» The Modern Marriage Market

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  “Two shows both alike in dignity, in fair Fiji (and England) where we lay our scene,” or whatever good ol’ William said about Love Island and Apple TV’s The Buccaneers. The Buccaneers is basically HBO’s Gilded Age, meets Netflix’s Bridgerton, and Love Island is, well… Love Island.

• Maybe The Materialists is just in the air, but everything I’ve been watching the last few days has been making me think about how people choose someone to be with, and how we as society view that process. And no, I haven’t seen The Materialists but I’ve listened to like three podcast eps about it, so that’s basically the same thing. The girlies over at We’re Obsessed podcast had my favorite discussion about it so far, and so much of it was about the calculations people make on dating apps and in life about who to “pair up with” (to use Love Island parlance) and the question of whether our modern parameters are really treated any differently than they were in the 1800s. This was also swirling around in my brain with the New Yorker’s Critic’s At Large pod’s recent episode on the enduring legacy of Jane Austen and why we continue to love her stories so much.

• Watching Regency girls (or in the case of the Buckaneers, Gilded Age girls) perform intricate social rituals and attend elaborate balls to hopefully end up with a rich lord somehow doesn’t feel that different than watching mostly naked girls slide across slip and slides to try and catch the eye of a hunky guy with terrible tattoos. The girls on Love Island would like a family man with good banter, and the girls in The Buccaneers would like a duke with a thousand pounds per year. Every era has its own social markers of success and while no one could call Love Island high-brow, those contestants have certainly met a certain set of criteria that their social group considers important. Is watching Love Island just our modern Lady Whistledown?

» A collection of movies I’ve watched recently that I feel I should mention but that I don’t actually have much to say about:

• Mission Impossible The Final Reckoning: A kind of lackluster possible ending to this iconic series. I get that Tom’s stunts are impressive but I wish that submarine sequence had been half the length.

• Karate Kid: Legends: A movie lacking most things that make a movie good. Ben Wang was very fun to watch though and I hope he ends up booked & busy. Needed 2-3 more really good fight scenes.

• How to Train Your Dragon (live action): Still a good story and Toothless is still one of the best animal characters in any movie ever. I would die for him. Did we really need this though? Probably not.

» Best things I’ve smelled lately:

• The blooms my sweet pea plant finally produced!

• A fresh bag of Garden Salsa Sun Chips

• The datura blooming down the street

• Whatever my neighbor was grilling the other night

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» Question of the week: What is something really good that you smelled recently?