Previously on Homeland: Quinn got gassed, and then Carrie woke him up to get information out of him about an attack, which caused him to vomit up black stuff; Carrie stopped the attack; sketchy billionnaire Otto asked Carrie to marry him; Saul tried to get Carrie to work for him, but she wouldn’t; Carrie stood over Quinn looking like the angel of death and appeared to be contemplating euthanizing him. (I wrote a GIANT rant on this topic after that episode, here.)
Let’s be real. There’s only one thing we’re reading about this week, and it has nothing to do with books or movies or TV. In fact, this creature we are obsessively reading about doesn’t even READ books. A fascinating specimen, isn’t he? (Just ask him!)
Here, inspired by the magic of Google’s auto-complete search box, is a giant collection of listicles: books that the world WISHES Trump would read. Taken together, it is a grand list of books about social justice, science, history, civics, logic, and morality. You know, all those niche topics that he hasn’t really had time to grasp the basics of yet.
Elle has some great, surprising choices, including one about Japanese internment camps. And who knew Ta-Nehisi Coates had written a graphic novel? Not me!
Book Riot has a list of seven, including several great books on racism and, oddly, How to Win Friends and Influence People, like, I think he’s got more influence than he deserves already, mk?
Washington Post went basic (but all strong choices), with Washington, King, and Roosevelt. And the Constitution, though we all know Trump’s not interested in THAT.
NPR went scientific, wishing that Mr. “Let’s just Build Up Our Arsenal” would educate himself on the history and science of nuclear weaponry.
The Washington Independent Review of Books has really good stuff on its list, with War and Peace alongside The Once and Future King, though it’s noticeably short on the “educate Trump about how racism is bad” thing.
Inc.com, somewhat surprisingly, put together a totally legit reading list for our fearless illiterate, including The New Jim Crow, which is amazing and was also on Book Riot’s list.
It may be 2017, but the internet, including us, is not done talking about the Gilmore Girls revival:
McSweeney’s published a hilarious rejection letter of Rory’s memoir.
The Millions has an essay on how Rory’s changes reflected the changed political mood of the new millennium. It’s quite brilliant, even though it woefully misquotes a scene, attributing one of Lorelai’s funniest lines to the undeserving Rory.
Meanwhile, elsewhere on the Internet:
The NYT wrote about the books that got Obama through the presidency. Among them are Colson Whitehead’s The Underground Railroad, which I liked a lot but perhaps didn’t love, and The Three-Body Problem, which Keets definitely loved.
In Bitch Magazine, there’s an insightful exploration of the vastness of Jane Eyre‘s influence on feminist and female literature.
Because of library software that automates purging of unpopular books, these librarians created a fake patron to “save” the unpopular titles they believed were too valuable to be purged. Boing Boing writes, “The problem here isn’t the collection of data: it’s the blind adherence to data over human judgment, the use of data as a shackle rather than a tool.”
There’s a new full trailer for The Good Fight. The trailer is very, “See? Aren’t you glad it’s on CBS: All Access? It has bare butts! And the f-word!” And I’m embarrassed to say it worked on me.
Avid.ly, LARB’s fan blog, argues that Gilmore Girls’ obsession with Clinton was just papering over their Reagan-esque neoliberalism. Fascinating piece.
This little infographic about 11 Disney Princesses whose eyes are literally bigger than their stomachs reminds me of me and my sister’s first act of feminist activism: angry handwritten letters to Disney about their princesses’ unrealistic bodies.
Previously on Nashville: Juliette was rescued from her crash by a woman she saw at a church just outside of Nashville; Rayna had a panic attack after playing a gig for a Silicon Valley caricature named Zack, who asked why she didn’t record anymore; Rayna took a road trip to figure out what she wanted; and Scarlett and Gunnar got back together.
Aeon posted a video essay by the Nerdwriter explicating E E Cummings’s famous love poem, “[i carry your heart with me(i carry it in].”
A lot of people are convinced that a recent Netflix tweet means a possible new season of Gilmore Girls (although I’m pretty sure it’s just a hilarious joke). Read about it on IndieWire.
Nashville’s back on CMT, and with it, according to the Detroit News, we might be seeing some increased efforts at representation, including a recurring character who’s African-American and another who’s the first out transgender actor on CMT.
Someone at The Outline recut all 10 hours of Westworld into chronological order. It’s amazing.
Related:
Our Gilmore Girls posts
Our Nashville posts
Our Westworld posts
Previously on Nashville: Scarlett and Gunnar got back together, Kevin and Will got back together, Maddie and her family got back together, and Juliette and Avery almost got back together but her plane disappeared.
Continue reading →
Kate Washington writes about one of the rarely-mentioned characters from the Anne of Green Gables universe, Leslie Moore, as a window into the life of a caregiver. (via LA Review of Books‘ subsidiary Avidly)
Did you know Alec Baldwin only gets paid $1,400 per episode when he plays Trump on SNL? The NYT found out this and other interesting facts about Baldwin-as-Trump.
Get excited: Homeland is coming back soon! Here’s the full trailer:
Previously on Westworld: Dolores wanted Teddy to take her to where the mountains meet the sea, but he put her off; Ford worked on a new storyline with a white church; Charlotte had Lee upload some info into Daddy: Original Flavor so they could get it out of the park; Maeve said some nonsensical stuff that convinced Hector to kill himself with her so she could recruit an army; Bernard told Dolores to find the maze so she could be free; The Man in the Black Hat Who Is Totally Named William (formerly known here as “Ed”) wanted to do the maze himself; William was looking for Dolores with Logan; Ford created Bernard to be the replacement Arnold, but then made him shoot himself; Teddy was looking for Wyatt, and had flashbacks where he was shooting up a bunch of people in Escalante; and Dolores went into the church, only to be confronted with William the Aged.
Just these previouslies are reminding me how many threads need to be tied up, or at least developed to a climax, in this episode. Is ninety minutes really enough? We’ll see…
Adversion 