PicoBlog

Reformed Rakes did an episode on cheating in historical romance this summer, a plot that can inspire vitriol in readers. I’ve seen readers forgive the male character of a bodice ripper for his violence, but not his cheating and be furious as a female character for taking back a cheater. In the episode we argue that cheating makes for good plot, that a lot of books that people call cheating books aren’t actually cheating books, and that cheating isn’t even really a “trope” as much as a plot point because of the variety of beats the plot can take on.

These meditations are named after a book by Frank O’Hara. Frank O’Hara has been one of my favorite poets, if not my favorite poet, since my late teens. When I was in high school, my father gave me his college copy, an original edition, of O’Hara’s Lunch Poems, which was one of the first books I purchased for my wife after we met, which includes the poem “Steps,” which ends:

Greetings from Asbury Park, N.J. An icon of the Jersey Shore is for sale. Frank’s Deli and Restaurant, a beloved vintage spot in a city teeming with them, has been listed for $499,000. Frank Maggio opened the business in 1960, and from the looks of the well-maintained vintage facade complete with Coca-Cola privilege sign, very little has changed in the decades since.  According to a 1973 report in the Asbury Park Press, Maggio had served in the Army in World War II, studied aeronautical engineering, and gone into the family bakery business before he sensed an opportunity at 1406 Main St.

Welcome back to You’ve Got Mail: The Substack, and allow me to introduce my friend Thea Glassman, whose new book, Freaks, Gleeks, and Dawson’s Creek: How 7 Teen Shows Transformed Television, hits shelves today, wherever books are sold. I love every word she wrote, every juicy detail, absolutely everything about this deeply reported and deeply felt valentine to The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, My So-Called Life, Dawson’s Creek, Freaks and Geeks, The O.

Listen, if we’re talking about horny, which of course we are, and if we’re talking about style, which of course we are - we cannot not talk about Freddie Mercury. The person with the best, horniest style of all time. I’m not going to pretend to be a music buff - my takeaway from Bohemian Rhapsody was that I had no idea so many songs I loved were by Quee…

I always come here for sentences like "all the rich people have effed off to France or wherever" and I am NEVER EVER disappointed. Not once. What worries me about that enraged cat brooch is that it presumably took a long time to make, so Boucheron had to keep re-enraging the cat model to get the expression just right. If I was that cat, I'd walk out after a few days of such nonsense, and never look back.

Horror films aren’t as scary as they used to be. Genuine fear. It’s not their fault; how many actual things can a human be scared of? More importantly, does it hold up over decades? While a jump scare or scary experience can be found at the movies these days, it’s hard to find one as discomforting and long-lasting as A Nightmare on Elm Street. Think about it. Wes Craven’s legendary antagonist, Freddy Krueger, attacked teenagers in their dreams.

I hadn’t planned on writing anything about A Clash of the Female Titans, last week’s debate in Los Angeles put on by The Free Press, co-sponsored by FIRE, and featuring author Louise Perry, Red Scare podcaster Anna Khachiyan, technopop star Grimes, and (most importantly) activist and writer Sarah Haider, with whom I co-host my “other podcast,” A Special Place In Hell. Most of the time, I don’t have it in me to respond to things I read or see on stages or screens, having exhausted that part of my brain in the first 30 years of my career.

Update: Second session added! Join in on Monday 15th January at 8pm GMT. add to your calendar Do you ever feel like you slip from one year into the next without ever really pausing to take stock and celebrate? Resolutions are all well and good but they have a propensity to turn punitive. Instagram round ups tend to show only the prettiest parts. About a decade ago, a friend introduced me to the Year Compass, and I’ve found myself returning to its gentle annual reflection process again and again.