A List for the Last Long Weekend

Welcome to The Enthusiast, the newsletter that is still going to be renamed very soon! Or maybe not quite as soon as I'd like! Anyway–welcome! Every week(ish) I write about the latest things I'm loving, from pop culture to random esoteric ephemera–all of it personally vetted and highly recommended by yours truly.

It feels wild to say this, but this newsletter is now two years old! Back in late August 2022, the job that had been slowly killing me decided to speed things up, and I needed a way to access what little joy I could muster. It might not seem like it sometimes, but I really do love to write, and I especially love to write about stuff I love. I kept at it through most of 2023 until about this time last year, when we finally but also suddenly bought a new house, sold our old one, and moved all within six weeks. I do not recommend it.

I was also barely six months in to a demanding new job in a new industry, and the first thing that always suffers when my life gets hectic are my own creative outlets. As my 40th birthday looms large in a little more than a month, I'm making a determined effort to stop doing that. I've learned regardless of how busy and stressful things are, that particular sacrifice has never once been worth it. So please bear with me while I continue to get my shit together and try to make this little experiment something more real, more regular, and really just more in general. Subscribers, I love you most of all, but you already knew that.

It's our last long weekend of the summer here in the US, and while fall still seems decades away with the record-breaking heat we've had, it is indeed just around the corner. Hopefully you're at a cookout or enjoying the last "official" weekend of pool season or actually getting some good, well-deserved rest, but if you're looking for some new things to watch, read, or hear, here's what I've been loving lately.

The Weird, Wonderful Worlds of Julio Torres

Staying booked and busy, and we love to see it!

Our boy Julio Torres is having a real moment right now. I loved his charming, regrettably cancelled Los Espookys, one of the most original and delightful streaming series in recent memory. This year the Espookys co-creator has come through for the homies with his first feature film, Problemista, starring none other than the origin of human life herself Tilda Swinton, AND a new streaming series on Max, Fantasmas. 

I highly recommend both but suggest starting with Problemista if you're new to Torres' general vibe. Espookys lived in a bizarre mash-up of fantasy and reality, but Problemista is rooted in a Real World™️ that's built on Torres' foundation of wonder and whimsy, but is truly all too real. We also stan writer/directors with original creative visions; here Torres does both AND stars as a shy and quirky Latin American immigrant with dreams of becoming a toy designer. His life is thrown into disarray after a minor incident at the human cryo-storage facility where he works and the clock starts ticking (more accurately, the hourglass sand starts sliding) down the time he has left before he gets deported.

This version of Torres is quiet and anxious, far from the swaggering magical water prince he played on Espookys. He meets the wife of the artist whose cryo-chamber he tended: Tilda Swinton in her messiest Eurotrash art critic drag, an actively ugly woman with an enviable Comme de Garçons and Issey Miyake-inspired wardrobe, zero filter, and terrifying mood swings. She also happens to believe in the power of art and the life-changing magic of not pussy-footing around. Together they embark on a project to collect her frozen husband's artworks for a final tribute gallery show—hijinks and heartbreak ensue.

Torres's imagination is the real star here, and while Problemista features his signature imaginative interludes (ADHD brains: get into them) in service of a single narrative, Fantasmas leans allllllll the way in, presenting intertwined characters across recurring skits on everything from the abysmal US immigration and healthcare systems, to queer culture (Hamster gay bar, anyone?), social media influencers, Real Housewives, AI absurdity, insane fandoms, nightmares, dreamscapes, fashion, art, relationships, urban life, and a poster of an adorable Pomeranian that just happens to be possessed by an ancient Lord of Hell. Y'know, just #MillennialThings.

