Good morning!
Welcome to Issue 38.5 of Digestable, your daily mouthful of real things happening in the world, minus alarmist pandemic news.
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Today’s news, fermented:
Y’all, I have nothing for you. It’s Friday! Rejoice.
Here’s a quokka in its parental pocket.
(via)
Caro's Advice Corner
Dear Caro,
This pandemic year has been tough in so many ways, but it has been especially tough on my pockets. Do you have any ideas or thoughts on low-cost/homemade gifts I could get my loved ones this holiday season?
Sincerely,
Broke but not broken
Dear Broke but not broken,
You’ve come to the right gal for advice! Keeping a budget and sticking to it during the holiday season has become kind of my expertise the past couple of years. The fun part is that many of these gifts can help in budgeting whether you are buying presents during the holiday season, birthdays, anniversaries, whatever it may be! Ok so let’s dive in.
My first gift suggestion is a good old fashioned letter. There is nothing more thoughtful, more personal, than receiving an old fashioned, handwritten letter from a loved one. Write them to catch up, write them a short story, a poem, sky’s the limit when you put pen to paper! A low cost addition to a letter that I always love to include is pictures. It costs a dollar or two to print a couple of photos at your local pharmacy, so it will not break the bank. Plus, it is such a sweet and fun bonus to get pictures in the mail!
Speaking of printed pictures, one of my favorite gifts to a friend this year is a framed photo of her and her partner that I took over the summer. I have recently revived my passion for photography, which sparked a fun and thoughtful idea in the gift giving department. Get a nice print of either you and your friends, pictures you took of friends, whatever it may be, then get a nice frame (I got a cute $7 frame at CVS) and wrap it up in a bow! I truly cannot wait for my friends to open this one up, it is truly one of my favorite gifts to give this year.
My next suggestion comes from the inner bookworm in me. Listen, books are meant to be shared, just ask your local library *insert cheesy wink here*. No but seriously, something fun and thoughtful I have been doing lately is gifting books to friends from my own book collection. There is something so special and meaningful about spreading the literary wealth. I have especially given out books that have impacted me, and that I feel will resonate with my friends as well. And this is free!! Add a nice little card or note, and voila! A thoughtful, free gift! Another idea is to get used books from your local independent books store, which usually are no more than $10.
Ok and finally, this is probably the most expensive item on this list, but worth it. I have to give full credit to my roomie and friend Paola Rivas for this one. One Christmas she gave me and our other best friend beautiful hand made cards, with a piece of paper inside….she had made donations to organizations based on issues that were near and dear to both of our hearts. When I tell you the tears were IMMEDIATE….This is truly a thoughtful and good way to put your money in the right place this holiday season. So if you are going to spend at least a little bit of money, consider this option! $10, $15, $20, it all counts!
Think about your friends thoughtfully and what they care about on a values level, and either ask them what their fav organizations are or do research into small grassroots nonprofits that you think will fit the bill.
Phew, I think I gave you some options there, Broke but not broken. Best of luck spreading love and joy among your loved ones!
Cheerily yours,
Caro
DJ M0RO’s low-key Music Show
Okay it’s really cheesy but there was a re-release of All Things Must Pass by George Harrison and ugh okay just bear with me I know it’s a little nail-on-the-head but you’re going to love hitting play on the 2020 mix of this classic I just know it. Okay now that that’s out of the way here are the rest of your weekend listening recs.
My new fav collab Goodnight Songs for Rebel Girls features the greatness of Macy Gray, Joan Jett, Ani DiFranco, Beth Orton, KT Tunstall, Tank & The Bangas,... I mean I could just go on and on. It’s pretty fantastic and I encourage a good listen to each of these incredible artists. It’s an audio companion to the book series of Stories, and it’s just so totally magical. My whole weekend mood. I wish I’d been listening to this in like fifth and sixth grade. Anytime Anoushka Shankar releases new music I have an internal alarm that goes off so thanks to that sweet angel for participating in this awesome project so I could hear about it.
I also have a built-in radar for the truly amazing Madison McFerrin, who’s gracing us with a brand-new single Hindsight, a casual “love-letter to Bernie Sanders.” Um, OHkay!
I wrote it in May 2020, filled with anxiety from Covid and the coming election feeling let down by the Democratic Party, longing for a candidate that believed in climate change, student loan forgiveness, and Medicare for All during a global pandemic. It’s a song about heartbreak—wishing you could change the past, knowing you have to continue forward regardless.
The lyric “coulda said - coulda said we went for it” gives me chills. Then I watched the video and now i just have perma-chills. Cool cool. (ps nerd alert if you thought you recognized that last name you are correct.)
**FEATURED POD** it’s been a minute since i remembered that i’m supposed to include a featured podcast at the end here (self-imposed obligation though it may be) so here’s a low-key return to order. This week there was a fantastic episode of my Top Fav, Ologies (just look at all those cool awesome topics covered!) Special shout out to host Alie aka DadWard aka Ol Pops von Podcast aka very cute and excited human who loves science and talking and asking self-described stupid questions. Tune in to hear Alice Gorman, or Dr. Space Junk (truly) get stoked about celestial archeology and soooo much more.
*Hot Goss*
Brought to you by the superb Latifah Azlan.
For some reason, my internal clock keeps telling me that I am a day behind so I woke up thinking it was Thursday instead of Friday. To add to that discombulation, I had to read about how horrifying NBC's Wednesday night airing of a live action The Grinch musical was, thanks to the fact that Matthew Morrison as the titular character was acting too sexy for his own or anyone else's good.
Viewers complained that Matthew's Grinch came off as too sexual, writhing around the stage moaning, heavy-breathing, and breaking the fourth wall with suggestive looks. There were also apparently a lot of hip thrusts to his performance. All of this made folks watching at home -- with their kids, presumably -- super uncomfortable. And while no official clips of the performance has been released yet, I managed to find some on Twitter from a few nights ago.
Why does Matthew Morrison do this to himself? He apparently said the inspiration for his characterization of the Grinch was Joaquin Phoenix's Joker and watching these clips, I can definitely see how hard he is trying to embody that nihilistic, misanthropic asshole we all came to love in the Joker (no). But uh, that's the thing -- he's trying so hard. Matthew Morrison has always tried so hard, hasn't he? But somebody lied to him several times and told him that he's fly, hot, sexy, and beautiful and he's nothing like that, he's nothing of the sort. He should just let go of this... ambition of being a dime a dozen heartthrob and just lean into the dorky, Theater Kid Adult™ that he truly is. That's a niche in Hollywood that needs to be filled in anyway!