The Week in Recommendations 5.28.25
Patti LuPone pettiness, more MAHA bullshit, and some excellent tinted sunscreen. Plus, call your senators!
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Over on Love To See It this week, we’re talking about the two-part finale of “Farmer Wants A Wife”! (And trust us… it’s *good.*)
Civic challenge of the week:
Call your senators to voice your opposition to the House-passed Republican budget bill, which attempts to offset tax cuts for the wealthy with onerous work requirements that will gut Medicaid. The bill also contains a clause excluding gender-affirming care from Medicaid coverage and stripping the requirement that ACA plans carry this coverage as well, putting trans healthcare at risk.
Claire has been reading… 📖
The long feature on Trump’s comeback by Ashley Parker and Michael Scherer in The Atlantic, which was nauseating but informative reading. During his four years in the wilderness, I indulged in thinking very little about what he was doing in the shadows, and the article reports in-depth on how he plotted and effectuated his return to power. The role of MAGA influencers — who posted printed-out posts signed in Sharpie by Trump on their own social media — is a particularly alarming testament to the tenacity of the movement.
I also read another profile of a pugnacious — but less fascist — icon: Patti LuPone, the Broadway legend who spoke with the New Yorker’s Michael Schulman for an unfiltered interview. Her thoughts seem to circle ever back to her grudges, her feuds, and how poorly she’s been treated, despite her fame and success. She’s angry at pedestrians who impede her drive to work, at children who win Zamboni rides during Rangers games (“Who gives a shit?” she shouts when they’re ushered onto the ice), and at Audra McDonald. Her every success was achieved alone, and every failure was a personal attack by her enemies. It’s not exactly a charming portrait, but at least it’s entertaining!
Emma has been reading… 📖
I’m still reading Jo Piazza’s “Everyone Is Lying To You,” and I am continuing to really enjoy it. As a subject matter expert, Piazza is the perfect person to deliver a sendup to conservative momfluencer culture. I love reading Piazza’s descriptions of main character Rebecca’s intermittent fasting and fake sponsorships, like her partnership with coffee alternative “Dirt/Wooter.” (LOL.)
Also, I was totally absorbed and horrified by Melissa Dahl’s deep dive in The Cut on the uptick of women with breast cancer pursuing alternative (read: unproven) treatments. This trend feels part and parcel of the forces that led to the rise of the MAHA movement — a distrust in institutions and physicians, the rampant spread of misinformation on social media, and a legitimate frustration that many women in particular feel about their pain / experiences being dismissed in health care settings.
Claire has been watching… 📺
This week, I’ve been coming to things too late and too early.
I’ve finally started the second season of “The Rehearsal,” just as it is coming to a close. Nathan Fielder’s masterpiece, a show that commits to its awkward comedy until it verges into existential dread, had moved and unsettled me so profoundly in season one that I wanted to wait for season two until I felt prepared to savor it. But waiting for the right time, these days, is a fool’s game. I finally watched the first two episodes. This season explores the unfortunately timely topic of airplane crashes, but of course, the real topic, as always, is interpersonal communication. In the cockpit, Fielder sees a relationship with life-or-death stakes unfolding between the captain and first officer. He’s fascinated by how a first officer might assert their own judgment while still making the captain feel respected and valued, a delicate dance that he wishes to master in his own right.
Like Emma last week, I’ve also started watching screeners of Lena Dunham’s upcoming Netflix show “Too Much,” which will be out in July. A few episodes in, the show has gotten moodier and slower, as it lingers over the easy chemistry and blooming romance between Jessica (Meg Stalter) and Felix (Will Sharpe). The honeymoon period of their relationship overlays each of their deeper issues — her anguished emotional attachment to her ex, who left her for a beautiful influencer named Wendy, and his inveterate commitment issues, which have seen him skip from woman to woman for years. It feels like a lot of setup, though very enjoyable setup, and I’m interested to see where it’s all headed.
Emma has been watching… 📺
“Sneaky Links” in anticipation of a forthcoming podcast episode! Claire already recommended this new Netflix dating show, hosted by Chloe Veitch of “Too Hot To Handle,” “The Circle” and “Perfect Match,” but I was late to the party. There is something truly diabolical about trapping a bunch of hotties in a motel with their situationships while they all date around… and I love it. It doesn’t crack my top 5 for Netflix dating shows, but it’s a fun, light addition to the canon.
Claire has been listening to… 🎧
Ashley Adionser finally opening up about her brief marriage to “Love Is Blind” costar Tyler Francis on A.D. Smith’s podcast, What’s the Reality. Ashley infamously stood by Tyler after it came out that he had, allegedly, abandoned the children he had fathered with an old friend. She has since separated from him and is going through with a divorce. But the interview was frustratingly free of substance, with Ashley still seemingly protecting her ex as much as possible, and she came off as more angry at the press who covered the story than Tyler for embroiling her in his lies.
