Readers!
Short week so let’s do a recommendation round up! They’re really random!
- Marisa Kabas’ AI hater Linkedin trolling project. Kabas is the independent journalist behind The Handbasket who hates generative AI as much as I do. She has started writing about it on her site, and is purposefully going hard on LinkedIn and bringing out the best of the worst. Just look at the slop junkies lose their minds. It is a very popcorn moment. Speaking of which, Politico shut down two AI slop bots that were being forced on their readers. I hope that every journalist who gave up real reporting to chase AI “glory” is being kept up at night wondering if they made the wrong decision (you did!)
- TellyVisions. This website about British television for American fans (like myself!) used to be funded by WETA, the local PBS station for Washington, DC. When that funding end, it was taken over and re-launched by a handful of independent journalists, including my friend and neighbor Sophie Brookover. It’s how I keep up with all my UK (and UK adjacent) TV. Delightful and informative!
- Remember when I gave a short review of Strangers by Belle Burden about how it’s a cautionary tale but one of extreme wealth and privilege? The New Yorker did a deep dive into her financial situation via public records to show she was never really in any danger of being anything other than phenomenally wealthy, even after the divorce. Burden didn’t exactly lie, but she sure did shade the truth. If anyone wants to leak anything about how her essay being pulled from the Modern Love slush pile and published solely on merit also isn’t exactly true, you know how to reach me.
- Someone tried to do a coup of the CozyMystery subreddit to push AI “writing.” You can read about here. The good guys won, but it was quite a ride.
- Being rude right back to someone who was rude to me. Last week, I emailed the Hard Rock Casino in Atlantic City to see if Sal Da Vinci, winner of SanRemo and Italy’s Eurovision contestant, was doing any interviews in advance of his June 20th appearance there. I got an extremely rude email back from someone a local PR firm that seems to have taken inspiration from the Kroll Show “PubLizity” sketches. Normally I ignore this or just say thanks, but instead I replied “lol OK.” Why should I be nice to someone who was being a jerk to me? Also, this is not my first run in with that PR firm. Way back when I wrote my second Jersey Shore book, someone there tried to tell me that if I wanted to write about a shopping complex in Atlantic City, I needed to get the copy approved by every single store and restaurant in the complex. lol OK. But also whoops.
- Naps. Why do kids fight so hard against them?
- Portable DVD player. And on a more practical end: I know I have talked at length about my love of the library, including because of their selection of DVDs. I have a DVD player for my regular TV, but I watch stuff the most on my iPad when I’m cooking or working. So I also got a portable DVD player that is designed for RVs. It’s fantastic. Also, as streaming gets more expensive, and the experience of not owning something gets worse, physical media, and the devices to play them on, is having a comeback. Good!
Also, I wanted to give a quick update on my decision not to try to write another book, which I shared in March. It’s been… fantastic. Not having that weight on my shoulders has been so freeing. I hadn’t even realized how much it was dragging me down until I let it go. Another person’s dream doesn’t need to be your dream, and letting go of something you thought was for you but hasn’t worked out — it’s not a bad thing. It’s made me a much happier person.
Andiamo!
What I’m Reading
- Pony Confidential by Christina Lynch. When third grade teacher Penny is arrested for a murder that happened when was 12 years old, the the last person she expected to try to free her was Pony. Or I guess I shouldn’t say person because Pony is Penny’s childhood pony. Got that? If not, that’s fine. All you need to know is that it’s an engaging mystery, where the author took a big swing (a pony?!) to tell it from the perspective of both the person accused from the crime, and her childhood animal companion. It was the perfect beach read (that just so happened to be in the beach town’s library!)
- My Lucky Life in and Out of Show Business by Dick Van Dyke, read by the author. In my run through biographies of classic TV stars, I somehow missed this one. It’s great with some quibbles. I don’t like the praise of “traditional middle America values” given that we’re seeing today those values are mostly “bigotry” and “hate” even if the book was published in 2012 and Van Dyke was a civil rights activist who left his church because of a racist pastor; and I’d like to know how his first wife felt about him leaving her for another woman, which he wrote of as if it was inevitable. But he is very candid about his struggles with alcohol, which I know has helped a lot of people. My heart clutched when I heard Carl Reiner reading his intro. We’re so lucky to have books like these, read by their authors, as part of our historical record.
What I’m Watching
- Hotel Portofino, season 3. This first episode of his show about rich Brits owning a hotel in Portofino, Italy in 1929 opens with fascists parading around town and proclamations about how the stock market always goes up!!!!! This show has never been subtle, but do you want your period piece/melodramas to be? I did realize that I hear the Italian parts and understand without needing the sub titles. I also saw they got to shut down part of the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II in Milan for filming, which is a big difference from when they were shooting above street level in Genoa in earlier seasons. Hooray for them! And hooray for me too! This spiritually reminded me of A Place to Call Home, an over the top Australian melodrama set immediately after World War II. I told this story before, but since I have more readers I’ll tell it again: they were filming season two when they found out the show was cancelled, so they quickly wrote shot another ending for the last 10 minutes of that episode to wrap up the series. It aired. Fin. But then another station bought it and UNcancelled the show, so they had air the episode again with the original ending before the debut of season three. If you watch his on Acorn, as I did, you can see both versions. Melodrama about the melodrama!
Nail Polish of the Week
Limon Cielo by Essie. This is a sunny yellow with a little bit but not going too far into green. I’ve had this on my toenails for a while, so why not match? Good after a few days on the beach (the sunny part, right before the weather turned gross just in time for the long weekend). I got a lot of compliments on it!
Until next time!
Jen A. Miller (she/her)
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