You Better Believe I'm Spending Four Paragraphs on the Lily James/Dominic West Stuff
I am ONLY HUMAN!
Featuring wet eggs in the UK, things that do NOT belong to white people, and oh-so-very-many affairs.
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Talkin’ About Some Generation (Millennial/Gen X Cusp)
Millenial/Gen X cusp chef J. Kenji Lopez-Alt has some cooking advice for all generations cooking way more than they used to: it’s time to get into basic “culinary building blocks”. These building blocks are ready-to-go “homemade and store-bought sauces, dressings, condiments, pickles, chile oils, sauce bases, concentrated stocks, curry pastes — anything that can add a quick, easy boost of flavor to meals” and Lopez-Alt says they’re the key to cooking efficiently and deliciously because it’s how restaurants function! And now, because we’re all our own personal restaurants, it can be how you function.
A brief example:
Alex Guarnaschelli of Butter in Midtown Manhattan preserves seasonal Champagne grapes with mustard and wine to serve on cheese plates, as a condiment for duck, in a salad with fennel and goat cheese, and as a garnish for pork ravioli.
This could be you!
A Much Less Serious Item (From Across the Pond)
About a month ago, someone posted a picture of a “a sack of wet eggs” being sold at a British supermarket (named Morrison’s) on Twitter. Unsurprisingly, it went pretty viral because “a sack of wet eggs” is a pretty ??????? sort of phrase. Anyways, London Eater has a brilliant (this is a British term) explainer on why a British supermarket is selling “sacks of wet eggs” and also why it’s such a haunting concept.
British pop star Rita Ora right after her sack of wet eggs spills.
This Week’s Theme: That’s Not Just For White People
Two articles for you this week: one about camping and the outdoors at large — the other about polyamory and its many forms. Both about stereotypically “white” activities that need to be stripped of their stereotypes.
First, and in-depth, is a piece for Outside Online from writer Latria Graham. She writes about the response she received to a piece she wrote in 2018 about being Black in the outdoors — POC and specifically Black readers asking her for advice on how to keep themselves safe in potentially unsafe, unwelcoming outdoor spaces. She writes about how she didn’t know how to respond for a long time, and how the events of this past spring and summer spurred her into penning a response. It’s a heavy piece - both content-wise and length-wise, but it’s a powerful reflection on the events of this past year, as well as a look into Graham’s personal and intense relationship with nature, one of her favorite things in the world:
I want to apologize for the delayed reply. It took a long time to gather my thoughts. When I wrote that article back in 2018, I was light on the risks and violence and heavy-handed on hope. I come to you now as a woman who insists we must be heavy-handed on both if we are to survive.
I write to you in the middle of the night, with the only light on the entire street emanating from my headlamp. Here in upstate South Carolina, we are in the midst of a regional blackout. My time outdoors has taught me how to sit with the darkness—how to be equipped for it. Over the years, I have found ways to work within it, or perhaps in spite of it. If there’s anything I can do, maybe it’s help you become more comfortable with the darkness, too.
But before I tell you any more, I want you to understand that you and I are more than our pain. We are more than the human-rights moment we are fighting for.
On a slightly lighter note, you might be familiar with the concept of polyamory — this is a type of non-monogamy, the wikipedia page of which you can find here. Stereotypes around polyamory usually point to the idea that most people who practice tend to be rich, liberal, and (you guessed it!) white. This is for a number of reasons — the people who are vocal about it (apparently Tilda Swinton and Dan Savage are big advocates!) are people with followings and access to platforms, but also polyamory is a specific form of what’s termed “consensual non-monogamy.” Many people practicing consensual non-monogamy might not call it polyamory — they might not call it anything at all! But still they’re engaging in consensual non-monogamy and largely excluded from conversations about it — in part because of people’s pre-conceived notions about who partakes in consensual non-monogamy. Mel Magazine has more, including instances of consensual non-monogamy in other cultures.
P.S. Something I’d like to apologize for is the opening line of this article, which reads: “America runs on Dunkin’, but according to new research, it also runs on finding new and different ways to have sex with people outside of monogamy.” I do not condone this sentence, but the article gets very interesting and informative right after that sentence, so fight on!
P.P.S. Speaking of Dunkin, this woman is an American hero.
Politics (The Gay Newspapers!)
In the ‘70s and ‘80s, there were a number of gay and lesbian publications in America. This is in fairly stark contrast to today, which, along with the rest of the journalism, has seen a large decline in gay publications. In the 80s, there were around 700 gay publications, now there are less than 20 local gay publications and few national gay publications. But The Columbia Journalism Review focuses in on the history of one particular Boston-area gay magazine called Fag Rag, which featured revolutionary coverage of gay issues.