Emma has been listening to… 🎧
I also listened to Ashley Adionser’s interview on What’s The Reality and… OH BOY. I expected Adionser to be candid and humble, and somehow she was neither. (???) We had so many thoughts and feelings that we decided to tape a pod about it later this week.
Claire has been buying… 🛍️
Merit The Uniform tinted sunscreen, the latest release from the beauty brand that has been slowly replacing all of my other staple products. Now, I’m very picky about sunscreen. My skin has a tendency toward oiliness and breakouts, so the greasy sheen left by most American sunscreens is intolerable to me. For years now I’ve used Supergoop’s Mineral Mattescreen as my daily base, and while it has a slightly chalky look, I have always appreciated that it leans matte.
Still, I was eager to see what Merit could do, and they very generously sent me a bottle (in shade 28) to try. And it is my dream tinted sunscreen. The first time I used it, I kept taking selfies because I was mesmerized by the smooth sheen it gave my skin. I felt like I’d fallen out of a Vermeer painting. It blended beautifully with my Merit concealer stick, bronzer, and blush, and it stayed in place all day. Add a little mascara, brow gel, and their shimmery lip gloss in Biarritz or Tabby, and I have a sunny-day glow I’ve never been able to achieve before.
I did find that there is a right way to apply the sunscreen, which I stumbled into accidentally the first time I used it, simply by being in a hurry: I do my morning routine, from washing my face to applying moisturizer, and then immediately put on the Uniform. If I let my face dry down, the sunscreen is tricky to rub in; it pills and clings. But as long as I apply to a freshly moisturized face, it is perfection.
Emma has been buying… 🛍️
The best silk maxi skirt from Reformation! The Bella style of maxi skirt is the GOAT of maxi skirts. It comes in silk, satin, velvet and linen, and the shape is so gorgeous and flattering that I want to shout about this gorgeous skirt from the rooftops! I now own it in two iterations: the petites polka dot silk, which is fully sold out in petites, but there are still some sizes left in the regular length one, and the petite satin version in Fior Di Latte. And I would truly be happy to own a third! It feels designed to highlight and glaze over the hips rather than strangle them or disappear them, and the floor-length hem makes it pretty easy to dress up or down. (I’ve done both. Obsessed with how the polka dot one looks with a simple black tee.) The world is bleak, and I think this skirt is my new religion maybe?
Claire has been making… 🧶
A last-minute trip to my 15th college reunion — with the whole family in tow! Princeton reunions are a huge annual event; some people go every year, and many people go every year until their fifth. For three days, the campus is segmented by tall wooden fences, creating a network of enclosures for outdoor drinking, class lunches, and cover band performances. Everything smells like the beer that people have spilled everywhere, turning the ground into alcoholic mud. Small children in violently orange outfits are underfoot at every turn, especially in the 10th, 15th and 20th reunion tents. We missed our 10th because of Covid, but I almost skipped this year as well, for a variety of factors — a general sense of exhaustion, an unwillingness to plan, a lack of school spirit (thanks, Pete Hegseth).
Then, after one too many texts from friends who had made the trip, I cracked. We went up for Saturday afternoon, the day of the big alumni parade, and fed the kids peanut butter sandwiches while I caught up with as many old friends as I could. It wasn’t as easy as it used to be. The preschooler was cranky and would not rest until he got a tiger tail; the toddler kept wandering off to pick up other people’s empty cans and coffee cups and put them in his mouth. But Greg (along with my truly saintly brother and sister-in-law, who had their own toddler in tow) did much of the wrangling while I exclaimed over other people’s babies and career changes. I often wish I were better at staying close to people over the years, and still do, but there’s also something affirming about these brief reconnections, to know that there are people out there that you will always love, and who love you too, even if your lives don’t have space for each other right now.
Emma has been making… 🧶
Drives up to the Catskills as part of our long, winding, maybe-never-gonna-happen-because-prices-have-gotten-insane search for a country house. It’s a maddening and often disappointing process, but the upside of frequent day trips to and from Sullivan and/or Ulster County is that I’ve gotten familiar with a bunch of Catskills towns that I wouldn’t have known about otherwise. (Jeffersonville! Callicoon Center! Rosendale!) I am such a diehard city person, but the minute the weather turns, I can’t help but dream about the peace of upstate New York. Adam and I spent a lot of time in Sullivan County during the hight of Covid, and I’ve harbored the dream of one day having a place of our own up there ever since. The Borscht Belt is calling.
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Emma, what are your top 5 Netflix dating shows?