Ahoy!!! Happy Friday! Or should I say…GOOD Friday?! I mean, it IS Good Friday, but I also hope you’re having a good Friday. So many Fridays! Who do I think I am, Katy Perry? Or Ice Cube? Or Rebecca Black? Or Alan Stillman, who apparently opened the first TGI Fridays to...meet women?! Wow, little did I know the TGI Fridays page on Wikipedia is absolutely bonkers. Stillman said that he opened the first TGI Fridays in Manhattan in 1965 because “there was no public place for people between, say, twenty-three to thirty-seven years old, to meet." What a delightfully specific age range.
Update On My Mouth Stump
If you’re reading this, congratulations: you were 100% right when you told me my wisdom tooth removal would be fine! I was set to get two wisdom teeth out, BUT in a shocking twist, some additional imaging revealed that one of those teeth has a kooky curly Krazy Straw shape to its root, so…it is staying in my head until I can get an appointment with the oral surgeon. However, the dentist removed my problem-child tooth with no issues!
And his assistant SNEAKED the tooth into my pocket when I left the office!!!!!!!!!!
So now I have four wisdom teeth, one of which lives outside my head. And I’m gonna do some messed-up crafts with it! The removal didn’t hurt at all, but it was certainly a new experience. I had a headache all weekend, mostly from having my soft sweet noggin held in place while the dentist ripped stuff out of it. Also, when I walked in, the office manager put the Eras Tour movie on the TV, so “You Need to Calm Down” was playing as I got my local anesthesia. Hardee-har-har.
When I got home, I immediately turned on No Country for Old Men, a perfect film, and fell asleep as I was watching. Then I woke up and watched it again. At some point I also got on Amazon and ordered a next-day copy of the book, which I read in high school but did not own.
Damn! I freakin’ love Cormac McCarthy. I freakin’ love the Coen Brothers. And I freakin’ love Anton Chigurh, maybe my favorite character in all of literature. RARE instance in which the book is exactly as good as the film. I had forgotten this but the book paints these beautifully nuanced portraits of the female characters in the story, the marriages between Loretta/Ed Tom Bell and Carla Jean/Llewelyn Moss.
On my ever-growing list of Things I Want to Write About, I am adding this idea: Carla Jean and Ed Tom are my favorite relationship in the book. There’s a uniquely tragic fascination to it. These two people, under normal circumstances, certainly never would have met, but as it happens, circumstances are not normal and things are not okay. And these weirdos meet, and despite their better judgments, they click, in a way that serves neither of them. It’s so sad. Ed Tom understands why Carla Jean feels divinely compelled to fulfill her destiny as Llewelyn’s wife. Carla Jean understands the respect and admiration that Ed Tom has for Loretta.
Our two characters who have dual names, who are grimly familiar with the dichotomy of good and evil and tradition and change. And their spouses, with their neatly aligned L-names, holding fast to personal values rather than institutional ones, steadfast and silent, hoping that everyone gets out alive and knowing they probably won’t. They’re the ideological center of the novel, the first to speak, the last to die. A perfect book, a real accomplishment.
Ah, I bet you didn’t expect this “wisdom tooth oral health update” to turn into a paean of the southwestern noir, eh? Well, no one ever does. I’ll leave you with this fun(?) fact about the NCFOM cinematic universe, which is perhaps even crazier than all that stuff we just learned about TGI Fridays. From IMDB:
“In the novel, Sheriff Bell says of the dope-dealers, "Here a while back in San Antonio they shot and killed a federal judge." Cormac McCarthy set the story in 1980. In 1979, Federal Judge John Howland Wood was shot and killed in San Antonio by Texas freelance contract killer Charles Harrelson, father of Woody Harrelson (who portrays Carson Wells in the film).”
Let’s Watch a Video (Or Two!) (Or TWELVE!)
Earlier this week, I realized I had never told Myles about Poppy?!?! And that made me think…wait…maybe…I’ve not told any of YOU about Poppy?!????
In 2017, I was Poppy, aka That Poppy, for Halloween. She’s a musician now, and she was a musician then, too, but it was…uh…………a different vibe. Watch those two linked videos, if you want an idea of what I mean.
Before she was known for her music, Poppy was known for her adorable and unsettling YouTube performance art, where she would interview plants or read a watch over and over. I still freak out anytime I see that it’s 3:36 – I’m gonna be late!
Here’s Poppy introducing herself for 10 minutes:
While we’re on YouTube, let’s pop over to the ice-skating side of the internet, where I keep watching videos of figure skaters that make me cry and cry. I am not a Succession enjoyer–if I wanted to bunch of wealthy, powerful people be mean and deceive each other with no consideration of the greater global outcomes, I’d turn on C-SPAN! Sorry, IDK why I’m acting like a “fun” AP Civics teacher today! What was I saying? Oh yeah: I freaking BAWLED watching Ilia Malinin earn, as the Succession kids would call it, a kiss from daddy.
And when I logged on to show you THOSE videos, I squealed in glee because my FAVORITE YouTuber released a new video! I have heard my friend Rosa talk about Disney Fairytale Weddings–without getting into it, I have a brand-new liquidation-outlet wedding gown in my closet, in part, because of Rosa and Disney Fairytale Weddings–but oh man, I wanted and needed M O R E. And now I have it!
Some choice quotes include "They get married by what seems to be a sea captain, but otherwise this is pretty much an average beach wedding," and “"You'll have to take this Mold-A-Rama statue of Pluto out of my cryogenically-frozen hands.” Watch it now! And subscribe to Rosa’s channel for more wildly-relatable niche content!
WIDNBTW
Okay gang, I have a lot of springy activities to get to, so a fairly short Dispatch this week. Why? Because, to quote the best line in Steel Magnolias, it’s almost time for the Easter bunny! Weirdly, there is no YouTube video of Olympia Dukakis giving the all-time greatest line reading, but spoiler alert, it’s in the final five minutes of the film.
Perhaps the Easter Bunny will bring me something from the below list, a compendium of What I Did Not Buy This Week:
A Modelones dip nail kit, which The Algorithm desperately wants me to purchase
A Hello Kitty dumb phone – there is a subreddit dedicated to old-school non-smartphones, and if it weren’t for the slow, steady dissolution of the 2G wireless network across America, I would be ordering this 2G Hello Kitty phone and relearning my T9 skills in a heartbeat:
This Columbia fleece jacket that has been stalking me via StitchFix ad. I think StitchFix is overpriced, and Columbia is generally too outdoorsy for me, but I had to track it down. This is SO cute and I WILL NOT pay $70 for it. Mostly I’m proud that I was able to discern what the jacket was from this StitchFix image:
Enrollment in a class called “Don DeLillo: Fiction, Paranoia, and Empire”
The latest HANAVBARA offerings, including prints, posters, keychains AND a tote bag!
This very cute cami + skirt set that is $150 and would leave me SO cold
Every outfit worn in this 101 Dalmatians live-action singalong from my childhood, which was another pick for Wisdom Tooth Cinema. I sort of feel like this lady, Bren McKinley, might be my mom’s long-lost sister:
And with that: so long, farewell, happy Friday, set a reminder to buy discounted egg-shaped candy on Monday! Talk to you guys in APRIL!