PicoBlog

This is the free edition of Is My Kid the Asshole?, a newsletter from science journalist, professional speaker and author Melinda Wenner Moyer, which you can read more about here. If you like it, please subscribe and/or share this post with someone else who would too. Hi everyone. First, I want to apologize that this newsletter is a day late. We had a snow day on Friday, and my 7-year-old has been sick (apparently not Covid? But who really knows?

[This blog will always be free to read, but it’s also how I pay my bills. So, if you like what you read, please consider a paid subscription. And yes, I do speaking engagements. If you need a Pride Month speaker, hit me up.] This weekend, Lance Armstrong announced a video interview with Caitlyn Jenner regarding trans inclusion in sports, as part of a series which he’ll begin releasing today.

A few weeks ago, I was reading Mad Woman by Amanda Montei when she mentioned a Slate parenting podcast that referenced the title of her forthcoming book (preorder it here). The episode was called “Too Touched Out for Sex.” I knew I needed to listen. In the episode, around the 14 minute mark, the hosts of the podcast share a listener’s question. The question follows in full:  I have two kids, two years old and seven months.

(Above: My sister Karole Sessums and our friend Ali MacGraw, who lives in Santa Fe, in Karole’s Winnebago/Mercedes RV after our having a birthday lunch inside it for another mutual friend, Santa Fean Jeffrey Brezovar) I first visited Santa Fe thirty years ago on assignment from Vanity Fair to do a story about photographer Herb Ritts and his new home here. Herb and I did many stories together at Vanity Fair where I was both its Fanfair Editor and a Contributing Editor as well as at Andy Warhol’s Interview where I was its Executive Editor.

Welcome to the This Week In Movie Posters, the feature in which we go through all the week’s new movie posters and read way too much into them. Blessed are the paid subscribers, as without them, none of this would be possible. All posters via IMPA. We begin this week, through the vagaries of Substack’s image-adding function, with The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial. This one is actually William Friedkin’s final film (adapted from the 1953 play, which was itself based on a novel that spawned a Humphrey Bogart movie).

What follows is an op-ed-ish thing I wrote to promote my book ages ago that got totally dropped/ghosted, because it relates to the most recent episode of my podcast and is also, I think, kinda neat. Speaking of my podcast, today is the last day to get early bird ticket pricing for our August 24 live show! Both live stream and in-person (NYC) tickets are available here. Whilst scrolling through TikTok a few months back, I came across a pharmaceutical ad starring the beloved Annie Murphy of Schitt’s Creek.

Flattery exploits our normal and healthy need to form authentic loving connections with others. Flattery can be used as a tactic in most any social interaction in which the flatterer wants something from another. It’s an effective tactic of coercion. You think of the flatterer in a more positive way because they’ve caused you to feel better about yourself, which enhances the likelihood that you’ll comply with their agenda for you.

Kevin McCarthy’s speakership is at an end, in a rather spectacular and historic fashion. I know the watchword of our time is “Don’t normalize this,” but really, we need to get used to stuff like this. This is what the Republican Party has been building towards for some time. And it’s a pretty useful indicator of what a second Donald Trump term would look like. As I’ve noted in a few posts on this site, the modern Republican Party is marked by a rising and now dominant conservative populist faction.

The ’90s are littered with potential film series that couldn’t go the distance. The Shadow, Judge Dredd, Wild Wild West: none of these were meant to be one-and-done movies. They were meant to spawn sequel after profitable sequel. But while the world of film isn’t really poorer for the loss of, say The Phantom 2, not every dead end is deserved. You can watch this space for an inevitable appreciation of The Rocketeer one of these days.