The Week In Recommendations 7.17.24

Delightfully unhinged TV and a terrifyingly unhinged political climate.

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 the third season of “The Bear”! Rich Text is a completely reader-supported project — no ads or sponsors!

Claire has been reading… 📖

Three red test lines and lists of Covid symptoms, because we have our first cases of the dread disease. Greg left for a work trip just a couple hours before the four-year-old and I woke up feeling sick, swabbed our noses, and got our diagnoses. I maintained a fantasy that the baby would escape until he woke up and got a positive result as well. So here we are: two sick children and one sick grownup, staring down the barrel of a four days on our own before dada’s work trip is over. I’m fortunate that so far I don’t have much of a cough, but I do feel like I have a pretty bad flu, complete with body aches, chills, and fatigue.

When I am able to read anything, I’ve spent my time gloomily scrolling through the social media app of a nutjob who has pledged tens of millions to Donald Trump’s reelection campaign, reading headlines and hot takes and memes about Joe Biden’s age and the assassination attempt at Trump’s rally and the J.D. Vance running mate announcement. I wish I had a reading suggestion that clarified or comforted at all, but I’ve just been in a blur of anxiety and overwhelm this week.

Emma has been reading… 📖

David Frum’s essay in The Atlantic, “The Gunman and the Would-Be Dictator,” which has helped me begin to process the assassination attempt that occurred over the weekend, which ended with the shooter and a bystander dead. I have a tendency to dissociate from difficult, awful things, so I appreciated how clearly Frum lays out the role that Donald Trump played in creating the political world where gun violence like this can and will occur. (And the ways in which political violence has always been a part of the fabric of American culture.)

He describes the fascist movement that Trump is at the helm at as “a secular religion,” and “like all religions, they offer martyrs as their proof of truth…The leader himself will be the martyr in chief, his own blood the basis for his bid for power and vengeance.” He also outlines what we need to be saying, loudly and strongly: “We abhor, reject, repudiate, and punish all political violence, even as we maintain that Trump remains himself a promoter of such violence, a subverter of American institutions, and the very opposite of everything decent and patriotic in American life.”

For a political pick-me-up, I also recommend grabbing a copy of Emily Amick and Sami Sage’s new book, “Democracy In Retrograde.” It’s been saving me from drifting fully into an abyss of hopelessness and instead guiding me towards action.

Claire has been watching… 📺

“My Lady Jane,” a Prime show about Lady Jane Grey (Emily Bader) set in a parallel universe in which the titular lady survives her ascension to the throne and shapeshifters roam throughout England. And one of those shapeshifters is her devastatingly hot husband, Lord Guildford Dudley (Edward Bluemel), who spends his days as a horse. Anna Chancellor (Caroline Bingley from the BBC “Pride and Prejudice”) plays Jane’s scheming mother with gusto. This is M-rated historical fan fiction, of the romantasy genre, and it’s unapologetic about titillating its viewers with slow-burn eroticism, heavy make-outs, and weird sex stuff. It’s also laughably janky — the exterior shots of the castles are done in such basic CGI that they resemble something from a video game — and narrated by an audibly smirking man who snarkily overexplains everything, presumably so you can look at your phone while you watch without missing too much. It seems to be the artistically downmarket descendent of intentionally anachronistic, saucy period shows scored by contemporary music (“Dickinson,” “The Great,” etc.), complete with a soundtrack full of women and women-led indie artists. Anyway, it’s unhinged and I love it.

Photo Credit: Prime Video

Emma has been watching… 📺

I’m also watching “My Lady Jane” and it is precisely as deranged as Claire is describing! Deranged in a super fun way that makes you look around your room and be like… what the fuck am I watching right now? Is this a fever dream? Why am I enjoying myself so much?

Photo Credit: Peacock

My other obsession of late is “Love Island USA.” I started the season mostly to watch Ariana Madix as a host, and honestly found the first couple episodes nearly unwatchable and unspeakably boring. Something changed for me though, and what used to be laundry-folding background TV has now become my greatest treat each night its on. Casa Amor had me in a CHOKEHOLD! I am deeply invested in JaNa, Serena and Leah’s happiness! I miss Liv! Rob is maybe the most frustrating/fascinating man on all of reality television! I think I’ve officially been “Love Island”-pilled, and I’m loving every single moment of it. So sad that it ends on July 21.

Claire has been listening to… 🎧

The “2 Black Girls, 1 Rose” interview with Charity Lawson, which gets real about her time on the show and why the franchise’s Black leads keep severing ties. It’s well worth a listen.

Emma has been listening to… 🎧

“Hysterical,” a new Wondery and Pineapple Street Studios podcast about the outbreak of Tourettes-like symptoms that impacted a bunch of (mostly) teen girls in Leroy, New York in 2011. Was it a mass psychogenic illness? Was it the environment? Is anyone really sure, even now? I remember this being a big news story at the time, but there’s so much about it I didn’t know.

Claire has been buying… 🛍️

Way too much from Target same-day delivery to survive this Covid bout: Motrin for infants, Motrin for children, Motrin for adults, tissues, Gatorade, Color Wonder kits for mess-free coloring, dairy-free frozen pizzas and burritos, cans of soup, crackers and granola bars.

In happier times, I got a bunch of these zipper bags, which are like elevated Ziplocs — sturdier, nicer, with a real cloth zipper. I initially bought them because I glimpsed one holding all the sunscreen bottles in a friend’s bag, but they have also turned out to be great for organizing Tonie figurines, blocks, puzzle pieces, and more kid-related mess.

Emma has been buying… 🛍️

I love taking photos, and I always wondered how the fuck influencers were constantly taking full-length photographs of themselves and friends without lugging a tripod around. Turns out they’ve maybe just all been using the Octobuddy??? My friend Alison turned me onto this suction-y thingy that attaches right to the back of your phone case and sticks to windows, mirrors, walls etc. When we were upstate, Alison got some epic shots by attaching her Octobuddy-ed phone to a car window! I got the double-sided version because I’m in need of a new phone case soon, but I hear the one-sided version with adhesive on the other side is a bit easier. They’re both on Prime Day sale.

Claire has been making… 🧶

Puzzles, plain Thomas’s bagels with dairy-free “butter” spread, fresh water bottles, banana slices. We’ve just been trying to survive the week with minimal effort, since I know overexertion is a bad idea with Covid in particular. It doesn’t always go smoothly. Monday night I promised the four-year-old pizza, only to realize that our usual spot was closed. I ordered from another pizzeria. When the pizza arrived, he began to cry because the cheese and the crust “looked wrong.” He ultimately refused to eat a single bite, instead asking for the soup I had offered to order for him earlier but in fact had not ordered because he told me he hated all soup and would never eat it. I opened my pizza only to see that I had forgotten to write “no cheese” in the special request space, and it was covered in gobs of mozzarella. At this point, I may have cried a tear or two. No pizza was eaten in our home Monday night.

Emma has been making… 🧶

Adam and I had some friends over for an impromptu dinner party after I finally tested negative for Covid, and I made Plummy Pudding (but make it nectarines and peaches instead of plums), from

Alison Roman

’s cookbook, “Sweet Enough.” It was so delicious and easy and a real crowd-pleaser. I love that you can make it with a bunch of different summer fruits! I want to try it again with berries.

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