The Friday Dispatch: February 21, 2025

Juliette Lewis and I have all the same questions

Hello! It’s me. Happy Friday. It is still winter, somehow, and I am so mad about it. Yellowjackets Season 3 is underway, which means that I am thinking about Juliette Lewis more than ever. Unrelatedly or maybe-relatedly, I find myself asking this vital question, over and over: Can we be saved????

What Are You Doing Tomorrow

Hello. Are you busy tomorrow? Are you around at, say, 5pm? Do you live within driving or flying distance of New York? Can you come to Queens?

If the answers to these questions are no, yes, yes, and yes, in that order, please come see me co-host

Tristan Miller

’s going-away show! More info here. I will be singing songs (parodies and normal), asking questions (trivia style), perhaps ad-libbing a Mad Lib or two. You’ll see! We’ll ALL see!!! There will be stand up, and short films, and who knows what else?! Well. I knows what else. But if you want to know…there’s only one way to find out.

Remember That Time I Was In Charge Of Standup

Hey!!!!!!!! I started a new column! This is part of the ongoing “Craft Supplies” rebrand. In Here’s What I Learned, I’ll be exploring widely-applicable life lessons from endeavours creative and mundane. A sample list of topics you may see in the near future include:

• Here’s what I learned from going to sleepaway 80s dance camp with my mom

• Here’s what I learned from publishing a sold-out poetry chapbook

• Here’s what I learned from “breaking up” with a pathological liar friend

• Here’s what I learned from flying to LA and auditioning for Blues Clues

• Here’s what I learned from co-founding a sad girl zine

• Here’s what I learned from too many years at horse camp

• Here’s what I learned from reporting missing persons cases on a breaking news desk

To further pique your interest, I present a selection from the first in this series, titled “Here's What I Learned From Running an All-Women Comedy Show in Arizona.”

Ladykillers started as a booked standup show. When it ended, it was a booked show plus an open mic, which featured standup, improv, storytelling, sketch, characters, humorous erotic poetry, and, at one point, a Guy Fieri-themed comedic band. Ladykillers began as a project I first pursued to prove a very simple thesis (“There are funny women in Arizona.”) It proved that thesis, and then went on to say so much more about the scope of talent in my community, and the obstacles that women and queer performers faced when trying to display that talent.

Of all the lessons on this list, this is the one I’ve had to re-learn the most. It’s important to have a strong artistic vision. But once you set things in motion, you need to surrender, at least a little bit, to the forces of creativity. Many of the things that I first saw as possible liabilities for Ladykillers became assets. We didn’t have a stage? That meant our space could be flexible. We could have comedy duos and teams. We could make the show easily accessible to people with mobility issues. I wasn’t as passionate about standup as other forms of comedy? That meant performers felt comfortable coming to me and saying, “Hey, can I try a weird idea?”

This is a lesson I have learned onstage and off, on the page and even in my day job. It’s okay if the end product looks different from what you imagined. Your unmet expectations do not equate to failure. When your art grows beyond what you recognize, you grow with it. If you put limits on your art, you’ll make the same thing over and over again. When you let your art outgrow you, you have no choice but to catch up.

Full disclosure, a good 2/5 of this first column is just petty, years-old Arizona comedy gossip. If you want, you can DM me and guess the identity of the asshole nightmare comedian I talk about. If you get it right, I will give you a prize! Or you can Venmo me $5 (@ hattie-hayes) and I’ll just tell you! In either case, we both win. Money can be exchanged for goods and services or for BADS and TREACHERY!

Mixed Nuts

I have a lot to do this weekend! Here’s a lot of stuff from my brain.

• Tomorrow I begin yet another Soapstone Writers study group! This time, we are reading and discussing Modern Poetry, the latest & greatest collection from Diane Seuss. I don’t know if this collection resonated with me as much as Frank: Sonnets did, but there’s one poem about reading Colette which had me brimming with tears out of nowhere. I’ve never even read Colette!!! I’m such a fake-ass francophilic woman of letters.

