Welcome to another weekend, friends! I hope yours is peaceful and entertaining.
– Are you registered to vote? The mid-term elections are coming up on November 6th, so now is the time to register if you are not registered, or check to make sure your registration is correct! (Heather showed up last time and had been dropped from the rolls.) Vote.org can help you do ALL THAT good stuff, as well as request an absentee ballot, check what your polling place is, and sign up for election reminders!
– As fall approaches — tomorrow is the last day of summer! — so is the time for you to drape yourself in tweed. We picked out some cute options.
– At Lainey, we talked about this a bit earlier today but Blake Lively is….I don’t even know. Apparently, she scolded Catherine Kallon of Red Carpet Fashion Awards for saying she was wearing a lot of suits, and called this a double standard. (Kallon was also being complimentary!) It is not a double standard to observe that a woman is wearing a lot of suits to promote a movie, especially after that woman has publicly stated that she is wearing a lot of suits to promote a movie. Like…this is literally your aim, to make a statement with your clothing; this was a premeditated style choice, obviously people covering the red carpet are going to mention it. That’s not what a double standard is! (A double standard would be if women got dinged for wearing jeans to Comic-Con when men get away with it.) No one is saying you can’t wear a suit, girl, we’re just pointing out a trend in your wardrobe! Now, if she thinks we as a society we pay too much attention to what women wear and not to men, that’s a whole other conversation to be had, but “Blake Lively sure is wearing a lot of suits lately!” is a benign observation.
– This is a piece at Golf Digest (yes, sincerely) about Valentino Dixon, a man serving time for a murder he did not commit, whose drawings of golf courses eventually lead to his case being re-opened and his conviction vacated. I feel like I need to read an article (or listen to a podcast) about this entire thing that’s about 10,000 words longer an explains in great detail everything that happened between “here’s an inmate at Attica who draws golf courses” and “we have vacated your conviction, sir. You are free to go.” (Dixon wrote a piece for Golf Digest himself, in 2012, which basically kicked off the investigation into his conviction, which is excellent.)
– This piece in the Washington Post is heart-wrenching and upsetting and it will make you really mad and if you can handle it, you should read it. It is called What Do We Owe Her Now? and this is the subtitle: “Twelve years ago, Amber Wyatt reported her rape. Few believed her. Her hometown turned against her. The authorities failed her.” It is extremely well done and I hope it brings about, if not justice, then some peace for Wyatt.
– This piece at Highline was really excellent and well-worth your time, and also enraging. A lot of my friends have been sharing it, and we got a few emails about it, so you may have seen it already, but I recommend it: Everything You Know About Obesity Is Wrong.
– This, at the New Statesman, is so interesting. People can be so resilient: “Paedophile cult leader Warren Jeffs tore this town apart. Now his victims are putting it back together.” A former follower of Jeffs just became their town’s first female mayor.
– The New York Times finally comes around to talking about something we’ve been complaining about for years now! R.I.P., the Celebrity Profile
– Ugh, Jezebel said it best: Jared Leto’s Thirty Seconds to Mars Merchandise Is So Unbelievably Corny
– At Pajiba, this was satisfying: The Not So Subtle Art Of The Sitcom Read. I could watch Julia Sugarbaker rip a strip off someone endless, like on a loop.
– MANY of you have informed us of the existence of the new film Tea With Dames, a clear relation to Drinks With Broads. Vulture has its trailer!
– Speaking of drinks, apparently Idris Elba is opening a cocktail bar in London. LET’S GO. [Esquire]
– I giggled audibly at this headline on Celebitchy: Lenny Kravitz on his giant scarf photo: ‘I cannot escape this’. (In part because it makes it sound like he’s still stuck in said scarf.) He is extremely good-natured about it. I love him.
– At The Mary Sue: Our World Is Beyond Parody With the Sexy Handmaid Halloween Costume. SERIOUSLY.
Let’s end on a high note: Every Keanu Reeves “WHOA” in chronological order:
