The Week In Recommendations 3.22.23

Ted Lasso's return, deeper looks at Ozempic and Roald Dahl, and dressing for spring.

This is the free edition of Rich Text, a newsletter about cultural obsessions from your Internet BFFs Emma and Claire. If you like what you see and hear, consider becoming a paid subscriber. Our latest podcast was about season 2 of “Sex/Life,” aka the most unhinged show on TV. Rich Text is a reader-supported project — no ads or sponsors!

We’ve been reading…

I will read Jia Tolentino’s writing on basically any subject, and her latest for the New Yorker, on the cultural impact of Ozempic and similar GLP-1 drugs, did not disappoint. Any discussion of these drugs — which, by many accounts, are a true breakthrough for patients with chronic health conditions like diabetes — immediately gets sticky. My personal uneasiness around the fervor has less to do with any judgment for people who are on these medications and more to do with the adjacent media I have seen this inspire, like the TikToks of thin white women who share what they eat in a day on Ozempic dupes. It all reminds me, sickeningly, of the days of pro-ana blogs and Tumblr accounts. As Tolentino writes, “there is no large-scale data about the safety of these drugs when taken by people who are mainly interested in treating another chronic condition, the desire to be thin.” -Emma

Merve Emre’s unsparing take on Roald Dahl in New York Review of Books, “Making It Big.” It’s a review of the latest biography of Dahl, “Roald Dahl: Teller of the Unexpected,” an authorized biography by Matthew Dennison that paints a more flattering portrait of the great children’s author than previous renditions. Though the piece originally came out in December, it resurfaced for me thanks to the recent kerfuffle over the Roald Dahl Story Company and Dah’s publisher Puffin editing his texts in order to make the language less offensive. Emre’s review, which challenges the sanitized version of Dahl presented in “Teller of the Unexpected,” makes a strong case for what many smart commentators said in response to the Dahl bowdlerizations: He was a nasty, bigoted man, and his books are — for all the magic they’ve held for generations of children, including myself — rather nasty stories, in a way that a few light edits simply can’t ameliorate. “The pleasures of making it big and making it small and not noticing or caring who gets hurt in the process — this is the gimmick on which nearly all Dahl’s children’s books turn, the gimmick that reveals the hollowness at their center,” Emre writes. “The cruelty of his villains begets a reciprocal cruelty in their victims.” As someone who read Dahl’s entire children’s oeuvre many, many times as a kid, it was a bit of a jolt to reconsider, as an adult, whether they’re simply cruel at their core, and to conclude… honestly, yes. A great deal of children’s literature is quite morally didactic, and the viciousness of Dahl is certainly a large part of his unique appeal — but nothing is served by glossing over it. -Claire

We’ve been listening to…

I’ve only seen two movies in theaters since the Covid pandemic began in March of 2020, and one of them was “Everything, Everywhere, All At Once.” I took myself to see this film alone on a Sunday near Prospect Park, and I laughed and I cried and I remembered why movies can be such a magical and collective medium. So I was delighted when I saw that one of my favorite pods, “You Are Good” (“a feelings podcast about movies,” as they describe themselves) did an episode on EEAAO after it’s historic Oscars run. It made me feel warm and fuzzy which is exactly what I needed during this slow, hazy winter-to-spring transition period. -Emma

“Sold a Story,” the APM Reports podcast about how phonics-based reading education got replaced in American schools by an approach, called cueing, that teaches kids how to use reading strategies that make it harder to acquire real literacy. I had read a few articles about the debate, and had been intending to dive into the podcast for some time, but I finally binged the whole thing in just a couple of days. Emily Hanford, the reporter who elevated this issue into one of mainstream concern, takes us back to the origins of the cueing approach, traces the rise of an industry around it, and introduces us to children, parents, and teachers who have struggled because of it.

In essence, cueing approaches work by teaching beginning readers to gather all kinds of information about a text to guess at unknown words, rather than teaching them to sound them out phonetically. They’re taught, for example, to imagine what word “makes sense” in the context of the other words, refer to illustrations of the text, and to check the first letter of the word — strategies that rely heavily on guessing and become even less useful as the words readers encounter get longer and more complex. There’s also a heavy emphasis on simply exposing kids to books so they will learn to love reading — a sort of vibes-based method. Reading science pioneered after the embrace of cueing has convincingly shown that more kids learn to read well by using phonics, which also just… seems to make sense. As someone who did learn with phonics, I was mesmerized and shocked to learn that this was the approach that had largely replaced it, and the podcast was absolutely gripping from start to finish. -Claire

We’ve been watching…

Still making my way through my “Yellowjackets” screeners! From what I have seen so far, it is fairly bleak, but there are some serious delights within the darkness. The second season premieres on Friday and I am so ready for a full season of our fave traumatized gals / alleged cannibals — plus the addition of Elijah Wood and Lauren Ambrose, two absolute ‘90s icons. -Emma

The new episode of “Ted Lasso,” which has returned to Apple Plus for a season three. There’s a lot of set-up and a lot of “golly gee he sure is folksy” in episode one, which felt a bit baggy and rambling to me. I’m not sure if I’m just over Ted and the one-note joke of his corny dad jokes and American sticktoitiveness, or if the show has lost its sharpness, or if I just need to give this season more time to stretch its legs. Admittedly, I am enjoying sidekick-turned-villain Nathan leaning into his dark side as the new manager of the unbeatable juggernaut West Ham (of all teams). -Claire

We’ve been buying…

I’ve been searching for a beautiful, high-quality, classic trench coat that I can wear for spring and will last me for years. After a lot of research, I went with this Oversized Belted Trench Coat from COS, because not only had I seen fantastic reviews, but this trench comes in petite sizes. I even went to the store to try it on, but they didn’t have my size, so I ordered the correct size online. Fingers crossed it’s as good as I think it will be! -Emma

The Madewell Insider sale is on right now, and I obviously can’t resist a 25% off situation, so I got this cute oversized graphic tee, which is delightfully comfy and cute with jeans and a cardigan, and am waiting on this bodycon tee dress to try out. Summer here I come!!! -Claire

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