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ISSUE #29
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July 12, 2022
7 Things I Consumed This Month Worth a Mention
I'm going to number the list this month because I need some order in my life.
1. The Documentary - “The Janes” (HBO Max)
The Janes is a doc about a group of young women helping other women in their community get the healthcare they needed before abortion was legalized. They called themselves the Jane Collective, a group that provided more than eleven thousand illegal abortions to clients in Chicago from 1969 to 1973.
*Stop reading if you don't want to read spoilers.*
The New Yorker wrote in their review,
The film is conventional in form, but daring in tone. It has the temerity to argue that abortion is more than just a medical necessity to be tolerated: abortion can be an event that reclaims agency; abortion can be a catalyst to a personal and communal joy.
This doc plays like a caper story along with an oral history of abortion, just right for the times we now find ourselves in. The documentary's score is sometimes playful as the women describe the methodical and risky lengths they go to to keep their actions from getting them in trouble with the law. We learn (and I had no idea about this, even though I know the history of women's reproductive rights) that many abortion-seeking women were at the mercy of mobsters and other bad actors in Chicago. Some of them were doctors taking advantage of women desperate to end a pregnancy.
Chicago police eventually bust in on them, and they are arrested.
Watching these brave women retell their stories as more mature women, interspersed with images of their young faces in surprising detail, is fascinating. You can't look away.
Here is the trailer.
2. The Book - Rodham
This book made me happy. I can't believe I just found it. I was looking for another book in the fiction section of my local book store when I saw Rodham. I bought it immediately and read it in a few days.
This novel brilliantly combines fiction and non-fiction. The first few chapters are mostly non-fiction events of the story of Hillary Rodham, of her growing up in a middle-class family in an Illinois suburb. The national recognition she receives after her 1969 commencement address at Wellesley College rocked her generation when she broke from her script to react to Sen. Edward Brooke's (R-Mass) remarks who spoke before her.
It was these words, unscripted, that made her an instant voice for her generation.
This has to be very quick because I do have a little speech to give. Part of the problem with just empathy with professed goals is that empathy doesn't do us anything. We've had lots of empathy; we've had lots of sympathy, but we feel that for too long our leaders have viewed politics as the art of the possible. And the challenge now is to practice politics as the art of making what appears to be impossible possible.
In the book Rodham, Hillary does meet a young Bill Clinton at Yale Law School. He does become her first serious boyfriend. They have hot sex (not sure if that is true or not, but the sex scenes are written well). He does fall in love with her intellect. He does ask her to marry him more than a few times. All true. She does move to Arkansas because he wants to run for Governor. But then the story takes a turn. She doesn't marry him in this fictionalized account because she discovers he cheated on her, and history is revised.
The rest of the novel is a blend of both real and fictionalized events.
I won't spoil it for you. It's a great read, even if you're not well versed on the Clintons. If you are, like I am (I've read most books on the Clintons), it's extra fun because you know what's fact and what is fiction.
3. The App – The Points Guy
I like to get things for free. But only things that I really want. Like first-class travel. I'm not into things just because they are free, but if I want something, why pay?
The points guy app will tell you how to most effectively use your reward points on your credit card to get free airfare and hotels.
I want to travel a lot in the next ten years and possibly move out of the country, and I'll use this app.
4. The Article - “Justices Are Not Kings” by Dahlia Lithwick
In the last month, I've read several great articles about the Supreme Court's June 24, 2022 decision to misinterpret the Constitution and overturn Roe vs. Wade, denying half of the country our constitutional rights and dignity.
But by far, Dahlia Lithwick's article for Slate is the best one.
5. The Movie – Elvis
My partner saw Elvis without me because if a film is over 2 hours, I don't want to see it. Elvis clocks in at 2 hours and 39 minutes. Also, biopics are hard to pull off. I've read many Elvis biographies and didn't think it necessary to sit through a Baz Luhrmann interpretation of The King. I think his directing style is sometimes too loud, over the top, and distracting.
My partner liked it so much (he has high standards) I reconsidered when my friend suggested we go see it.
What makes Elvis unique is how the film explores the life and music of Elvis, seen through the prism of his complicated relationship with his opportunistic and controlling manager, Colonel Tom Parker. The outstanding lead performances, especially from Austin Butler, who plays Elvis, make the 2-plus hour film fly by. Tom Hanks plays Colonel Tom Parker well also.
A young Elvis.
Goddamn, and holy crap, Elvis was good-looking. Those eyes. Those eye lashes! He’s the kind of pretty/handsome that makes it hard to stop looking at him.
I recently watched the documentary Elvis Presley: The Searcher (HBO). It includes a ton of early footage of Elvis performing as a teen getting his start in Memphis clubs. He doesn’t have a bad angle. His face is empirically perfect. More importantly, he was a sweet, kind and sensitive man.
Elvis was attuned to the emotional; he was always on the search for emotional music.
Writer Warren Zanes,
This is the mysterious part about music. How do we know listening to a song that someone means it? We just know. And the people who mean it are generally the ones who are processing some kind of loss through music, and we can hear them negotiating their loss, and we connect to it.
Elvis had soul.
Here is a great example of that.
Below is his re-entry as a singer with Frank Sinatra after he got out of the army, where he spent two years, and met Priscilla in Germany.
6. The Drink - A cool tequila drink to sip for summer
To make one drink, you will need:
2 orange slices
2 oz. Cointreau
1 oz. Blanco tequila
Sparkling mineral water
Ice
Follow these steps to make my new favorite cocktail:
Muddle orange slices in a glass
Add ice; pour in the Cointreau and tequila
Float the drink with sparkling mineral water and serve
Sip and enjoy!
7. The Real Estate - The house where Julia Child took her first steps
I went to see a 4M dollar house one Sunday. I love checking out the stately homes in Pasadena and Los Angeles.
The real estate agent showing this large estate was very chatty and gave me a complete history of the house and its occupants. It turns out it was Julia Child's grandparents' house where Julia spent the first five years of her life.
Julia Child was born nearly a hundred and ten years ago, in 1912, in Pasadena, California. While living at her grandparents' home, Julia attended the local Montessori. She then matriculated to Polytechnic, a private high school down the block from her father's house, which was right around the corner from her grandparents. She walked to school.
The wardrobe, or rather, the room, next to the master bedroom is the kind of wardrobe I've dreamt about my entire life. Build-in and custom with deep drawers for sweaters and linens. My clothes would fit into this wardrobe. This whole entire room is for clothes! Shoes! And more!
The house has 6 bedrooms and 5 baths and sits on a 20K sq ft lot. The house is nearly 5K sq ft.
It was a treat to see where this icon began her life. Julia, the series on HBO is sweet (recommended in a previous 7 Things list), and the acting is superb. Check it out.
Below are just a few pictures I snapped while touring the home. It is a home, not a house.
See you next Tuesday. Have a great week!
Jessica - xoxox
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Wow, that Frank Sinatra video was incredible.