Hi sweeties,
Today I started my day with the Vulture oral history of the Emperors New Groove. My favorite stories are about media that by all accounts shouldn’t exist and this is exactly that.
“At one point during the middle of a story meeting, Randy came in and said, “Okay, Disney-ESPN is doing a promotion, and they’re going to start showing the World Double Dutch Jump Roping Championship. So, if you could work jump-roping into the movie that would be fantastic.” And we went, “Yeah, no problem, no problem.” They walk out. And we’re all like, “Jump-roping?!?” But I go, “Look at the movie we have. Of course we can figure in jump-roping!” And then all of a sudden, in literally three minutes, we had Kronk jump-roping.”—David Reynolds
Hi sweet Phoebe,
I’d be more than happy to recommend some newsletters. I’d also recommend using the beta Substack dashboard at reader.substack.com if you have trouble managing inbox clutter. Full disclosure: like half of these letters are written by friends.
close but not quite — This is the newsletter of Mary Retta, a columnist at Teen Vogue who’s been published in a myriad of other places, too. She covers a variety of subjects in the letter, but definitely check out her most recent dispatch on friendship to get a feel for it.
sam’s sunday poem — Delightful weekly newsletter that presents poems curated and commented on by writer Sam Bellamy.
Hip to Waste — HTW is Minneapolis-based writer Safy-Hallan Farah’s weekly cultural crit newsletter. Farah’s approach to culture writing is both incredibly fun and uniquely insightful — take for instance her inquiry into fake accents.
The Spiel — Each edition of this newsletter features an interview with a different Jewish woman (Claire Saffitz, Rachel Antonoff, et al) about their bat mitzvah.
Bloated by Thoughts — Prolific wellness journo Sydney Gore’s irregular newsletter finds her thinking about IBS, the children’s book Goodnight Moon, and celebrity culture, among other topics. Gore has such a specific range of interests, it’s always a joy to pop into her brain for a bit.
Episodes — Vox critic Emily VanDerWerff’s newsletter is a must for any and all TV nerds! Read her Vox stuff too if you don’t already.