Here’s what’s making us happy this week.
This week’s little joys are all about razzle-dazzle. We dug new music, and movies. Some of us made these things. And we drew inspiration from sparkly genre pieces, from near and far in space and time.
To start with magic. Emily Temple’s 3-year-old saw an overpriced balloon at the grocery store, and now everything is different. The balloon is shaped like a dog’s face. It now lives in Emily’s 3-year-old’s bed. Though steep, “the amount of joy it created for her was seriously underpriced.”
Jonny Diamond enjoyed an idyllic evening with four generations of the family (X, Millennial, Z, and Alpha). The gang ate homemade pizzas and watched Samia’s incredible Tiny Desk performance. The indie singer-songwriter has holy pipes and a way with words that can entrance all ages. “New family tradition? Possibly.”
Jessie Gaynor has also been appreciating intergenerational bops. She and her kids, all big K-Pop fans, have been cycling the soundtrack to K-Pop Demon Hunters on morning commutes.
And in preparation for an upcoming show, Drew Broussard got back into the swing of making music. This week he returned to band practice, where he got to play with a full rhythm section for the first time in a blue moon. Bass and drums, he reports, still bring magic. Hudson Valley cats, consider treating yourself to the fruits of his labor this Sunday, when Evelyn plays Unicorn Bar.
James Folta recommends the new Naked Gun, for its deliciously old-fashioned comic sensibility. The film sent him back to a favorite OG slapstick—Hellzapoppin, the 1941 adaptation of the Olsen and Johnson vaudeville musical—which you should also check out. “Naturally there’s a bunch of stuff that has aged poorly, but the first ten minutes are just wild, wall to wall jokes.”
Speaking of jokes! Molly Odintz finally watched the Robin Williams golf sketch. And reports in a spicy take that it was really funny, “unlike almost all other standup comedy.”
Olivia Rutigliano is up in Buffalo this week, working in front of the camera. Her partner is producing the film, Little Audrey, and “this past weekend we both had a cameo in it, so I got to do hair and wardrobe and hang out on set. It was extremely fun.”
And I, Brittany Allen, finally got around to a Max Ophuls’ eye feast that film-bros have been telling me to watch for twenty years. The Earrings of Madame de… is a weird morality tale—heavy on dramatic irony, and EXCELLENT dresses. It’s interested in the ways we imbue objects with meaning, and left me thinking about symbols, superficiality, and the heart’s fickle progress over a long marriage. Chewy and beautiful. Just like the bros said.
Wishing you a weekend full of sweet jams, meaningful jewels, family sing-alongs, and wall to wall jokes.
