totally top three: july 2020

It’s August! 2020! Holy fucking shit! Hi! This is your reminder to please donate to mutual aid funds if you’re able! Wash your hands! Wear a mask! Stay safe! Stay sane! I love you! A lot!


The only thing I had the energy to watch this month is a Fox TV show about baseball that was canceled in 2016. Well, I also watched a lot of hockey when it came back and a couple of baseball games, but stuff with an emotional arc? Plot? Don’t know ’em, couldn’t handle them if I did. Anyway, we did watch most of Pitch and genuinely loved it and the only reason we haven’t finished it is because we’re trying to ~savor what we have. I can’t believe this wasn’t a huge hit, every moment of it is pretty great and everyone is beautiful and also baseball? What’s not to like?


My two most listened playlists in July were Aspen Aspen‘s Black Country Matters and Jeremy Andrew Hunter (aka Ska Tune Network)’s LGBTQ SKA BANDS because they both rip and have introduced me to a bunch of artists I wouldn’t have probably otherwise found. One of the best things about Spotify aside from The Algorithm is that if I have an errant thought about a playlist I want to hear, there is already one waiting for me. These two are some of the best I’ve heard this year. (Yes, ska is good, actually. Shut it.)


The Old Guard was really fun! I liked all the characters and the universe it built and I thought the action was all pretty fun and the setup for a sequel was solid. I’d definitely watch another two hours of Charlize Theron and KiKi Layne kicking absolute ass with an occasional detour where two incredibly beautiful men say deeply loving and romantic things to each other if it was available to me.


And three to look forward to…

syed m. masood, more than just a pretty face   kiesza, crave   open 24 hours

totally top three: june 2020

It’s July! 2020! Holy shit! Hi! Please donate to mutual aid funds if you’re able! Wash your hands! Wear a mask! Stay safe! Stay sane! I love you!


I held off on watching The Half of It for a bit because I’d seen a thread on Twitter from writer-director Alice Wu talking about how it was based vaguely on a friendship from her youth and how it had ultimately ended badly and I was just not prepared for the chance that the movie might end similarly — I’m a big proponent of writing from your own history, but I also don’t know why anyone wouldn’t write themselves a better ending. What’s the point of fiction otherwise? — but I was wildly pleased to see that was exactly what she’d done and it was such a joy to watch. I laughed a lot, I cried a little, I felt immense satisfaction. Ellie, Paul, and Aster are all great and I loved Ellie’s dad very much too.

Based on what I saw in my Spotify friend activity bar, pretty much the only thing anyone was listening to was Run the Jewels’ new one and that was pretty much my MO for June too. Every song on this one is great, but I’m particular to “out of sight,” “holy calamafuck,” “walking in the snow,” “JU$T,” “never look back,” and “the ground below,” which, to be fair, is uh, most of the album. Run the Jewels always hit me really well musically — for reasons I don’t know enough about music to articulate, but I think it’s a combination of bass lines and tempo? maybe? — but this feels as lyrically pertinent as ever.

My review of Avon Gale’s Breakaway covers pretty much everything I loved about it, but as I was reading through my Kindle highlights right now, I ended up laughing and being wildly charmed all over again. Lane is one of the most fun narrators I’ve spent time with in a long while and I’m so glad I tried to reset my horrible attention span with this one. There’s not a single character I don’t like! The dialogue and sex are fun! There’s emotionally satisfying resolutions of parental relationships! People like each other! Professional athletes are chill about having a queer teammate! This was a great time and I’m excited to read more from Gale.


And three to look forward to…

dream wife, so when you gonna   jennifer honeybourne, the do-over   fontaines d.c., a hero's death

good shit i recently liked: january 6, 2012

Good Shit I Recently Liked:

Almost Done with Christmas and Christmas Day (Rae Hartsock @ Say It Ain’t So) — Those decorations! The pups! My dream home!

Ranked: Every Saturday Night Live Cast Member Ever, From Worst to Best (Phil Nugent @ Nerve) — MOST of these are WILDLY WRONG, but I still enjoyed reading it a lot and it brought on a lively debate on my Facebook.

Hard to Find Week Pre-Party: Cover Girl Crackle Laquer (The Polish Addict) — This one is hard to explain kind of. This blog is defunct and the post is from 2008, but I was looking for a swatch of some nail polish and I somehow ended up on a road ending at this post. A post where crackle finish polish was hard to find because it hadn’t been rebirthed. And where it apparently used to crackle way damn cooler than it does now. I JUST THOUGHT IT WAS A WEIRD TIME CAPSULE MOMENT OKAY, GOD.

It’s Okay to Be Neither (Melissa Bollow Tempel, via Together For Jackson County Kids) — Fantastic. Enough said.

Anne’s Things (Ranch Dressing with Eartha Kitsch) — This was so moving/beautiful! The relics of our lives are so small and powerful.

20 Dated Celebrity Endorsements from Over a Decade Ago (BuzzFeed — These are just the BEST. The late 90s and early 00s were so ugly and metallic and just awful. So great.

Louis CK’s Shameful Dirty Comedy (Frank Chimero) — This is ridiculous on point. And it’s exactly why I love Louis CK so so much.

good shit i recently liked: december 16, 2011

Since I am still trying to play catch-up with the 31 Days of Festive-Ass Flicks (I won’t apologize, but, uh, OOPS.) I thought I would throw together a list of Good Shit I Recently Liked:

What I Learned in First Grade (Elisha Lynn at My Black Tongue)
I Am So Not Sorry About My Vagina, And Other Apologies We Should Retract (Sara Benincasa @ Jezebel)
The Spielberg Face (Kevin Lee of Fandor)
Hear 10 Seconds from Every Hit Song of the ’80s (WFMU’s Beware of the Blog)
Pinochle (KT Kieltyka for The Hairpin)
The Last Photo of Walt Disney at Disneyland Park (George Savvas at Disney Parks Blog)
Make Everything OK
On Orange Juice (Anthony Geffen at Well, That’s Just Great)
Tradition (xkcd)
Ghost of Christmas Past (Ranch Dressing with Eartha Kitsch)
Adventure Time! (Rae Hartsock at Say It Ain’t So)

Now I’m going to go to sleep for awhile because I haven’t slept more than three hours at a stretch for the last… week and a half. AND I AM TIRED. And I finally caught up on all the movie watching. The writing can come LATER.

But really, thanks for hanging in there, doods. I believe in me. I believe in you. I believe in us.