Friday Flames | 6.23.23
A weekly synopsis of what we figured out about human composting, Judge Alito's big fish, and the existential dread of "Mmmbop."
Can’t say we were surprised to hear that Samuel Alito is just as performatively clueless about ethics as that power couple of perfidy, the hopelessly compromised Clarence and Ginni Thomas. Just how many pockets are in those robes, anyway?
It’s hard to talk to your kids about accountability when SCOTUS judges can accept huge gifts without disclosing them and then shrug it off with a DID NOT! Perhaps Alito’s elite legal mind is still stuck in the 13th century, when there were no such things as “ethics investigations” and “private jets” and “toilet paper.”
Also this week, Magda learned that one of her childhood friends died by suicide. It’s a singular trauma that has touched most of us, whether you’re thinking of leaving or mourning someone who has left. If you’re among the former, Magda wrote this for you.
Celebrating the Dornfestival
We loved re-connecting with
in Episode 6 of the podcast.
We hope it takes you back to the community-filled days of blogging and gets you thinking about how you relate to your aging parents. She’s been through some sad, momentous challenges since her dad died, but her road back is truly inspiring.
Ashes to Ashes, Mulch to Mulch
On Episode 6, Magda revealed how she’d like our sons to handle her bodily remains after she crosses over. One of the options she did not consider is human composting, because it’s not nearly as funny.
Bop ‘Til You Drop
Remember Mmmbop? Three teenage brothers in 1997, blond hair and baggy trousers, winsomely crooning about gibberish? Now they’re all middle-aged dads with 15 kids between them, and Mmmbop 2.0 sounds every bit like it. For one thing, now you can hear that the lyrics to one of the poppiest pop songs ever made are actually about how most relationships die, nobody knows anything, and it’s all over in an mmmbop.
A truly 😲🤯🤔 moment.
(Side thought: Would our Korean friends agree that “Mmmbop” means “rice is delicious”?)
Currently reading
Magda is reading Paris Daillencourt Is About To Crumble, by Alexis Hall. If you like his delightfully-formulaic, delightfully-British queer romances, you'll enjoy this one set in a GBBO stand-in called Bake Expectations. Plotline: Charming and wealthy but sad and anxious white upper-class son of absentee famous parents falls for confident Bangladeshi-British Muslim uni student. (That sentence probably could have used a couple commas, but whatever.)
Doug is reading the spines on his overcrowded bookshelves and plotting a massive redistribution to used book stores, libraries, the PTO, and the many little, free libraries all over town. This Swedish Death Cleaning thing is getting out of control.
Currently watching
Magda finally “persuaded” Doug to watch Shiny Happy People, so he could come to her book club for Movie Month and discuss it. The abuses, hypocrisy, and profiteering of the IBLP served up plenty of the horror-movie plot points you’d expect, but it’s also queasifying to think of how those fertile Duggars helped build Discovery/TLC into a Reality TV empire big enough to swallow WarnerMedia.
Magda then watched this aftershow panel and was particularly interested by the segment starting at minute 27:15ish, when experts discussed the documentary’s cultural context and how it has been received by academics and other communities.
Coming next week
Episode 7 of the podcast arrives Wednesday, June 28, when child psychologist Dr. Erin Hunter will talk about the rise of “Failure to Launch” syndrome—which predates the pandemic but has surely worsened because of it. We discuss how parents can manage our own feelings about how our kids are launching, and the best practices to help our kids who aren’t. Erin is funny and wise and has some surprising ideas about how to reframe our thoughts and expectations, so we hope you’ll tune in.
Thanks for reading, and please be sure to fill your mmmbop with as much ba-duba-dop as you can.
Magda and Doug