Obsessions This Week: April 6–12, 2025
Couscous bowls, Jon Hamm chatting with Tina Fey, and bricolage.
Here is the proof I saw Andrew Scott in VANYA earlier this month. Please ignore my inability to pose for cameras! See only the joy on my face!
📚 Word of the week
The word of the week is “bricolage” (noun):
(in art or literature) construction or creation from a diverse range of available things.
"the chaotic bricolage of the novel is brought together in a unifying gesture"
something constructed or created from a diverse range of available things.
"bricolages of painted junk"
Why is it the word of the week? Simply because I learned it this week, and wanted to share. Enjoy this bricolage of my interests.
📺 Speaking of words of the week
My new favorite “Weekend Update” bit returned last Saturday night:
Kills me. I watched it three times. Great writing, pitch-perfect performances.
🥣 Couscous bowls
My sister made a very delicious couscous bowl for me while I was in New York last week that I am still thinking about. Here’s a recipe for something close to it—the big difference is that Hannah’s incorporated diced onions, which I definitely commend if you don’t mind raw alliums.
This is a great budget meal! For those of us on restricted budgets, which I sort of assume is everyone lately, couscous goes a long way, and these bowls are easy to alter with whatever you have in you fridge and pantry.
📖 Online things I read this week
Keke Palmer was taking heat for doing a podcast interview with Jonathan Majors (who was convicted of assault and harassment of a former girlfriend), because we cancel women who platform abusers so much faster than we cancel the male abusers themselves, so she and her people pulled the podcast episode from the internet. Interesting mess.
- at did a listicle of some queer romance novels she recommends. I hadn’t heard or read any of these!
My friend Alanna Bennett sourced this Lauri Donahue list of writer opportunities that merits a weekly or monthly scan, if you’re looking for writer labs and contests.
NY Mag did a “Yesteryear” issue of BROADWAY LEGENDS ONLY. The spread of photos is so much fun for freaks like me.
Now remember, I’m a hippie coming in from Chicago. I put on my five-inch silver platform shoes. I put on my blue hot pants that had L-O-V-E stenciled across them. I put on my red halter shirt, which had L-O-V-E stenciled across it. I went in and sang Wilson Pickett’s “In the Midnight Hour.” At the end of that song, Charlie Smalls, the composer of the music, rest his soul, stood up in the darkened house and said, “That’s my Wiz.” - Andre DeShields
In the same vein as their sister publication’s Broadway article, Vulture published Mark Harris’ excellent, heartbreaking, diligent story about the theatre lives lost during the AIDS crisis.
Devastating! Necessary! Too brief!
🎧 took on Severance
We love when people define and use a word like “Kafkaesque”! Correctly! Anyway, I haven’t finished season two of Severance yet, but this made me want to brave it (since they promised no spoilers).
In the episode, they reference this WIRED podcast, which I then listened to, which is essential for anyone working in an office OR working from home in the wake of the pandemic:
🗣️ Jon Hamm in Interview!!!
Red alert. Nothing revelatory here—though there are definitely some sexy photos—but what do we expect when celebs interview each other? You get the sense that this conversation was more interesting with the mic off.
Having said that, I did learn here that both Tina Fey and Jon Hamm were 34 when their careers fully took off with 30 Rock and Mad Men, respectively, within a year of each other.
At least Tina Fey says what I’m always saying:
FEY: What else should we talk about? This is a funny question. Does Jon Hamm see himself as a leading man? A character actor?
HAMM: I think those categories are kind of a vestige of a different industry that we don’t really live in anymore. It’s like you’re a lead actor if you’re the guy that’s carrying most of the story, and at certain points, you’ll have character moments or whatever.
FEY: Yeah. I look at actors like Hugh Grant, especially, and I feel like now that he’s just old enough to be liberated from having to be anyone’s romantic lead, he’s doing such interesting stuff.
So true, bestie.
🎤 Sheryl Lee Ralph saying “If it is meant for you, it will not miss you!”
I have been watching this 2022 clip of Sheryl Lee Ralph on the Emmys red carpet on repeat this week. Even though I watched it live at the time, I needed it more this week than ever; maybe you do, too.
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The couple you can't believe is together hit me hard when I stumbled upon it this week. Reminds me of people in relationships I know. Hit very close to home. Also appreciate your word of the week and shout out to Witch, Please productions "Material Girls."