#67 - Ten Happy Things
A week in a fever dream.
On Saturday I turned 39 and celebrated by going to the first of ten weeks of a pottery class my husband got us for Valentine’s Day. I am not a romantic, but the truth is - I love that he is. We got our hands dirty, had the best coffee in the city, and got dressed up to go to the ballet with my mom to see Swan Lake. I spent Sunday having an existential crisis, which if you’ve been following along for any period of time, you know this to be par for the course. On Monday I got the flu and have been more or less moving from the couch to the bed all week. Pre January 20, I would have spent the week doom-scrolling, but now that I have removed myself from all social media outside of this platform and Reddit (I love it what can I tell you), instead, I spent the time being sick and finding simple pleasures in little things. In my existential crisis-driven fever dream of a week, there have been a few things that have made me very happy.
Noah Wyle is a Good Guy - We started watching ER from the beginning earlier this year and it has become the thing we look forward to the most each night. Truly before it’s time, I think the writing is generally exceptional, the cinematography is unusual for a primetime drama and nobody is going to argue with a young George Clooney (or an old George Clooney for that matter). Of course, it is the young Dr. Carter who is holding much of our attention - in part because of his renaissance on the unaffiliated but largely similar Max show “The Pitt.” I am happy to report that Noah Wyle is not only lovely to look at (we love to see a real, aging face) and a great actor, but it turns out he’s up to fight for what matters too (like pushing back against a demagogue early and often). We love to see it.
Sam Rockwells Kafka Lite Monologue on The White Lotus - Because who among us hasn’t needed to get off a neverending carousel of lust and suffering at some point in our lives?
And who among us doesn’t think that Sam Rockwell is an underutilized force on the screen? I’ve been hooked on Sam Rockwell since he gave the best entrance of maybe any villan ever in “Charlie’s Angels.”
The Jim Henson Biography - My husband gave me this as a part of my birthday present and I haven’t been this enthralled in a book in quite a long time. Firstly because of the inscription, which was about bringing wonder and magic into people’s lives. I am a big believer that an inscription matters and this inscription mattered to me - in a time where my creativity feels, hollow? it reminded me of how hard we are on our own selves.
And of course, Jim Henson has brought so much magic into my life, and reading it makes me both happy as it reminds me of all of this magic and sad because I think we’ve lost so much in the way of practical crafting. Reading it makes me want to pick up a paintbrush, bring out my sewing machine, do anything that feels real and doesn’t rely on a screen.
The Muppets are canon for me. So much so that on my very first production, we were working with Ray Liotta and instead of asking him about working with Marty, we sat in video village in a freezing cold train station in Buenos Aires and I sheepishly asked him what it was like working with The Muppets. He laughed and said that no one ever asks him about working with The Muppets and that it was truly one of the greatest things he’s ever done. I’ll never forget it.
There’s talk about a Labyrinth sequel and it feels dismissive to me to even consider making it without using puppets from the Creature Shop (not to mention without Bowie). You might say that Henson was always ahead of his time and would have welcomed the innovation, but I think there is magic that is lost and almost homogenized when you tell these stories without the practical effects. That being said, reading this book has brought me so much joy over the past week and has led me to rewatch some of my favorite scenes…
Like this
And this
And this
And my personal favorite Sesame Street interstitial. Like is there anything more “Im a child of the 80s/90s” than this?
This incredible FarmRio dress that feels like something this Pisces must have.
It’s Macaroon Season - Not to be confused with Macaron Season. You can keep your dainty pastel cookies, I don’t want them. I want the dank and delightful K for P coconut morsels. The ones that randomly come in an upright tin. The ones that look like they are shaped after meringue, but are decidely not meringue. Those.
Having an urge to watch Bye Bye Birdie on my birthday and doing it - As I mentioned, we went to see Swan Lake on my birthday, which of course reminded me of the scene in Bye Bye Birdie where Albert drugs the conductor of the Russian Ballet so that he conducts the scene in double time so that there’s enough time for Conrad Birdie to sing “One Last Kiss” and kiss Kim Macafee on the Ed Sullivan Show.
YES IT IS A CONVOLUTED PLOT. YES IT IS A CRITICAL PIECE OF MY FORMATIVE EDUCATION. In forth grade, I adapted a script, directed, produced and starred in our elementary school production of it. This may have been my first glimpse of the “jack of all trades, master of none” angst that I would grow to understand as my core competency in life. Anyway, we watched it when we got home from the ballet and I still believe Ann Margaret’s pink ruffled “going out” look is my favorite look of all time.
And that there is nothing - NOTHING - chicer than Ann Margaret’s final look as she sings about how lovely it is to be a woman. It may or may not be true that it is so lovely to be a woman, but you can keep Carolyn Bessette - this is my true north.
Chic Schmaltz La Vie,
LCF
I was JUST THINKING this morning "Lynds hasn't written in a while, I hope it's for a good reason and not a sad reason" and now you've given us this gift as if it's our birthday. I love this essay. Happy Birthday, friend.