EPISODE 801: LET POPE BENEDICT WEAR HIS PRETTY SLIPPERS
Eric Bogosian, Vampire is my Peanut Butter and Jelly
POP CULTURE SPIRIT WOW
Welcome back to a new season of Pop Culture Spirit Wow! I hope the holidays treated you well and that January feels like a fresh start. I don’t know if it’s a New Year’s Resolution or just a hope I’m putting out into the universe, but I’m definitely feeling that way myself. 2023, here we come!
Toward the end of last year I started breaking the newsletter up into topics like This is Your Weekly Reminder That… and I Bet It’s Good Though. I really like those; I feel like it helps organize the chaos that is my brain words and maybe also makes it easier to read. I’m going to be trying out some others, too. Let me know what you think.
(I’m also hoping to write less! I always want you to feel like you’re getting something personal and fun with PCSW, but sometimes that worry leads me to write WAY MORE than I should.)
THE WOW-ND UP (YES I’M STILL WORKSHOPPING THIS)
It’s been an interesting couple weeks. Southwest Airlines pretty much lit itself on fire and then poured gasoline on the flames and then said we’re going to be stuck on the tarmac for three weeks. All I can think about is an old friend who used to love to crow about how much better everything is on an airline where you can’t reserve a seat. Yeah, you’re right, definitely better.
In the Catholic Church, Pope Benedict—who spent more years as a retired pope than as an active one—passed away, and all I heard anyone wondering was whether he’d get to be buried in his red shoes. (The answer, sadly, was no. I have no idea why, and yes, I think it’s crazy.) Meanwhile in Congress some guy from California basically held 434 people hostage until they elected him speaker, or 20 crazy people from across the country held the government hostage until they got what they wanted, I don’t know, can I answer all of the above?
And in the world of pop culture, Warner Brothers says it now has a plan for the DC Universe but won’t reveal what or even who it includes, because that would be telling; Cameron McIntosh talked about listening to Sondheim’s last musical the weekend before he died and broke my damn heart; and the sequel to Jedi: Fallen Order is coming out but they’re only releasing it on the PS5, which is fine, I’ve got too many games to play anyway, I’m not mad, whatever Sony.
WELCOME TO THE WORLD, NOAH
This week Stranger Things’ Noah Schnapp came out. Hurray for him!
Noah plays Will Byers, who is desperately in love with Mike Wheeler and kind of almost finally came out last season, but not really, because Stranger Things and also it’s the 80’s man, trust me, that shit ain’t easy.
WHAT THE HOLDOUTS DEMANDED
After a week of Republicans arguing about who gets to sit in the big chair, Kevin McCarthy finally became the Speaker of the House. Apparently in order to convince the holdouts he had to give away some pretty major concessions.
So far no one is quite sure what those were or what that means—no doubt it will be super good for the running of the House and the country. But some friends in Washington have let me in on a partial list of what was asked for.
· To get to stay up an extra hour—NO, TWO HOURS!—before bedtime.
· To hear the really scary stories like the Senate gets to.
· One million dollars.
· To not have to go to the State of the Union and to be able to call the President Mr. Poopyhead at any time during their speeches.
· A Nintendo Switch.
· Kid Rock singing the National anthem. (Believe it or not, they didn’t actually specify where.)
· Pretty girls *giggle*
· To get to decide each day’s secret password to get into the House Chamber. (Also, apparently there is now a secret password required to get into the House Chamber. And it’s “MAGA.” *sigh*)
WOW NOW
WHITE LOTUS: I finally finished Season 2 (and wrote about it). That final episode…I was prepared for silliness and backbiting, but a straight up thriller that was still also somehow absurdly funny? So much wow.
OUR FLAG MEANS DEATH: A friend suggested I check this out a year ago. After the first two episodes I was like, Hrrm. But it turns out if you get to episode 3 the show takes off like a rocket. A weirdly sweet show about pirates and friendship.
INTERVIEW WITH A VAMPIRE: Just started the new TV version of Anne Rice’s series, after seeing so many people online loving it. It’s still a challenge to get through; early 20th century Louisiana mashed up with vampires is just not my peanut butter and jelly. But deciding to make Louis a queer black man is absolutely inspired. Also I can’t get enough of the moments in the present between Louis and reporter Daniel Molloy, played by Eric Bogosian. If they don’t make Bogosian a vampire, we riot.
I BET IT’S GOOD THOUGH
So I very randomly just spun through my “To Read” folder and came up with a really great one to start 2022: The Gandalf of Pizza. You’re welcome.
MESSAGE IN A BOTTLE
I like to think about this newsletter as a little message in a bottle that I’m tossing out into the universe, hoping that it might find some people who could use some part of it in their lives right now.
So, if you need this, here, it’s for you:
Happy 2023! See you next week!
Must be that exclusive deal that the Angels have with Nike. Odd, tho, that only they can have red shoes.
👍👍