The TueDo List: Celebrate Pride + A$$ Magic + Philly ❤️
And a shirt for Stranger Things fans
THIS WEEK
📖 READ: The Amber Heard-Johnny Depp trial was an orgy of misogyny. Kathleen Hanna won’t save us. Aunjanue Ellis speaks her truth. I gave up pants, but femininity is just as binding. Margaret Cho on Fire Island and queer culture. A look back at Tradeswomen, the 1980s and 1990s magazine for women in “blue-collar work.” Menopause is the ultimate “me time,” and you have to earn it.
👀 LOOK: The Keepthings, started by a former O Magazine editor, is a project that documents the items we save because they connect us to people we’ve lost. Funny and clever Pride signs. The meanings behind 32 different LGBTQ flags. A service that removes your ex from photos.
🎧 LISTEN: New music from the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. We love that there is a punk band called Tits Up. 69 of the best disco songs of all time, for Pride. Dawnie Walton and TueNighter Deesha Philyaw have launched the Ursa Short Fiction podcast.
🤣 LOL: Honest instructions for your at-home bikini wax. Bless the English and their cheese rolling.
🛒 ADD TO CART: This Hawkins Middle School A.V. Club shirt, for Stranger Things fans. Tabitha Brown's Target collection, for summer dresses and accessories. The Life After Death 25th Anniversary box set, for Biggie fans. And the HRC’s Pride merch, for everyone.
📺 WATCH
Wednesday: The Janes, a documentary about the women who built an underground service for women seeking safe, affordable, illegal abortions (HBO); the long-awaited teenage Pakistani-American superhero in Ms. Marvel (Disney+); and Queen Latifah as Adam Sandler’s wife in Hustle (Netflix).
Thursday: The rebooted Queer as Folk. (Peacock)
Friday: The final season of Peaky Blinders. (Netflix)
IT’S ME, MARGIT: The Things That Happen on South Street
Last weekend, 14 people were shot, and three killed, on Philadelphia’s South Street, once a legendary destination for cool. Yet another example of horrific gun violence, but this time on a street that held so much for me, as a Philadelphia kid.
It’s rare in life to have a moment where the younger you and the adult you come head to head, but here it was — nostalgia and perspective and horror all at once. In my memories, South Street is all psychedelic colors, punk rock, new age shops, obscure films and everything weird in one cruise-able strip. For this girl from the edges of suburban Philly, it represented everything that was possible. “The hippest street in town” (so goes the 1963 song about South Street by the Orlons), yes, but also a brave new world. A place to stretch your creative boundaries. A place to explore what grown-up life could look like…
OBSESSED: Small Town Trivia Night
In 2019, my husband and I moved to Searsmont, Maine, a small town that has everything we need (except a gas station): a great little store, a library, a post office, a church, and a brewery called Threshers. Late one afternoon, before the pandemic hit, we found ourselves at the brewery, where the weekly trivia night was about to begin.
We quickly formed a team with some friends (we were and continue to be called Ass Magic) and we won! Like a gambler, I've been hooked ever since. The host is an abrasive, loud, and lovable ex-Marine named Matt, who, it turns out, went to my high school a few towns over. He booms out clues in the categories of sports, history, TV, music, science, and nature, and always includes a different “revolver” category — named for the in-house revolver beer that changes hops every month. It's a lot of fun, costs just $2 a person to enter, and brightens up the long Maine winter, during which the game moves inside, where there is now a brick oven pizza joint offering delicious hand-thrown farm-to-table pizzas.
Except for the months when Covid-19 forced us to stay home, we’ve been going to Threshers every Wednesday night to play trivia. I can’t get enough of it. The questions make me laugh and always challenge me to wrack my brain for an answer I just know is in there somewhere. I've even brought trivia into my classroom (I’m an 8th grade Language Arts teacher) and my students love it as much as I do! Our current round of trivia includes the categories of America, Stranger Things, Ancient Civ, Fast Food, Holidays, and The Office. I plan to go find a set of small trophies at Goodwill to use for silly prizes.
— Vicki Hamlin
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Happy Pride Month, TueNighters!
