EPISODE 917: MY JOY STARVATION DIET
Please Like Me.
POP CULTURE SPIRIT WOW
Hi and welcome back to Pop Culture Spirit Wow, the Substack that took a week off!
Hope you had a wonderful week. There’s lots to get into. Let’s do this!
THE WOWND UP
Times Square was recently named “the world’s most stressful tourist trap,” something that every New Yorker has been saying for a very long time. Having once been known for having the greatest number of criminal complaints in the entire city—in 1981 Rolling Stone described West 42nd Street as the “sleaziest block in America”—today Times Square has become more of a generalized crime against humanity, filled as it is with hordes of “actors” dressed in filthy, unwieldly costumes and harassing people for photographs; street performers who shout at crowds and take up way too much space; and tourists, who wander around just trying to take it all in, God love them, while New Yorkers are desperate to get to work, get home, or just get away.
Also in the top 10 on the list were Checkpoint Charlie in Berlin (#2), the Eiffel Tower (#3); the London Eye (#9), and, my favorite, the Guinness Storehouse (#10). Said one TripAdvisor commenter: “The view is admittedly incredible and the drink was solid, but neither of these things could wash the bad taste out of my mouth that I had just become a victim of an enormous (and bad) tourist trap.”
Also, filmmaker Roger Corman died over the weekend at age 98. Known as “The Pope of Pop Cinema” and “The Spiritual Godfather of the New Hollywood,” Corman produced 385 low budget films in his life, many of which were helmed by future filmmaking legends. Martin Scorcese got his start with Corman. So did Ron Howard, James Cameron, Jonathan Demme, and others. Corman also created many of the greatest titles for films ever, including Attack of the 50 Foot Cheerleader, Slumber Party Massacre II, Carnosaur, Piranhaconda, The Little Shop of Horrors and The Saga of the Viking Women and Their Voyage to the Waters of the Great Sea Serpent. He was a legend, beloved by all, and yet completely unassuming in real life. May he rest in peace!
Finally, this weekend Maya Rudolph hosted Saturday Night Live and delivered some really wonderful Mother’s Day sketches. Keep a Kleenex handy for this one, because wow.
Happy Mothers’ Day, Moms!
APOSTROPHE THIS
We start today with a constant question for me at this time of year: Should it be Mother’s Day or Mothers’ Day?
If you look pretty much anywhere, from Facebook posts to news reports, you’ll see the singular is the overwhelming-preferred option.
(Big news day at Fox Sports, clearly.)
But this is a celebration for all mothers, not just one. So why isn’t it plural?
My deepest anxiety: It’s only singular because people don’t know where apostrophes belong anymore. But it turns out no, the singular was intentional. Anna Jarvis, who started the holiday in 1908, insisted that the proper punctuation was the singular, “for each family to honor its own mother, not a plural possessive commemorating all mothers in the world."
The thing is, most families have more than one mother in them. When I think of Mother’s Day I think of my mom, but also my sister and sister-in-law, my aunts and cousins, my grandmothers and Aunt Pat who have passed away. Some people have adopted- or step-mothers in addition to their birth moms, too.
I think rather than taking away from the specialness of any one mom, using the plural is a way of acknowledging all of the people in our lives and families who are moms to us and others. Also, Jarvis’ inspiration for the holiday was her own mother, an activist who was a founder of the Mothers’ Day Work Clubs, apostrophe absolutely after the “s”!
So take that, singular possessive!
It is also most definitely true that no one has any idea where apostrophes go.
When I see this, everything in me shouts Open Sunday’s What?
God take me now.
AUSTRALIAN COMFORT FOOD
For the last couple months I’ve been working my way through The Artist’s Way, a sort of retreat in daily life intent on helping people get in touch with and pursue their deepest creative desires. And early on, the book asks you to write a list of things that you most like to do, or that most nourish you, and then evaluate, How often am I doing each of these things?
To my shock, I keep discovering that while almost daily I say to myself things like I want to play the piano, take a walk, play a video game, draw, or a hundred other creative things, in reality I never do any of them. Never. Basically for years I’ve been kind of starving myself of many of the things that bring me joy.
I don’t think I’m alone in doing this. We tell ourselves we have other responsibilities; we don’t have time right now, but we’ll get to it; or—my personal favorite—it seems frivolous or inappropriate. And that’s that. But joy is not meant to be a spigot we feel like we have to turn way down. It’s a source of life.
