It's Sunday & we read some stuff. Let's call it a quarantine kit for short dark days.

We're coming up on the best day of the year: The day *after* the winter solstice when all days start getting longer. We'll be celebrating soon. The return of the sun! (Which, btw, is why Christmas lands when it does. Not a coincidence: sun/Son.)

In honor of the short, short days, this is a short, short QK. Enjoy.

Essays

1. Aftermath by Briohny Doyle

2. The Gradual Extinction of Softness by Chanta Nguon with Kim Green

3. The Particular Power of the Lancing Celebrity Profile by Anne Helen Petersen | You'll probably want to read the celebrity profile in question: Michael Schulman on Jeremy Strong. And, while you're at it, dig into the other characters in the Succession family: J. Cameron Smith here. Sarah Snook here. Kieran Culkin here. Tom Wambsgans here. Nicholas Braun here. The inimitable Brian Cox here. Also about Succession itself, right here. Also, this take on Succession and what it says about the culture right now. Then you can judge which profiles are banal and which ones are lancing. (Also, you can hold us in contempt for that many links to that many profiles of a show mostly about rich white men and abject people trying to find love from other abject people, as one of the profile says.)

TV Shows

1. Succession | Season 3 Finale tonight. Doesn't really fit our standard criteria. Isn't really our favorite show (though, don't get us wrong, we'll happily watch it). Definitely doesn't center anything but toxic masculinity and problematic relationships and the very real machinations demanded by late capitalism. But it seems to be everywhere all the time right now. It isn't part of the zeitgeist, it is the zeitgeist.*

2. Money Heist | Final installment. Worth your time even though some of the best women die.

3. Sex Lives of College Girls | Mindy Kaling's newest. Only one episode rn, but it was pretty solid out of the gates.

Bonus TV Show Commentary: We were not fans of the available episodes of "And Just Like That...," the SATC reboot. (Admittedly, we didn't have a fawning response to the original series either in spite of the trail it broke.) We are not the only ones: How terrible is the Sex and the City reboot? We duke it out., Review: 'And Just Like That,' It All Went Wrong, ‘And Just Like That ...’ is ‘Sex and the City’ for 2021: A bloated, laugh-free comedy about grief. (Emily Nussbaum at the New Yorker has taken to calling it—spoiler alert, stop reading now if you plan to watch these episodes and don't already know what is afoot—"Big Dies on A Peloton.") But, by the same token, the commentary centered on the looks and age of the protagonists is just misogyny. This, from the LATimes, for example: "Parker has similarly called out the 'misogynist chatter' about the show’s female stars, recently telling Vogue, 'What am I going to do about it? Stop aging? Disappear?'" There's some interesting fodder for discussion in there. And we'll be digging into it as the series progresses.

Movies | They were too long to watch this week. We hear some are good. We'll hit you back next week with some suggestions. Or maybe the week after. Next week the WyoLeg is in full swing: Corporations, Appropriations, Revenue. Budgets and Medicaid expansion. Taxes and elections. Tune in starting Tuesday!

Books | We bought a pile of books from our local bookseller. We're happy to pay retail for books because we *absolutely* believe that bookstores and local news are the glue that holds small communities together. Here are three their staff recommended that we brought home.

1. The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid

2. The Love Songs of W.E.B. DuBois by Honorée Fanonne Jeffers

3. The Other Einstein by Marie Benedict

Twitter Follows

1. Geraldine @everywhereist | Went viral last week with her review of the Michelin-starred restaurant, Bros, in Lecce, Italy. Read the review here. The review of the review here. The restaurant's response here (priceless). The twitter thread here.

2. Rachel Vindman @natsechobbyist | Co-host @theswppod Opinions are my own and not necessarily the views of my husband...but obviously if our views are different, mine is correct.

3. Honorée Fanonne Jeffers @BlkLibraryGirl | THE LOVE SONGS OF W. E. B. DuBois, a 2021 Oprah’s Book Club pick/Literary Agent: @sarahburnes/Pronouns: she & her/No DMs/Don’t call me “auntie.” I mean it.

Recipes | In honor of the reported scarcity of cream cheese, we've extended the bar of Philly cream cheese in our fridge as far as possible.

1. Cream cheese brownies

2. Rugelach (a repeat, but a household favorite)

3. Toasted bagel with a schmear.

Unsolicited Opinions

1. We have a lot of thoughts—even more than usual—on the (precarious) state of our democracy. Jen summed up a tiny sliver of it in this week's Equity State Column in the Wyoming Tribune Eagle (no, you're not imagining it, she seems to have migrated publications again).

2. But there is so much afoot and so much at stake that what she says in her column is really is only a *tiny sliver* of all that we should be talking about in terms of defending the integrity of elections and ensuring that our government is both functional and effective—much less fair. The CST Editors pointed out in their pointed editorial this morning that insults and threats and incivility make government less effective. They sum it up this way: "If you can't dialogue, you can't legislate." They also point out that we all miss out when good people won't run in this climate.

3. We want you to run so you can help change that climate! So does Cowgirl Run Fund. They'll be rolling out their calendar for 2022 pretty soon. We'll keep you posted and so will they.

*Now that the Succession season finale is ~fin~ let this thread serve as ample evidence that Succession is, in point of actual fact, a comedy. Legit, though, you'll probably only laugh if you've seen it. But we're crying over here, we're laughing so hard. There might be spoilers ahead. Hard to say.