At a time when gay liberation was still finding its political footing, and still honing the movement’s priorities and rhetoric, Fag Rag presented queerness as a repudiation of everything wrong with America (while still acknowledging the flaws of gay liberation). As an editorial from 1973 notes, “Because the order of the world starts and ends in the family with Daddy, fascism comes not only from the nuclear family but from compulsive heterosexuality.” For Shively and his cohort, queerness was as much a moral as a sexual orientation; it subverted the “natural” order on which capitalism depends, opening new possibilities for social and ideological communalism.
It was a cheeky publication, mixing humor in with its radical takes on sex, queerness, socialism, police abolition, and universal basic income:
The Fag Rag collective didn’t believe in copyrights, so photos by Robert Mapplethorpe, for example, appeared along with the work of local amateurs, everything juxtaposed with the same nonhierarchical spirit that informed the paper’s editorial credo. Sardonic humor predominated, as in the satirical “Lord Baby Jesus Christian Gift Catalogue,” which appeared in the winter 1974 issue. Among the mock gifts listed was “Crippling Christian Guilt: Long wearing, permanent press means just one gift of Lord Baby Jesus guilt can last a lifetime when administered properly.”
A Celebrity Thinger (Pure, Adultering Celebrity Gossip)
This one’s a doozy, so if I lose you, I’m sorry, but if I don’t lose you, you’re welcome!
To begin, this is actor Dominic West:
Pictured here sipping wine and looking like he might ruin your life in a sexy way.
And this is actress Lily James:
Pictured here as we know her best: playing young Meryl Streep in the Mamma Mia sequel.
For some quick background: Dominic West is famous for being in the TV show The Wire and, more recently, the TV show The Affair, playing the guy who has the titular (!) affair. Lily James is one of those “how do I know her again?” actresses who’s been in a million forgettable things (live-action Cinderella, Yesterday, that Netflix movie called something like “we’ve got a potato society and we’re British!”) and her only memorable role is literally in a sequel that was much worse than the original but got very popular because cinema is in a sad, sexless rut right now (fight me, Mamma Mia 2 stans!).
Last week-ish, in Rome, during this here coronavirus pandemic, these two hotties were spotted very, very sexily canoodling out and about. The pap photos feature a shared electric scooter, and also both actors’ agent, whom they share and who seemed to be third-wheeling hard. You’re thinking: who cares?! Hot actors smooching — it’s old news! But, you see, Dominic West, who is a tad older than 31-year-old James, has a lovely wife and four (!!!) children back in the UK, so this, much like the TV show he starred on for five seasons, is a big, fat affair!
But the drama doesn’t stop there. This news, because of the general lack of juicy celebrity gossip, made headlines the world over. So actor Dominic West did something insane: he flew home to his Irish wife and the “ancestral castle” they share because she is part of a very old “Anglo-Irish aristocratic dynasty.” While home, they called over a bunch of paparazzi and stood outside of their literal castle, kissing, alongside a handwritten note declaring their marriage to be “strong.” You can see photos of this from Elle Magazine. Please click. I cannot recommend it, or Dominic’s handwriting, enough.
Photos of James and West have since surfaced of them canoodling again on their flight home from Rome, post-scooter-photos but pre-strong-marriage-note. James has also cancelled appearances promoting her new (reportedly bad!) movie Rebecca on both the Graham Norton Show and The Today Show since the incident.
And what, you ask, has Dominic West been doing? Well, my friends, this is the icing on the cake. The affair guy who is having an actual honest-to-God affair has just booked himself a role as O.G. Affair Guy Prince Charles on the upcoming seasons of The Crown. This is not a bit. He actually did that. The Cut said it best: “Guy From The Affair Really Just Going For It.”
Would You Rather? (Avoiding Emily in Paris Discourse: Would You Believe The Word “Impossible” Is the Same In French?)
Would you rather follow Emily in Paris on Instagram or listen to French people complain about why they won’t be following Emily in Paris?
A Recommendation (Keeping It Short With a Trailer)
I need you to trust me and watch the trailer for the upcoming Mel Gibson movie Fatman. Do not google the movie beforehand; it is key to the experience that you watch the trailer with no preconceptions. That’s it! Just watch the trailer.
P.S. If that you got in the mood for a certain type of old-guy-actor movie, you can also watch this SNL skit from 2013.
Donation Corner! (For You to Ignore or Engage With As You Please!)
Hello! Welcome to the newly established Donation Corner of the Good Links! Which you are free to ignore or engage with as you please — it will live at the bottom of the newsletter!
Since the presidential election is (good lord) 11 days away, this section is on hold and focused on this “Panic Decision Matrix” site that has links to which Democratic state and local races need your votes most in the run up to the election, as well as some cute and soothing advice. We’ll get back to local-level giving in two weeks, I promise.
haha because in many ways I am not! okey dokey!
The Interactive Bits (Interact with me!)
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