10 Things: Last Chance Winter Dance

All my seasonal recommendations for what to watch, read, listen to, cook, bake, ponder, and indulge this week.

I have to slip a 10 Things in here before the holidays turn the calendar into literal mush and everything is a year-end-type-of-thing. And that’s because I’ve read a lot of good books and seen a lot of trashy docuseries, and, importantly, have sampled the new Christmas movies and I know what’s good and what REALLY GOOD.

Also, I want to slip in that the last few calendars I have left in stock (I think I’m down to 20?) are half off! Grab one!

First three are free; waaaay more below the paywall.

1. WATCH: Some Netflix Holiday Movies

   I have watched four of these all the way through this year, and I have important thoughts. Let’s rate these movies on a scale from 1-100. You’ll find that I live in a world of extremes when it comes to Christmas movies.

• “Hot Frosty.” A cool 99/100. Was this good? Yes. But was it perfect? Yes, yes it was. Like: could it have been better? My point, dear reader, is that NO, I don’t think it COULD BE. The plot of this, in case you somehow missed it, is that a sexy snowman (Who built him? We never get to find out.) comes to life and seduces a hot widow who lives in a cold house. The titular Frosty (actually, his name is Jack, as in Frost) is played by Dustin Mulligan, who was Ted on Schitt’s Creek, and is equally charming and good-guy-y in this.

• “Meet Me Next Christmas.” 97/100. Three points off for feeling a tiny bit long (in truth, it was about 15 minutes longer than “Hot Frosty,” but those count when you’re a Christmas movie). The plot of this one is that a woman must try to get a Pentatonix ticket in order to get with the man of her dreams who she met at an airport the year before. (I could find no evidence that Pentatonix did or did not commission this movie.) A concierge and a drag show become involved. Christina Milian is literally flawless. There is a mime. All five members of Pentatonix are excellent actors. Pretty much no notes. (Actually, I didn’t get why there was a mime.)

• “The Merry Gentleman.” 3/100. Completely unwatchable. About 12 minutes in I was like, “Wait, what else could possibly happen in this movie?” And the answer is not much?

• “Our Little Secret.” 7/100. Also mostly unwatchable, a little bit salvaged by an inexplicably good supporting cast. Friend of the newsletter Lindsay Pugh and her friend Saul Sugarman wrote about it in tons of detail (this is an understatement, in the best way), so I’ll spare you and ask you to read what they wrote.

Chenoweth and Veronica the dog are the only pair with chemistry. Isn’t Chad Michael Murray in one of these Netflix Christmas movies? Why didn’t they lean into “Freaky Friday” nostalgia by casting him opposite Lohan? Oh wait, I’m thinking about the Netflix overlords as people who want to create a product with entertainment value when in reality, they’ll settle for any random slop that keeps the content machine chooching. My bad.

2. READ: Greta & Valdin by Rebecca K. Reilly

I was thrilled to round out the year with this charmer of a novel. It’s like reading the incredibly clever blog of your gay friends who live in Australia and are navigating their identities not just as queer twenty-somethings who live together, but also as Maori-Russian-Catalonians. It is laugh-out-loud funny, sparingly tongue-in-cheek, and irresistible. I read this on the page, but Kat said that the audio version is especially great, which I can imagine, because — New Zealand accents.

3. ENJOY: Assorted birds

• BOOK: “Birding Is My Favorite Video Game” by Rosemary Mosco. Everything Rosemary Mosco makes is the best thing anyone has made of any medium. This is, I think, my favorite of her books — which is saying something because she has a whole book about pigeons (also great).

• POEM: “Let Birds” by Linda Gregg. Here’s a little bit of the poem. I recommend the whole thing.

The rain proclaims these trees,
the trees tell of the sun.
Let birds, let birds.
Let leaf be passion.
Let jaw, let teeth, let tongue be
between us. Let joy.
Let entering. Let rage and calm join.
Let quail come.
Let winter impress you. Let spring. 

• CLASS: Paint birds in January – and take $55 off this week. There are a few slots left in both the Tuesday evening and Friday afternoon classes this January! These classes take place over Zoom, and are really special, relaxing, and nice. They’re appropriate for all levels. And if this price is still out of your range, but you’d like to take the class, email me! I want them to be available to anyone who wants them.