T Lo’s Weekend Pop Culture Reading List

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Darlings, before we head out to Happy Hour (Who are we kidding? There are naps ahead.), here are all the posts, articles and essays that caught our eyes this week – including two where we’re interviewed! Because we’re attention-seekers that way. Check out the Drag Race and Diet Prada articles for our thoughts. Until Monday brings us all back together again, have a great one, kittens!

“…when you take a broader view and you look at drag as a form, as a way of making a living, this is on the scale of what’s expected of drag. That’s how you make a living: You work your skills to pay your bills. That’s the history of drag right there. So this isn’t brand new as an idea but it’s on a level I’ve never seen before.”

RuPaul’s Drag Race helps turn queens into stars — and savvy marketersby Manuel Betancourt at Vox

In their respective starring roles, Aidy Bryant and Pamela Adlon play messy, interesting characters who refuse to make nice.

On “Shrill” and “Better Things,” Women Stop Being Good Sportsby Emily Nussbaum at The New Yorker

I was more insecure when I was 20 than I am at 47. At 47 it’s like, “You need me to put on a crazy dress with mirrors [see photo above]? Yeah, sure. I’m going to work the shit out of this!” I don’t know what I’m doing. It’s, like, you give less fucks.

Sandra Oh Says Jobs Are Like Dating — and She’s Learned to Move Onby Laura Brown at InStyle

“I am 84 years old, and everyone wants to take a picture with me,” she remarked with some amazement a few years ago—and there may be something to that. There is a certain power to Ginsburg’s look within the context of her work, because it is so distinctly feminine. To encounter a justice so staunchly committed to jewelry and accessories despite the masculine tradition of the bench is, well, kind of iconic.

Happy Birthday, Ruth Bader Ginsberg! An Ode to the Supreme Court Justice and Her Iconic Accessorizingby Marley Marius at Vogue

Lindy West is used to people making assumptions about her work, her body, her health, her life. That’s the price of being a woman online, especially one who started writing during the confessional, early years of blogging, when West forged her reputation for brazen, funny, and sometimes deeply personal posts. But there is one assumption she would like to head off now, ahead of her new television show.

Lindy West Is Watching Herself The co-creator of Shrill on life after the internet.by Madeleine Aggeler at The Cut

“She sent us the biggest flowers ever,” Siriano said of Heidi Klum sending her congratulations during his Thursday appearance on Andy Cohen’s ‘Watch What Happens Live.’

Karlie Kloss, Christian Siriano Talk “Emotional” Return to ‘Project Runway’by Lexy Perez at The Hollywood Reporter

“You reach a point of success and at that exact moment you have to decide, ‘Do I continue what I’m doing?’ because you will burn out if you continue, or ‘Do I change and become something else,’” he said. “And I think that is where they are right now, so it’ll be really interesting to see where they go.”

We’re All Drinking Diet Prada Now
Calling out collaborators and copycats! Will success spoil a fashion watchdog account?by Jonah Engel Bromwich at The New York Times

An explanation: For a long time, I was unconsciously trained to think about female superheroes on screen by way of that famous line from Highlander: “There can only be one.”

Growing up, as we saw, the options were limited. In the last decade or so, TV was there to pick up a bit of the slack with Marvel’s Jessica Jones, Marvel’s Agents of SHIELD, DC’s Legends of Tomorrow and Marvel’s Cloak & Dagger, among other comic book-derived shows (Legends, in particular, is a delightfully demented gem). But those TV programs (one of which is already canceled) do not have the marketing budgets or the name recognition to make huge dents in the public consciousness.

Captain Marvel and the Rise of Female Superheroes in Film by Mo Ryan at The Edit

I don’t know if art is every really finished, but Gág certainly continued his work, becoming a prominent artist and illustrator. Then, in 1928, Gág published her first book, Millions of Cats, which was adapted from a story she had made up to entertain her friends’ children. Written and illustrated by Gág, it also featured hand-lettered text (created by her brother) and something brand new for picture books: the illustrated double-page spread.

The Oldest American Picture Book Still in Print is Obviously About Cats by Emily Temple at Lit Hub

[Photo Credit: dragqueenmerch.com]

• T Lo’s Weekend Homework