• *breaking news noises* LITTLE GUY REPORT! Extra extra read all about them!
  I would like to introduce you to some Little Guys from the Sanrio universe who were heretofore unknown to me. They are:

  • A hamster named Book, whose hobbies include reading and knowing things about the world. I bet HE’S read Colette. Interestingly, he is part of the extended Corocorokuririn universe, which, to me, has always demonstrated parallels to the world of Hamtaro. Is Book the Sanrio counterpart to Hamtaro's friend Maxwell? Should I write 2,500 words on this???

  • A rabbit from Illinois, named Corn, who is a ballerina. I love him.

  • An ancient woman, and by woman I mean puppy, named Espriana, who has mysterious (aristocratic) lore and whose family appears to have been displaced from the royal palace by DEMONS

  • Lutz from 30 Rock??????

• I keep forgetting to read Myles the Wikipedia page for Thornton W. Burgess, a writer from Sandwich, Massachusetts, who wrote more than 170 books and 15,000 stories. I almost certainly pulled this up for reasons related to the Farmer’s Almanac. The Wikipedia entry is interesting; it also includes the phrase “one of the first Sandwich settlers,” which is all I could ever hope to be.

• The HTML Review is so cool. I don’t understand how anything on a computer works. Look at this, False Friends. It’s about language and culture and identity and, conveniently, per the almanac, it is “International Mother Language Day.”

• It is also the 284th anniversary of Jethro Tull’s death! Sad! RIP!

• The Friend, by Sigrid Nunez, one of my favorite books, by one of the world’s most talented living authors, has been adapted into a movie which comes out next month. It stars NAOMI WATTS and BILL MURRAY. What?!?! YEAH!!!

WIDNBTW

What I Did Not Buy This Week. Please, thank you. Here we go.

• A Kristin Jones sweatshirt that says “DON’T WORRY, JUST CALL YOUR MOTHER.” I love it. I saw a shirt two days ago which said “CALL YOUR MOM.” So I guess I should do that!!! The shirts are TELLING ME.

• Anything from the Betsey Johnson PEEPS collection. Who is this for? I mean that sincerely: Who, besides me, loves PEEPS???? Are you out there?! Can we be friends? I would eat PEEPS for every meal. They should make them all different flavors, savory, healthy, salty, Wonka style. I especially admire, desire and covet this chained wallet, which is made to look like actual PEEPS treats, vacuum-sealed away and waiting for me to eat them.

• Taxidermied birds from Barbara Alyn Artwear. Dear God I have regrets. They were SO REASONABLY PRICED! They all had jewelry or LITTLE HATS! And I didn’t think it was “reasonable” or “practical” to buy one and bring it home from Margaretville?! I am a fool.

• Tickets to this craft retreat in the Catskills! Thank you to the nice stranger at a coffee shop who saw the journal in my purse and said “Let me tell you about this cool craft retreat.”

• This house in Delhi, NY, which has been divided into a multifamily dwelling. We drove around upstate a lot over the weekend!

• I was looking forward to this week’s WIDNBTW because I thought that I went soooo crazy adding things to my cart on the Ulta website. “Ohhhh man, all my friends are going to see this wild, wild window-shopping binge and think I have WAY too much time on my hands!!!!” I thought. Then, I looked at my cart. There are three things in there!!! They barely total $60. But, hey, if any of you have used that PROVENCE Beauty serum, could you please report back?

  

• This decorative cow sprinkler, which I am pretty sure we saw in one of the Vacation movies. I do not have a yard! So!

• Hello Kitty avocado (in plush format; I have a Hello Kitty avocado stress squeeze ball)

• This rainbow sweater, which I found while looking for a similar mohair one worn in an episode of The Nanny. This one is not quite the right color scheme, and it will not fit me (made for small pig creature)

Okay, potatoes in the oven. I must away. Thank you for reading. Godspeed.