Happy Hanukkah, and happy Friday!!
– This is a very juicy issue of The Squawk, Lainey’s Substack: Taylor Swift vs DeuxMoi. (And the comments are interesting.) I’ve long said that I think DeuxMoi will land in legal trouble eventually; I personally would not want to be on the wrong side of Taylor’s legal team.
– Vulture rounded up so many lovely tributes to Norman Lear, who died this week at 101.
– T&C asks: What’s It Take to Be the Accountant to the Stars?
– And the NYT explores: What It Takes to Transform the White House for the Holidays. [gifted link]
– Loved this, at Romper: The Absolute Unhinged Joy Of A Cabbage Patch Kid Name. (Mine was named Allison Denise. VERY 80s. She had red hair and blue eyes. I wonder where she is?!?!?!)
– Blessings to everyone who sent this in: “‘How do you reduce a national dish to a powder?’: the weird, secretive world of crisp flavours.” [The Guardian, as if you couldn’t tell from “crisp” instead of “chips.”]
– Ariana Madix is your next Roxie Hart. Good for her! [Pajiba]
– This is the kind of Best Of list I love, at Time: The Best Inventions Of 2023
– ALSO IMPORTANT: The Very Best Cheeses at Trader Joe’s [Bon Appetit]
– SAVE ME from buying this dress. It is on sale. [Anthro, affiliate link]
– Do you need some more whimsical Christmas tree ornaments?
– Related: Inside Graceland at Christmas, Where Elvis’s Decor Traditions Have Been Preserved for Decades. [Architectural Digest]
– At Texas Monthly: The Bishop Who Picked a Fight With the Wrong Nuns
– A list I might need, don’t judge me: This Is the South’s Best Mail-Order Bacon. Bacon taste test! [Garden and Gun]
– The NYT reports: How ‘Mr. Brightside’ Became a Generation’s Anthem. (I must note that this song was, for a time, the ringtone on my Bedazzled Razr.) [gifted link]
– I fell into a wormhole about this over last weekend: This Really Was the Wedding of the Century. [The Cut]
– Important work from the AV Club: The 30 worst Christmas songs of all time, ranked.
– Also important but more useful and but probably less likely to make people fight about its contents: 47 Songs for Your Ultimate Hanukkah Playlist. [Hey Alma]
– I must confess that I’ve long wondered if BJ Novak was…a dink? (Okay, look, parasocially I was concerned that Mindy Kaling was in love with him and he was sort of stringing her along, okay? I KNOW I DON’T KNOW THEM IRL. But also I think Mindy deserves someone who is publicly 100% entranced by her!!!) Some more evidence, from THR: B.J. Novak’s Chain Food Fest Is Hard to Digest
– Over at Drinks With Broads: Our recap of this most recent episode of The Gilded Age! Also: We had a very fun chat about the best Christmas movies in the free issue (among other things!) and paid subscribers got our take on Taylor Swift as Time’s Person of the Year, plus The Buccaneers, Lupita and Pacey (!!!!!!) and ANOTHER Yellowstone lawsuit.
(Photo by H. Armstrong Roberts/ClassicStock/Getty Images)
