All the Best Gifs Emma Thompson Can Provide
HELLO, dearest and most senisble darlings of Dames Nation!
Please allow Dame Margaret to correct a TRAGIC OVERSIGHT!!
She failed to thank most heartily all of you who showed up and made our SENSE & SENSIBILITY Livetweet on March 30th such a rousing success! In this, as in but few things, Edward Ferrars really says it best:
Only obvs. instead of "my" think "OUR," because Dame Sophie totally cosigns on all of Margaret's gratitude. And now! TO THE LINKS, dear friends! TO THE LINKS!
YES, 100% PREDICTABLY, WE ARE EXCITED ABOUT MAD MEN
But maybe these are some things you haven’t seen in your Twitter feed 5 zillion times already? (Ok, except for Mad Style, we know you’ve seen that, but it is essential.)
The indispensable, witty & profane Mad Men Screenshots With Things Drawn On Them Tumblr is back!
Bonus Tumblr: The Women of Don Draper, AKA Don's parade of All New York's Saddest Brunettes as drawn by supremely talented illustrator Hannah Choi. (Dame Margaret is and always will be #TeamFaye, but she wholeheartedly approves of Dame Sophie's #TeamRachel stance.)
Hear Dame's Favorite Anne Helen Peterson talk literature and Mad Men on WNYC and then correct this great interview's one oversight by visiting Billy Parrott’s Mad Men Reading List for the New York Public Library.
Is Mad Men about the DECLINE of the Great White Male? Or is it about the cagey strategies these same Mythic Figures deployed to consolidate their power in the face of shifting change? Kathy Knapp investigates for The LA Review of Books.
And, while it's surely not news to any of you, we Dames must inevitably cheer: Mad Style is baaaaaaack!!!!!!!
Tangentially related: this incredible GIF of the album cover of Sinatra’s In The Wee Small Hours of the Morning, his classic utter-heartbreak-over-losing-Ava Gardner album.
Nostalgia, Revisited
Ever since we wrote a zillion words about nostalgia & cultural preservation, we can’t stop seeing pieces about it. Is there something in the Internet Air or are we just really attuned to this topic now? What role, if any, does nostalgia play in your life?
We could’ve & probably should’ve talked about the personal digital preservation app Timehop when we discussed preservation & nostalgia. Vox’s piece on Timehop and FB’s new On This Day feature is lovely and nuanced.
As a culture, we are well into a 70s fashion lovefest, thanks in part to self-taught style scholars like Tavi Gevinson and Laura Helms. But now we’re seeing more interior & industrial design types turn a loving eye toward the decade of avocado & burnt umber. The NYT gets into the act with Loving the Unlovable Decade and Flavorwire shares a little gallery of Eye-Popping Office Design of the 1970s.
Finally, The Lost Art of the Mixtape takes a trip down the memory lane of our high-speed dubbing dual tape-deck past.
Twee As Hell:
Arist Veronika Richterová turns recycled PET plastic bottles into the world's most adorable cacti.
Cameron Bloom, an Australian photographer has been documenting life with his family's pet magpie, PENGUIN BLOOM, and Dame Margaret's heart may never recover from the cuteness.
Illustrator Alejandro Giraldo has created a wonderful tribute to Wes Anderson's characters.
And for the completists among us, Dames Pal Julie passes along this playlist of (nearly) all of the music in all of his films. Dames response: ENDLESS STRING OF HEART EYES EMOJI.
And finally, we're booking our tickets to La Paz, Bolivia to attend their Alasitas Festival, where by purchasing a miniature figure of the thing you want you can come to have it. I mean, miniatures + getting things + arcane superstitions = 100% PURE DAMES BAIT.
Service Journalism (AKA The Charts We Are Loving This Week):
How long must we wait for Jason Statham to punch someone in his movies? WONDER NO LONGER, thanks to Time To Statham Punch. (h/t Rusty Foster’s formidable Today in Tabs, which we consider the Godfather of this newsletter, as the Ann Friedman Weekly is its Godmother)
41 Insanely Helpful Style Charts Every Woman [And Arguably, Every Man, Too -- Eds.] Needs Right Now.
How To Build a Cocktail: A series of METICULOUSLY DRAWN blueprints for classic cocktails, AKA Your 1970s Federal Tax Dollars at Work. Available to purchase as a print from the National Archives Museum Store [Ed. note: winkwink, nudgenudge - D.M.]!
Miscellany (Just Like Heaven-ly)
Hugh Laurie: “Wodehouse Saved My Life”, in which Dame Sophie’s all-time favorite portrayer of lovable dimwits reveals he & Stephen Fry were not really keen to portray Jeeves & Wooster, but are really glad they did.
And, on a similar note, DID YOU KNOW that Hugh Laurie and Emma Thompson ONCE DATED IN COLLEGE? Learn that and SO MUCH MORE from the above linked, stupendously charming interview between the pair and please send us ALL the real person fics you inevitably write about the pair as soon as humanly possible. (A kind reader sent this to us during our livetweet, by Dame Margaret has forgotten who! IDENTIFY YOURSELF and she'll thank you next issue!)
Julie Andrews to Publish New Memoir!! Since her first memoir, Home, showed the world that Actual Dame Julie is both a beautiful writer and possibly the world’s classiest living human, Dame Sophie is suuuuuuper-excited about her follow-up, due for publication in 2017, and Dame Margaret is shamefacedly ordering a copy of Home to read immediately.
Beyonce’s Vegan Meal Plan makes us feel kinda bloated before we’ve even eaten a bite, but we thank alert reader James for it, nonetheless!
Meet The Skate Girls of Kabul, whose badassery gives us many happy, “the world may wind up ok, after all” feelings! (With our thanks to the indispensable Amy Dieg)
Thanks so much for reading!
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