good morning bitches // 6.16.2021

Good morning bitches!

If you’re wondering why this came on a Wednesday instead of a Tuesday like I loosely promised it would, it’s because I was out far too late on Monday night experiencing my grand reunion with movie theater popcorn and watching:

The movie was beautiful, the choreography incredible, the costuming perfect. It radiated joy and togetherness and everything else that has been missing the past year. Most critics loved it—then proceeded to write about its poor opening weekend box office performance like three days later. (I would be interested to know why low box office numbers at the tail end of a pandemic are deemed so newsworthy that almost every major entertainment outlet wrote about it, but I digress.) It was not free from criticism though, and unfortunately for Lin-Manuel Miranda’s PR team, it seems history has repeated itself.

July 2020:

June 2021:

How do you purposefully omit any storylines about slavery from Hamilton, a show that was created and cast to represent the minorities who make up America, then go on to cast a white-washed version of a diverse Afro-Latinx neighborhood?

Lin-Manuel apologized on Twitter, because that is what you do. Some might say that there’s no way Miranda could have changed up the casting since last July’s Hamilton backlash, but that criticism very much existed in 2015, long before Heights was even greenlit. (There was even a play produced in 2019 entitled The Haunting of Lin-Manuel Miranda in which historical figures visit Lin to educate him on slavery, à la A Christmas Carol.)

I love Hamilton and have long awaited the Heights movie, but that does not mean that I can only look at them and their creator through rose colored glasses. Miranda has done a lot of good for this world, but anyone who talks about the importance of representation needs to ensure they are not simply representing the people who look like them.

(All this said, I do still highly recommend seeing the movie, in addition to reading and learning why this matters to so many people.)

what’s the opposite of fragile masculinity?

Two words: Christopher Meloni.

Oz/Law & Order sweetheart Christopher Meloni posted BTS pictures of his shoot for Interview Magazine over the weekend and, at risk of sounding extremely thirsty for a man my father’s age, I will leave it at “oh my God” and just show you the memes instead.

an uncle’s diary @DaveMcNamee3000

the piece of watermelon bubble gum I swallowed waiting in my stomach for 7 years

Joanie Loves Fauci @MrErikJackson

chris meloni heroically stepping in to play samantha in the new sex and the city series

whale 🐳 @prestovision

whatever you have to say to me you can say in front of little chris

dark comedy corner:

Ever since my mom was diagnosed with terminal cancer and subsequently died 21 months later, I have been fired up about changing the way we (don’t) talk about death. Death is as natural as being born, yet we fear it, avoid it, shelter our kids from it, and pretend like we didn’t know it would happen when it finally does. People say “I don’t know what to say” when someone dies because how can they know what to say to a griever if they have never heard anyone talk about death before? One emotion that particularly makes people uncomfortable is using humor to cope. I make a joke about my mom and whoever is listening awkwardly cringes then makes ME feel bad for talking about my dead mom in a way I feel comfortable.

I realize this could quickly develop into a rant, but I wanted to preface my next feature by hammering home that I think laughing about death is the most therapeutic thing you can do. And now, I present to you the singlemost niche instagram account I think I’ve ever followed:

It documents all the obituaries that forego the words “they died” by using highly specific metaphors for death. Here are just a few of my favorite people who absolutely did not die:

• Duane, aka Cricket, traded his plumbing tools for wings

• John enjoyed his last bowl of popcorn

• Daniel joined his Grandma Rosa at her kitchen table

• “Buck” played his final bridge game

• Alan walked into heaven with his hat on backwards

• Marcelle yelled BINGO one last time

The account also publishes general obituary gold, like this woman’s enviable title:

^ Hard to decide if the best part of this is the maternal favoritism or the beautiful poetry that is “all of her breath leaked out”.

a brief mention of the kardashians:

I am not one to shit on the Kardashians for simply living their bizarre lives, but I draw the line at this:

Yes, that is a new Lamborghini completely covered in the Skims cozy fabric.

Don’t get me wrong—I’m all for PR stunts and outlandish social media strategies, but there is something about this that makes me irrationally angry and I’m going to guess it’s the fact that I willingly listened to the video of her calling a $200,000+ car “cute”.

When u rebrand $3 fuzzy drug store socks as $88 sweatpants:

(10/10 would appreciate that car for Chicago winters though)

it’s time to talk about my bigamy rabbit hole:

I’ll admit it: I judge a book by its cover. So you better believe I smashed that download button when I saw this:

In short, a single mother in Scotland was duped into marriage and 2 more children by an American man claiming to be a CIA agent who simultaneously had multiple other families. It is easy to wonder how in the hell she fell for any of his lies but he really did weave a meticulously calculated web that gaslit, scared and silenced her while also draining literally every penny she had. I assumed he was so hot that she couldn’t possibly imagine life without him, but uh, that theory didn’t hold up:

So once I finished THAT book, I started reading all the UK tabloids about her story and discovered there’s a PBS Masterpiece show about a very similar situation called Mrs. Wilson. What makes this show a certified HEATER is the fact that the lead actress, Ruth Wilson, developed the show based on her grandmother’s real life story. Truth is stranger than fiction, bitches!

In episode 1 of 3 (God I love miniseries), Alison Wilson finds her husband, Alex, dead in her home. As she grieves alongside her two children, a woman knocks on the door asking to pick up HER husband Alex’s belongings. We see Alison spend a little bit too long in the “denial” phase of grief before embarking on a relentless pursuit to figure out who the hell her husband was. At least this time he’s hot!

Steffan Hill | Credit: BBC/©WP Films Ltd.

So THEN I found a novel about bigamy…

If truth is stranger than fiction, then truth is also far more entertaining than fiction cause The Three Mrs. Wrights was pretty meh. Usually I wouldn’t even mention a bad book in GMB but I felt it necessary to tell you I consumed 3 pieces of bigamy realted entertainment in less than a week in the name of #content and #obsessivecuriosity bordering on #avoidingrealliferesposibilities.

In summary:

• Read The Bigamist

• Watch Mrs. Wilson

• Skip The Three Mrs. Wrights

• Don’t marry more than one woman

The data limit has arrived so I must bid ye farewell.

Until next time,

xo,

Lily

Hey, wanna do me a favor? Click that little heart icon. It lets me know you liked this newsletter, and helps me get it out to more people. 🖤