MALONE-MAIL No. 17: Guess Who's Back?
Holy totally not weird guacamole, has it been a while! By my count, it's been six months since my last confession MalonE-Mail, and I apologize for that. Kind of impressed y'all stuck around, honestly. I mean, I know all you had to do was sit around and not unsubscribe, but hey, I really appreciate you declining to make that effort, when you totally could have.
So much (SO MUCH) has happened since I chattered at you last, but after this catchup newsletter, I plan to get us right back on course — maybe even a little more often now, who knows?? I'm not making any promises, because, as we all know, I'm not great at this. Anyway, let's get to business.
What you missed:
Hoo boy. Well, in case you hadn't heard, the meaning of this MalonE-Mail's subject line is twofold. One, I'm back to MalonE-Mailing. But also two, I'm back to full-time freelancing after a short hiatus, during which I was the pop music editor at the Los Angeles Times. Cool, right? Well, it's complicated, actually. I was going to include the essay I've written about why in this email, but it doesn't come out 'til next week, and I can't wait to send this because I'm just so excited to be back. In the meantime, here's the stuff I wrote there.
Since leaving, I've interviewed this dope woman in England who wrote an entire one-woman show dedicated to Jean-Luc Picard for VICE, and took a fun trip up to the Bay Area to watch and write about Kim Kardashian talking about Serious Issues for Vanity Fair. We took the scenic route home.
Before that, though, I did some other fun stuff, including a profile on Susan Miller for the Verge; an investigation into why wax museums are still a thing and an angry letter about the drought for Vanity Fair;
I also had a really fantastic gig editing Vulture's TV recaps. Here they are, in case you are interested. I even ended up doing some recapping myself, of Girls and Orphan Black. I, too, am baffled as to why you people read recaps, but hey, y'all keep doing it (and leaving totally merciless jabs in the comments, too, I might add!) so we'll keep watching TV and telling you what happened with some jokes and conspiracy theories mixed in.
Other than that, I've been pretty much chillin' with my dog, Oscar (who I didn't know when I sent the last MalonE-Mail, wow!), and devouring delicious summer berries and melons like
Recommendations:
Oh, god, I could not include everything I've read/watched/listened to over the past six months. Instead, here are some things you should be paying attention to that you might have missed (leaving out obvious stuff like To Pimp a Butterfly, Mad Max: Fury Road and Magic Mike XXL, because you should know better):
Boogie's The Reach; Bully's Feels Like, Nick Diamonds' City of Quartz (no, really); Girlpool's Before the World Was Big; Miguel's Wildheart; CHAPPiE (NO, REALLY, I MEAN THIS). Molly Beauchemin on the gendering of martyrdom; Brit Bennett on the legacy of the best, most complicated American Girl doll; Jon Mooallem's advice on whether it's okay to kick robots; Laura Snapes on Robyn's all-girl Swedish tech conference; Jef Rouner on the Joker as the real dark knight; Charles M. Blow on black fatherhood actually being just fine; Doreen St. Felix on Rihanna's prosperity gospel; Greg Howard on the effects of American law enforcement on people of color; Judnick Mayard's truth-speaking about white people's fucked-up relationship with Kanye West; the best podcast, Rachel and Miles X-Plain the X-Men; my bae Lauren Rodrigue's wedding column at Jezebel. There's a billion others, but I gotta actually do work at some point, and there's always next week.
P.S. (Parting Shot):
i leave you with one of the most important, inspirational artifacts of our time: the great #dernface.