Looking for something to entertain you? Here you go:
Believe it or not, it’s been more than three years since we got the third and apparently final season of GLOW, the Netflix series about female wrestlers in the 1980s. And that’s too bad, because that show did a lot well; even if it wasn’t without its controversies, an extra season or two could have given it a chance to iron out some of those problematic depictions. In any case, it doesn’t seem likely we will ever see those characters again, and that’s why I’m offering up the next best thing: the original Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling, also called GLOW, and the show that inspired Netflix’s fictionalized take. This original showcase for female wrestlers aired in syndication from 1986 to 1990, and if you were like me, it aired in syndication on weekends, often after Saturday morning cartoons finished and your local station was like “Oh we don’t know, this maybe?” The show still lives on YouTube, sometimes complete with commercials, and it’s fascinating to see both where the Netflix series took its inspiration and to see it on its own, as a time capsule for what passed for culture back in the day. -Drew Mackie
Of course all episodes of Smart Mouth are my equally beloved children, but this week “Amish soul food” chef Chris Scott made for a particularly compelling guest. He has some deeply felt feelings about chicken and waffles that opened my eyes - Obama visiting Roscoe’s was maybe not his favorite photo op ever. -Katherine Spiers
Elaine Hsieh Chou’s first book, Disorientation, follows 29-year-old PhD student Ingrid Yang who is attempting to finish her dissertation on a famous Chinese-American poet. A note in the archive manages to unravel her dissertation, the East Asian studies department, and, eventually, the whole university. Chou’s novel could not be more timely, tackling America’s long history of anti-Asian racism to the campus free speech wars. -Jackie Johnson
I know Katherine intended this newsletter to be a way for us to share the things we’re into, and this is that, I guess, but sometimes I find something that is so … bad, so wrongheaded in its existence that I can’t help but to marvel at the fact that real life humans got together to make it and not one of them stopped to say, “Wait, does this maybe suck?” This is the case with a strange song from 1983 called “I Love the Penguin,” by a band called Minnie and the Pau-Pau. It’s about a woman who falls in love with a penguin. It’s one of the worst things I’ve ever heard, and I’m obsessed with it. You’re welcome in advance. -Drew
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