08/06/21
It all begins with an idea.
TRENDS THIS WEEK
☞ Youtube Hot Ones - Matt Damon
☞ Letterboxd THE GREEN KNIGHT
☞ TikTok #ThrowbackSongs
☞ Spotify STAY - The Kid LAROI & Justin Bieber
☞ Netflix OUTER BANKS
☞ Twitter Messi
Life & Culture
As someone who cannot get enough of 90s nostalgia, I’m here to inform you that thanks to Twitter user @vikrum5000, Kid Pix is back. Yes, I’m talking about the OG computer game that simply lets you draw on your desktop. I can also attest that it is just as good of a waste of time as it was back in the day (maybe even better today, because we all need the break more). Check out the software here, but fair warning that you should consider muting the sound on your computer before clicking over.
Rihanna joined the billionaires club this week, apparently. She’s now the wealthiest female musician in the world. Most of this comes out of her makeup and lingerie companies, with $1.4B out of her total $1.7B valuation coming from Fenty Beauty. And while she hasn’t released new music in over five years now, her ninth album is reportedly somewhere on the horizon.
The Olympics wrap up this weekend, and to be honest with you all, I have not watched one second of it in real time this year, mainly because I am so out of practice with appointment television, but also because I do not have cable. But I have been eating up many of the heartwarming stories that come out of the games. The latest one that fully brought a tear to my eyes came from shot put gold medalist Ryan Crouser, who beat his own Olympic record three times during the competition. When he won, he held up a handwritten sign reading “Grandpa, we did it, 2020 Olympic champion!” honoring his grandfather who passed away last month, the person who introduced him to the sport. Crouser and his grandpa Larry communicated through letters after Larry lost his hearing, and Crouser wrote this one final note to him a few days before the competition began.
But wipe away your tears for a minute, because it’s time for my two favorite TikToks of the week. This one depicts a guy doing a flip that will for sure blow your mind, and this one might help you recover from the former with some appreciation of nature.
—Darlene Kenney, Digital Strategist
Film
While back in my Pennsylvania hometown last weekend, I went to Phoenixville’s Colonial Theater, originally built in 1903, to see David Lowery’s THE GREEN KNIGHT (trailer here). It proved an appropriate fit—I felt transported in time by both the theater’s early twentieth-century interior and the movie’s medieval trappings. The film stars Dev Patel as Sir Gawain, a young and insecure Knight of the Round Table. If you wanted to nitpick, you could tell me that I couldn’t technically have been transported “in time” by the movie because Arthurian legend isn’t actually a historical period, but please don’t nitpick! In the role, Patel alternates between unwarranted confidence and outright fear as he journeys across a fantastical, green-and-orange-hued English countryside to secure his place in legend. I emphatically recommend if you like your movies dreamy, hazy, and messy.
—Nolan Russell, Executive Assistant
Video Game
Louis Vuitton—yes, I’m talking about the luxury fashion house—has launched a new video game app to celebrate its 200-year anniversary. The app is literally called “Louis: The Game.” and while the premise and title are simple, I think the game is fire because it tells the real coming-of-age story of the designer himself. The teenage Louis Vuitton, who was a trunk-maker’s apprentice in the 1850s, left his hometown and traveled for two years on foot to get to Paris, where he founded his luxury fashion brand, which would eventually become the wildly successful luxury conglomerate LVMH. In the game, players follow the brand's mascot to collect as many monogram candles as possible and each of the candles unlocks a postcard that reveals something about the brand's history. On top of all of this they’ve also created a beautiful visual world that also includes free collectable NFTs for users to discover. This is likely just the beginning of a long year filled with celebrations of the brand. Next up: a documentary titled LOOKING FOR LOUIS, that will be out in December of this year.
—Eden Bekele, Digital Associate
Theater
Broadway is back (sorta)! Antoinette Nwandu’s PASS OVER began previews this past Wednesday, August 4. An overly simplistic logline for Nwandu’s play would be “Waiting for Godot meets Black Lives Matter,” but it’s much richer and more complex than that. It follows two young Black men as they meander through Chicago, encountering both an eerily friendly white stranger and a more overtly ominous white police officer. I’m really looking forward to seeing the play when I’m next in New York, most notably because Nwandu has decided to radically alter the play’s ending for this production. Mild spoilers ahead: In previous productions, the play ended with the cop killing Moses. But in the wake of the last eighteen months, Nwandu has chosen to write a new ending that is full of joy and humanity. You can read all about that decision in her recent Vulture profile, and be sure to see the play itself if you’re in New York this fall!
—Julia Hammer, Director of Production
Books
I’m halfway through Alexandra Kleeman’s new novel SOMETHING NEW UNDER THE SUN and thus far, it’s about as fun as a dystopian novel about droughts, wildfires, and capitalist brainwashing can be. The middle-aged protagonist, Patrick, has moved out to Los Angeles to work as a Production Assistant on a shoddy adaptation of his only successful novel. And out in Cali, the only thing running more rampant than the wildfires, Patrick quickly finds, is the proliferation of WAT-R, a water substitute that everyone drinks, bathes in, and uses to fill their pools—you know, the important stuff. I haven’t read far enough into the book to spoil what happens next, but the book is certainly more plot-driven than Kleeman’s previous novel YOU TOO CAN HAVE A BODY LIKE MINE, which I also recommend… perfect for your end-of-summer, Covid-friendly, lazy outdoor reading afternoons!
—Julia Hammer, Director of Production
Andrea Bartz’s twisty mystery WE WERE NEVER HERE came out this week. The book follows two friends, Emily and Kristen, on a backpacking trip in Chile, where they’re having the time of their lives...until a body turns up. The surprising and foundational plot twist: This actually isn’t the first time the two women have been entangled in a murder while traveling, and the novel explores the aftermath of the incident and the unraveling relationship between the two women. The story is juicy, well written, and littered with some truly excellent similes. And of course, it was chosen for Reese Witherspoon’s book club this month. Which, if you haven’t heard, is part of Witherspoon’s Hello Sunshine, now valued at $900M.
—Darlene Kenney, Digital Strategist