T Lo’s Weekend Pop Culture Reading List

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Kittens, as we head off into the early summer sunset for a weekend of relative leisure, here’s some good stuff to tide you over during the dark period of your lives when T Lo isn’t posting. These are all the posts, articles and essays that caught our eyes this week. Dive in and get zeitgeisty, darlings! Ciao!

Being at McQueen, it’s always been about empowering women, it’s always been about a woman who’s strong. It’s very much a woman who is strong for herself, I feel. I really believe that a woman shouldn’t just have to dress like a man to feel strong.

“I Really Feel Quite Lucky”—Sarah Burton Reflects on Her Magical Career at Alexander McQueen By Steff Yotka at Vogue

“They distract and procrastinate, and next thing you know, they can’t do what they need to do to get there on time,” Gerkin said. “It’s not quite self-harm, but it’s in the same arena. It changes your feeling state and gets you out of that place that’s uncomfortable and into this place of excitement.” This can mean that even for people who experience higher risks from airport lateness—those who can’t afford rebooking fees, or members of ethnic groups more likely to be stopped for additional security checks—the siren song of lateness can be just as tempting. In some individuals, the additional stress of those factors might make lateness an even more attractive coping mechanism.

There Are Two Types of Airport People by Amanda Mull at The Atlantic

Shopping has always been about amusement. Now it’s going to be about amusement parks.

Lady Gaga, Tyra Banks and the Disneyfication of Fashion By Vanessa Friedman at The New York Times

Social networks built on public status markers are now starting to hide them.

What if Instagram Got Rid of Likes? By John Hermann at The New York Times

Cut from the same gaudy cloth as “Bohemian Rhapsody,” this glam-rock bio-pic presents an Elton John marginally less sanitized than its predecessor’s Freddie Mercury.

“Rocketman” and the Art of the Acceptably Outrageous By Cathy Whitlock at The Hollywood Reporter

“She was like. O.K., sweetie, if you win, do you want to come out behind me or do you want to go around the other way?” Madden recalled. He responded incredulously: Of course he wouldn’t win.

But he did. And as the orchestra began to play, Madden had no idea where to go. With a professional’s ease, Moore stood up, stepped back and coaxed Madden past her to the stage. “And then when I came back to the table after, he said, “she was like, “I asked which way you wanted to go!”

It’s Going Great for Richard Madden. That’s What Worries Him by Kyle Buchanan at the New York Times

“As he became more famous, his clothes became more extravagant and more expensive,” the designer says of Elton John’s furs, jewelry, shoes and rhinestone-encrusted sunglasses.

Costume Designer Julian Day Talks Paying Homage to Elton John With “Extravagent” ‘Rocketman’ Looks By Jillian Steinhauer at The New York Times

Decorating the space proved to be a family affair, however. Ms. Clinton’s mother, Dorothy Rodham, partnered with her daughter in selecting most of the furnishings and landing on just the right paint and patterns. (She would eventually move into Whitehaven when the project was complete.) “It was a joy working with my mom and Rosemarie,” says Ms. Clinton. “Both my mother and I love color, and you can see, we have a lot of color in the house that came from our collaboration.” Instead of overwhelming the owners, the undertaking proved a welcome respite from an otherwise hectic and demanding everyday life. “I have to say, it was a very nice refuge from my life in the Senate,” says Ms. Clinton of the process. “I’d come home or I’d get sent color samples, or fabric swatches, or pictures of furniture, and it was a nice way to turn one part of my brain off and turn the other on.”

Step Inside Bill and Hillary Clinton’s Deeply Personal Washington, D.C., Home by Ariel Foxman at Architectural Digest

I reached out to some bona fide authorities. Tom Fitzgerald and Lorenzo Marquez, the minds behind the terrific TomAndLorenzo.com, are also the authors of the forthcoming book Legendary Children: The First Decade of RuPaul’s Drag Race and the Last Century of Queer Life, set to be released by Penguin in April of next year. They had this to say of Shangela’s bah-dah-bah-bah-bah moment:

In the grand scheme of things, getting weepy over a McDonald’s commercial might seem a bit overwrought, but we’ve been spending the last year working on a book tracing the journey of Drag Race toward its current status as a social and cultural phenomenon and how that journey sits perfectly alongside the larger journey of queer people toward acceptance, equality and celebration. McDonald’s is practically synonymous with mainstream America, and to have not only a queen of color, but one of Drag Race’s most famous alums sit there and sell the world a McMuffin with a smile and a little shade and some high-glam drag? Yes, it’s enough to make these two queens a little weepy, dammit. Good for you, Shangela. Good for all of us.

The surest sign RuPaul’s Drag Race has hit the mainstream: A McDonald’s commercial by Allison Shoemaker at The Takeout

For THR’s annual class photo, 30 top TV actors reveal which co-star they’d call to bail them out of jail, the scene that had them squirming and what their dream spinoff would look like.

Emmys: 30 Supporting Actors Pose for Star-Studded Class Photo By Rebecca Ford and Tara Bitran at The Hollywood Reporter

“Incels” are going under the knife to reshape their faces, and their dating prospects.

How Many Bones Would You Break to Get Laid? By Alice Hines at The Cut

Spoilers—and a wider discussion of etiquette surrounding them—have been everywhere this spring.

How the War Over Movie Spoilers Reached Its Breaking Point By Nicole Sperling at Vanity Fair

[Photo Credit: Zohar Lazar/The New Yorker]

• T Lo’s Weekend Homework