Somewhere in the middle of learning about this pattern in me, I started thinking about some TV shows that I’ve been saying I wanted to return to, because I felt like they help me reconnect with my artistic side.
Here’s my current top 3 Food for Joy TV Shows.
1. PLEASE LIKE ME
Please Like Me is a whimsical sitcom created by and starring the Australian comedian Josh Thomas. The premise: On the same day that college student Josh’s girlfriend Claire dumps in because she thinks he’s gay, Josh meets a very pretty boy who also thinks Josh is gay and comes home with him, but then they can’t really make out because a shaving cut on Josh’s lip starts bleeding. And in the morning when they wake up Josh learns that his mom has attempted suicide, and he will now have to move in with her to help make sure she doesn’t do so again.
I’m sure that doesn’t sound all that funny—the show stays pretty fearless at its willingness to weave together typical romcom stuff with heavy duty life issues. But Josh navigates it all with such a light touch. It always feeds me.
Case in point, the opening credits, which change every week but almost always involve food preparation and dancing. They give me so much joy.
2. TED LASSO
A show about a football coach from Texas who moves to London to coach soccer on the surface would seem to have absolutely nothing for me except maybe occasionally glimpses of London and pubs. But in reality this little show about believing in yourself and learning to savor life is like a televised flotation device, helping us all to remember to do the same.
Here’s one very sweet little piece from the Christmas episode.
Higgins forever!
3. PREACHER
My one Hollywood writing credit (so far, he says, giving the universe a little nudge) is a year I spent as a consultant and then a staff writer on Preacher. It was an incredible experience, one that changed me in a lot of ways.
As I’ve written before, it was also pretty tough. I came into the room about a third of the way through the first season, which I had been warned would make for a steep learning curve. And despite knowing that, I still felt like such a disaster most days. By the time my role on the show ended I was actually relieved.
As a result, I’ve avoided watching the show. But I have this hunch that doing so might help me get over some of that experience. I’ve watched the first couple episodes so far, and already it’s bringing back a lot of memories, many of them far happier than I expected. It was so much fun trying to think up some of the insanity that happens in that first season.
Here’s a scene from an episode that I particularly adored, about a fight between the main characters, their two angel buddies, and another angel. I remember a whole afternoon of me setting up toy figures to try and keep track of all of the different characters that get involved. (Note: It’s really violent.)
PLANET OF THE APES OF THE APES OF THE APES
This week’s big winner on the silver screen is the latest Planet of the Apes movie, Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes, which is the fourth in the reboot series. Set 300 years in the future, we’re now at a point where it’s pretty much all apes with their own nations now.
The original series actually included five films. I’d like to propose a couple possibilities for that last film.
A QUIET PLANET OF THE APES: You think the apes have trouble now? Wait until they’re invaded by aliens from another planet.
PLEASE DON’T DESTROY THE PLANET OF THE APES: Three slacker apes go in search of a secret treasure after they find a human iPhone and watch a TikTok about Victoria’s Secret, not understanding that there’s no actual secret. Hijinks ensue.
FRIDAY NIGHT LIGHTS AT THE PLANET OF THE APES: A scrappy high school Moofball team fights to get to the Moofball championships while living in a struggling community of apes who live for each Friday night’s Moofball game.
PLANÈTE DES SINGES: Art house film about a lonely ape working as a museum guard in cosmopolitan Aperis and contemplating what it means to be an ape.
PSYCHO: A shot-for-shot recreation of Alfred Hitchcock’s 1960 film Psycho, but everyone is an ape.
THE PHANTOVERSARY
Next Sunday marks the 25th anniversary of Episode I: The Phantom Menace, which is probably still the most controversial of all the Star Wars films. (Personally I’d put The Rise of Skywalker right up there. I know others would do the same with Last Jedi.)
Later this week, I have a post about the film for subscribers. If you’re new to the Wow, I love love love to write about Star Wars, so you can count on me to dig in deep.
MOMENT OF WOW
I’ve been going to Birdland a bunch lately. And I happened to be there recently when Kenny Ascher, the Birdland Big Band pianist, delivered a gorgeous jazz rendition of “The Rainbow Connection,” which it turns out he wrote for Paul Williams back in the day.
Looking online I found this video of him doing the same on another occasion. If you need a moment to take a breath this week, this is for you.
Have a great week!
I would love to go to dinner followed by a couple of sets at Birdland with you!
The Last Jedi is controversial (and I get it, although I think it is one of the only two good SW movies made after the original trilogy (Rogue One being the other)). Phantom Menace and Rise of Skywalker are just bad.