TueDo List: High Hair + Juicy Book Bios + Costume Ideas
Plus, how not to sh*t your pants on the subway...
THIS WEEK
📖 READ: Dani Shapiro’s “Why my fall made me feel so ashamed” (NYT gift link.) A deep dive into menopause, work, and the economy. Revisiting stranger danger, satanic panic, and other trickle-down fears ‘80s kids remember. The real history behind Martin Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon.
👀 LOOK: Halloween, next week: Eek! Here are a few Halloween costume ideas. Frances Bean Cobain marries Tony Hawk’s son - her second marriage (and we don’t feel old.) Gwen Stefani’s Hollywood Walk of Fame ceremony. Martha Stewart slams age-appropriate style rules: “I’ve dressed the same since I was 17.” Apparently J.Jill is targeting us.
🎧 LISTEN: The Rolling Stones’ epic encore with Lady Gaga. A bouncy 1920s jazz cover of “Enjoy the Silence” by Depeche Mode. Cher’s Xmas album (yeah, we know, too soon, but it’s Cher!) Late to this, but the band Palehound is wonderful and entirely recreated The Sopranos opening in their new-ish video.
🤣 LOL: Were we the most dehydrated generation of all time? Figure-flattering is such bullshit, wear the damn wide-leg pants. Quick! Anyone have a touch lamp we can borrow?! Gen-Z asks, “How the hell were you able to get your hair so high in the 80s??”Gen-X answers.
🛒 ADD TO CART: Totally frame-worthy jigsaw puzzles. Tons of juicy new bios just out from Jada Pinkett Smith, Britney Spears, Sonic Youth’s Thurston Moore, Dolly Parton and the best of all: Tika the Iggy!
🎟️ GO: NMWA, the world’s first museum dedicated to championing women artists, has reopened in D.C. The Vulture Festival in Los Angeles looks like pop culture-y fun, but I’d go to take the Henry Winkler Acting Class.
📺 WATCH:
This week: A Milli Vanilli doc tells the story of ‘90s pop duo Robert Pilatus and Fabrice Morvan’s lip-syncing scandal (Paramount+). Season 2 of Native America reveals the beauty and power of today’s Indigenous communities (PBS).
Fri: The haunted animatronics in Five Nights at Freddy’s (Theaters). Two political staffers find love during the 1950s Lavender Scare in Fellow Travelers (Showtime). Emily Blunt, Chris Evans, Catherine O’Hara, and Andy Garcia in Pain Hustlers (Netflix). Paul Giamatti as a curmudgeonly prep school teacher in The Holdovers (Theaters).
Sun: Carrie Coon, Christine Baranski, and Cynthia Nixon are back in The Gilded Age, Season 2 (HBO Max).
EVENT: It's TueNight's 10th Anniversary Birthday Bash!
Join us Tuesday, November 21 at Caveat in NYC
Get ready to toast to 10 incredible years of Gen-X storytelling at our birthday bash. We’ve curated a stellar lineup of storytellers, all sharing inspiring stories on the theme of “AMBITION” with host Ophira Eisenberg.
Expect a chill party atmosphere, complete with six captivating storytellers, quick 30-second tales from the audience, and who knows, maybe even some birthday cake? We’ll also be streaming live online so everyone can join in the party.
STORY: Welcome to the Colonoscopy Club or How Not to Sh*t Your Pants on the Subway
By Ruth Gallogly
“Have you scheduled your colonoscopy yet?” I-Hsing texted me.
No, I thought. I don’t want to. Leave me alone.
“Not yet,” I wrote. “I will. I promise.”
A few weeks earlier I’d admitted to I-Hsing that I had not yet had a colonoscopy. At 51. A year and a half behind the recommended timeline. Actually, scratch that. Nearly seven years behind, because the goalpost had moved to 45 right before I turned 50. I-Hsing decided then and there it was her mission to get me to schedule the exam. That might be true friendship, but friendship can be annoying when you’re in deep avoidance mode.
In my defense I had been in and out of doctors a lot in the past three years. I’d been freezing half-naked on multiple exam tables, navigating through a misdiagnosis and back pain and inflammation post hernia surgery, and I didn’t want to step back into the grind of appointments, or face how vast and empty the space felt around me as I went through it all solo.
Still, a few weeks after my confession, with I-Hsing’s voice loud in my head, I asked my doctor for a referral.
“There isn’t a closer option than Mount Sinai?” I asked as my doctor filed the script.
“They’re who we’re connected with,” she said. “If you have a gastroenterologist who can refer you elsewhere, I’m happy to give you what you need for that.”
I shook my head no. It would be another year before I got the exam if multiple steps were involved. “Mount Sinai is fine,” I said.
Although it wasn’t. I live in the depths of South Brooklyn, and Mount Sinai is way uptown. A good hour by subway. All while my bowels would be trying to violently clear themselves. I didn’t want to be the person who shat their pants on the subway. Or anywhere, really.
TUENIGHT 10: Farnoosh Torabi, Author & Money Expert
Your Age: 43
Basic bio: Farnoosh Torabi is an Iranian-American journalist and a leading personal finance expert. She hosts the Webby-winning podcast “So Money” which has earned over 30 million downloads. Her latest book, A Healthy State of Panic, is part memoir, part guidebook on how fear can be a superpower to achieve true wealth and career success.
Beyond the bio: I dabbled in stand-up before the pandemic, which laid the groundwork for my new book. I hope that my book will be a bridge to hosting discussions that transcend the world of money. I’m ready for more creativity, humor and taking chances.
What makes you a grown-ass lady? I’ve learned how to use fear as my superpower. I no longer step on a scale. I work to live, not the other way around.
Happy National (much-maligned) Candy Corn Day on 10/30 TueNighters!
I used to work at J.Jill.