Looking for something to entertain you? Here you go:
I’ve been working really hard on putting together tracklists for the return of Deep Cuts and Superficial Wounds. When it comes back, the first track you hear will be “She Can’t Love You,” a 1982 track by a singer calling herself Chemise. It’s the best thing I’ve heard in months, and while it would be at home alongside funk, soul or disco, it’s also solidly an ‘80s song — the kind I’d love to hear instead of the played out ‘80s anthems you’d hear at your local ‘80s night. What I maybe love best is that the singer, who offstage is Rickie Byers, chose to rock a name as audacious as “Chemise.” It’s too perfect. -Drew Mackie
Alexis Hall is publishing four novels in 2022! (I assume he and Beyoncé have the same number of hours in their day.) Hall’s latest, “A Lady for a Duke,” has received praise for having a trans heroine, and Viola is a character you will root for from start to finish. -Jackie Johnson
It’s close enough to Halloween that I’m going to start recommending scary movies. One that I think a lot of my generation missed is 1988’s The Lair of the White Worm, starring Hugh Grant, Peter Capaldi and Catherine Oxenberg. It’s based on a Bram Stoker novel, and it plays out like an ’80s take on that story, with a sexy snake lady (Amanda Donohoe) subbing in for the vampire big bad. It’s very stylish, it’s very British, it’s very goofy and anyone who enjoys scary (ish) films that give female characters something fun to do should check it out. It’s streaming for free on Tubi, Vudu, Plex and all the other weird services that sound made up, rentable on all the rest. -Drew
“My Great, Wide, Beautiful World” is a wildly compelling travelogue written in the 1920s and ‘30s by Juanita Harrison, a Black American woman who spent years in Europe and Asia, seeing the sites and working as a maid in all the great cities. She didn’t have much of a formal education, so sometimes it’s a little hard to suss out her meaning, but she’s also very funny. And she didn’t hesitate to punch the many men who got out of line. -Katherine Spiers
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