura Piani's first feature film (directed and written by) because everything about it is tremendously self-assured: from the blocking, to the structure, to the very witty dialogue ("Palme d'Or of losers"). My friend Alex has two great podcast episodes on it — one more general, one specifically on the blocking at the beginning and end — if you want a closer look.
One of my favorite moments is when Agathe and Oliver (who looks like the love child of Jude Law, Hugh Grant, and Matthew Goode) drunkenly return to her room after karaoke. As he tucks her into bed, aware that she's too drunk for sex, she asks, "You won’t even go down on me?" This is one of 10000 reasons why we need more women in film.
This is how my brain works. First, I saw this:
My immediate thought: Where the fuck is Joan Crawford? Next: How cool was it when Joan Crawford accepted the Oscar for "Mildred Pierce" (Michael Curtiz, 1945) from her bed? Wait, is that where Joan Rivers got the name for her short-lived YouTube show, "In Bed with Joan"? From there, I realized Melissa Rivers uploaded some of the episodes to YouTube, and proceeded to watch them one night until 2 am (all bangers, no skips). My only criticism of the show is that I want all of the guests and Joan to wear pajamas and get under the covers in true Joan Crawford fashion.
I wonder if Amy Sherman-Palladino is pissed that she and Dan were never invited on the show. They would have certainly made better guests than Candace Cameron Bure and Meghan McCain. Even though I'm scared that, had Joan stuck around, she would have voted for Rapist Cheeto, I would love to hear her unhinged thoughts on "The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel" and "Hacks."
Oh, look, I've come across more AI garbage:
I miss when the internet gave me what I was actually looking for instead of complete nonsense:
I'm currently in the middle of Lauren Elkin's "Scaffolding" (2024), which had me fully immersed until I reached Part II and start wondering where the fuck her editor had gone. I have a feeling the narrative is heading in a very stupid direction, and I'm fully prepared to throw the book across the room when it all turns out exactly as I suspected. Even if I end up hating this novel, I hope she writes a second one because her prose is solid. I rarely fall in love with debut novels, especially contemporary ones. Case in point: Emma Cline's "The Girls" (2016). This novel, loosely based on the Manson murders, was so overwritten that I barely had the drive to finish it. This awful first toe dip made me think I would never read another book by Cline, so what do you think sucked me back in? The plagiarism lawsuit filed against her by her idiot ex-boyfriend. I can't stay away from literary gossip, so I followed her and the lawsuit, read some of her short stories in the meantime, and thought ok... maybe a second chance is warranted.
"The Guest" is one of those books where the protagonist is an unlikable disaster whose bad decisions keep ratcheting up the tension. Alex is a Tom Ripley-style grifter who accompanies her wealthy older boyfriend to his Hamptons house after she gets kicked out of her shared apartment. Eventually, she is also kicked out of the Hamptons house. She has no money, no friends, no home, and demons from her past clipping at her heels. With each dumb decision, you want to shake her and scream, "LOOK AT YOUR LIFE. LOOK AT YOUR CHOICES." It would all be unbearable if Cline wasn't so good at describing Alex's precarious position and the dumb mind games she has to play with herself for the sake of survival.
I recommend this one for people who enjoy "The White Lotus," Patricia Highsmith, Shirley Jackson, the Anna Delvey story, "Madame Bovary."
Ok, I'm phoning it in on this last one because I wrote about Dorothy Ashby in Sophie's newsletter and I still agree with my previous self. Here's what I said in December 2023:
This is actually a recommendation Turducken because I first heard of Dorothy Ashby while watching Habibi’s “What’s in my Bag?” episode on Amoeba’s YouTube channel. The best music I’ve discovered over the past decade has typically come from this series or the wonderful record label, Dust-to-Digital. When Rahill [Jamalifard] described Ashby’s sound as “celestial,” I knew I needed to check it out. I’m always looking for instrumental albums to have on in the background while I work and "Afro-Harping" is a complete banger. This album is my vinyl white whale and I’ve been searching for it for years without luck. It’s currently available as part of a Vinyl Me Please box set that I can’t bring myself to spend the money on, but maybe someday.
It bums me out that more people don’t know about Ashby. I thought Joanna Newsom made the harp cool! PJ Harvey plays the autoharp! Anyone who fucks with those artists could probably dig Ashby. In my mind, "Afro-Harping" would make the perfect soundtrack for Doris Wishman’s "Nude on the Moon" (1961) or any of the tea shop scenes in "Maisel."
If I close my eyes while listening to the first track, “Soul Vibrations,” I picture a beautiful woman with a gauzy, flowing headscarf driving through Palm Springs in a cream Mercedes 190SL. When she arrives at her destination — a swanky old-school steakhouse — she traipses inside, perches at the bar with perfect posture, and one minute later, is presented with her drink of choice: a dirty vodka martini with two olives. As she pops one of the olives into her mouth, she winks at the bartender in a way that is cute and not at all creepy.
P.S. Ashby also played the koto, a Japanese zither with 13 silk strings and movable bridges. To hear this magic, listen to The Rubaiyat of Dorothy Ashby. And if you want to know more about her, this is a good read.
I'm not sure I can keep this up on a weekly basis, but this is my 9th one in a row and I'm enjoying the consistency. If you like Friday Night Dinner, leave a comment, forward it to a friend, etc. I didn't get enough praise as a child and find it highly motivating as an adult, so giving it to me is a surefire to keep me writing this newsletter until I'm dead.
