THIS WEEK
Anyone else a total stress case this week? Sarah Cooper’s Everything’s Fine may provide some comic relief. Here are 11 ways to distract yourself from election anxiety, and a story about how one woman started doing phone-banking to ease hers. Other ways to escape: Paint your walls, make a two-ingredient cake, and watch Bad Hair and this documentary on the punk stars who banded together against racism. We cannot wait for The Prom. Please move us into Toni Morrison’s loft. If Mattel can make an Elton John Barbie, then it’s high time for a Prince one. Faking optimism is hard — but then it works. How New York gave birth to New Wave. The bucket hat that helped me grieve my father. WTF is manifesting and does it actually work? Mary J. Blige wants you to get a mammogram (and so do we). A great story about finding pen pals in a pandemic. When all else fails, there’s Bongo Cat.
(Photo: Netflix)
Q&A: Meet Violet Sky, the 19-Year-Old Living Like It’s 1982
By Margit Detweiler
For those of us around in the mid-80s, we probably have a fondness or nostalgia (or a deep cringe) for teased perms, arms of black rubber bangles, fluorescent-colored tops and one-shoulder ripped sweatshirts. Such was the stuff MTV dreams were made of — though even back then it wasn’t a look we wore every day.
Enter Violet Sky, or GlitterWave80s as she’s better known to her 90k followers on TikTok.
(Psst: Want to write for us? Pitch us here!)
OBSESSED: How to Halloween
Halloween used to be about taking the kids trick-or-treating, and/or coming up with the wildest costume imaginable to go to parties with our favorite people. Now that masks are part of our daily wardrobes, and everything is already scary 24/7, how are we supposed to celebrate? We asked the TueNighters Facebook community about their Halloween plans:
“I (very optimistically) bought Halloween candy last week and of course now we’re in lockdown (I live in Ireland). So I told my friends that if they’d like to drive by our house with their kids, we’d happily chuck candy at them from a safe distance while wearing a mask and rubber gloves.” — Deirdra K.
“All the dollar store decorations. All of them. Everywhere.” — Jill S.
“I have been eating Reese's cups since early October and only rarely sharing them with my children. I'm on the third or fourth bag now. Does that count? Oh, also! My 6-year-old son's Halloween costume arrived already and every day we negotiate how much of his virtual school assignments he needs to complete or how participative he has to be in his Zoom sessions to warrant being allowed to dress up as a Ninja for the rest of the day.” — Anna S.
“Making/using a luge to give candy to trick or treaters.” — Christine C.
“I am preparing individual bags of candy for all the kids in my building. I'm being generous since we want to avoid having kids do much trick or treating. 10 pieces of candy in each bag. I'll put them downstairs in the lobby for each kid to pick up. We're also planning to take our kids trick or treating during the day in our Upper West Side neighborhood. Just a few blocks and during the middle of the day when it's much less crowded...and of course with gloves. No eating anything unless the wrapper gets wiped with an antibacterial wipe after we get home.” — Le B.
“I don’t plan on dressing up or decorating, but will still use it as an excuse to eat candy.” — Margaret C.
“We were going to do a socially distanced parade in the neighborhood (no candy) but it’s snowing.” — Kale D.
“My band is playing a distanced patio gig on Halloween. We are in Oklahoma, so it’s still warm. I still plan to arrive, play, and leave like a diva. We agreed to this gig months ago, and now Oklahoma is one of the worst states for COVID. But my bandmates (young men) don’t want to cancel, and...I give up. So we’re playing.” — Stacy P.
“I'm dressing up as Lesley Stahl, with her messy lipstick and all, and will be carrying a massive binder full of blank pages. I'll just wander aimlessly through the neighborhood, since I don't have little kids.” — Eileen S.
TueNight 10: Catherine Connors
“Climbing is a metaphor for, like, everything — especially this year.” Photo: Catherine Connors
Age: Just turned 50! Will be celebrating NEXT year because this one was an apocalyptic wash, but am still owning it :)
Basic bio: Catherine is an entrepreneur, writer, and recovering academic. She’s the CEO of the League of Badass Women, a private global network for female-identifying leaders, innovators, and change-makers. Her last book, The Feminine Revolution, was released in 2018; her next book, Citizen Princess, will only be released in 2021 if she can somehow manage to finish it while surviving the apocalypse.
Beyond the bio: Even though I'm at the mid-point of my life, I’m more interested in what’s ahead of me than what’s behind me. I’m a grown-ass lady who still asks herself — seriously — what she wants to be when she grows up.
What makes you a grown-ass lady? My understanding that I still — and will always — have some growing up to do.
1. On the nightstand: CBD gummies, my Chairman Mom water bottle, and a copy of Paul Ricouer’s Time and Narrative (once a nerd, always a nerd).
2. Can't stop/won't stop: Believin’.
3. Jam of the minute: Everything from the Resistance Revival Chorus’s debut album, This Joy.
4. Thing I miss: Hugging my mom.
5. ’80s crush: Early ‘80s: C. Thomas Howell (PONYBOY FOREVER). Late ‘80s: Robert Smith.
6. Current crush: Dolly Parton.
7. Latest fave find: Conversations on Clubhouse.
8. Last thing you lost: My mind.
9. Best thing that happened recently: A dear friend who knew that I’d recently had a tough week sent me a care package from Milk Bar that had cake, pie, and tins of cookies. Reader, I ate it all.
10. Looking forward to: 2021. It feels like it’s still about a decade away, but I can practically taste it. It tastes like strawberries and hope.
See you at the polls, TueNighters!