Reading List: On-Trend Snake Oil, Naughty Novel Nightmares, We Don't Deserve Parker Posey
Good morning, my sweet ones. It’s finally Friday, which means I’m contemplating how much mortgage-busting avocado toast I’m going to shove in my face this weekend, and exercising my most grown-up professional restraint by not including the line “Tariff-ying Trade Wars” in a client memo (you’re welcome, Scott!) Little wins, my loves, little wins.
Also, in case you’re not having a great day, our matriarchal Canadian correspondent (aka my Mum) would like you all to know that in my hometown, a moose stopped by to smell the fragrant garden planted at the Canadian National Institute for the Blind and oh shit, I’m crying because that is so lovely. Canada, where moose practice better self-care then 99% of the rest of us.
But don’t worry friends, here are some longreads to completely erase that warm and fuzzy feeling you just felt!
Taffy Brodesser-Akner, How Goop’s Haters Made Gwyneth Paltrow’s Company Worth $250 Million (The New York Times) - Did you know you needed a socially-sanctioned reason to throw your laptop out a window this morning? You didn’t? Well don’t worry, reading about how Goop - a “self-care” empire that pushes absolute BS like $195 energy detoxes, bee-sting therapy and “surprisingly affordable yacht rental services” on white women who are way too eager to throw cash money into a well in order to fight with 21st century hysteria manifestations - didn’t partner with Conde Nast because they refused to commit to fact-checking will surely cause you to involuntarily send your MacBook sailing to the street below. Now excuse me while I bang my head repeatedly onto the kitchen table I put together this weekend.
Parker Posey, Queen of the Mocumentary: My Life in Christopher Guest Movies (Vulture) - It’s been over a decade since I was involved in any formal performance art (at least for a paying audience, lol,) so these stories of how lovely it was for Parker Posey - who I love SO DAMNED MUCH - to be on her first Christopher Guest set just makes me want to binge watch Best of Show and Waiting for Guffman on loop, while remembering that not everyone in the world is the absolute worst.
Sarah Jeong, BAD ROMANCE: To cash in on Kindle Unlimited, a cabal of authors gamed Amazon’s algorithm (The Verge) - Did you know there are major lawsuits winding their way through the courts centered on Kindle Unlimited books with NSFW names like “Her Cocky Firefighters”? I sure as hell didn’t either!
McKay Coppins, The Art of Failing Upward (The Atlantic) - As I’ve mentioned to you near-constantly since 2015, Coppins consistently and brilliantly captures our current fiddling-in-a-suburb of-Rome existence, and this report from Sean Spicer’s D.C. book party does not disappoint.
Wow, this was longer than I thought it would be this morning. So get to reading, why don’t ya?
Be kind to each other, and yourselves. You are lovely.
xoxo