Fantasmas is just as sweet and weird as Espookys, with a finely-honed sense of satire tempered by melancholy that catches you off guard but leaves you nodding in recognition and appreciation. Torres is a Creative in the truest sense of the word, dedicated to his surreal comedic vision while bringing fellow quirky LGBTQ+ artists along with him. Los Espookys, Problemista, and Phantasmas are all streaming on Max, and are pretty effortless for a long weekend binge or a quick hit of something wild. I became an instant fan from the first scene of Los Espookys, and I can't wait to see where Torres takes us from here.

Remi Wolf, Big Ideas

A Pop Girlie for the rest of us weirdos

I stopped using Spotify a few years ago, and while I don't miss it much (especially as they raise prices to pay podcast bros instead of the artists upon whose work the platform was actually built), I do miss their bizarro genre rabbit holes and my old Discover playlist most of all. The Spotify algo did introduce me to some of my favorite artists of the 2010s, including the absolutely delightful indie-pop chameleon Remi Wolf. And her latest album, Big Ideas, is on track to become one of my favorites of 2024.

Wolf has been on the scene officially since 2019, when her single "Shawty" popped up on my Discover playlist, followed by her first EP I'm Allergic to Dogs with what eventually became my most-played song of 2020, the slyly soulful and sparsely syncopated bop "Woo!" Her first full album Juno dropped in 2022, but Big Ideas positions her as one of the most creative pop artists working today. "Pop" is hardly even the correct word for her music, because she truly transcends any and all of those outdated restrictions of genre.

Big Ideas opens with its lead single, the funky horn-driven "Cinderella," which also features some extremely fun disco whistles. Next comes the terribly-named but extremely addictive 90's tinged synth-pop torch song "Soup," where Wolf lays into her skill as a vocalist who can really belt when she wants to. "Motorcycle" takes the energy down a notch to a Stax-inspired electric guitar slow jam, before bringing the funk back with the cheeky ode to hotel sex, "Toro."

A few songs later, "Kangaroo" delivers a massive wall of sound that feels almost classic-rock inspired; the opening beat reminds me of ELO's "Don't Bring Me Down," there's a hearty dose of cowbell on the chorus propelled by angelic Beach Boys-style harmonies, and an acoustic rhythm guitar throughout that would be at home on any 70's Heart or America track. The breakdown brings it all crashing down in a discordant tumble of drums and horns before the song remixes itself right back to life and the cowbell gets its moment to truly shine.

For me, the back half of the album isn't as strong, but "Wave" breaks through with a solid funk-driven groove punctuated by a big Aughts arena alt-rock bridge and chorus. Most critics noted that Big Ideas as a whole is fairly disjointed, but I think that's part of Wolf's appeal: you literally never know what you're going to get, but you know it's going to be fun, passionate, and wholly unique. Her lyrics are witty yet vulnerable and often highly-specific ("Soak up the sounds of crypto bros/ Eating Cubanos by myself" is the perfect couplet to open "Alone in Miami"), but that just makes her music feel even more relatable for us fellow weirdos who exist outside the confines of labels and genres and trends that vanish just as quickly as they arose.

Remi Wolf's formula is that there is no formula, and surprise! You never really needed one in the first place. And in the age of endless algorithms flattening culture to the most middle-of-the-road, that's a philosophy I can embrace.

The 2024 Paris Olympics

So much to marvel at, yet still so much to be done

YES, I know I'm late to the hot-take party here, but: I love the Olympics so damn much. I have since I was a child, sitting too close to the TV and staying up too late to see Kristi Yamaguchi win gold and Surya Bonaly make her Olympic debut in the Albertville winter games. As much as I do not care about most sports in general, the Olympics have always felt special and awe-inspiring to me: the truest display of the profound possibilities of the human body and spirit.

And for all the flak it got, the 2024 Paris Summer Games were especially good. This Olympiad had everything: an intense yet soul-stirring rendition of revolutionary anthem "Ah! Ça Ira!" by everyone's new favorite French metal band Gojira in the opening ceremony; the extremely specialized skills of Pommel Horse Cutie Stephen Nedoroscik; GOAT Simone Biles returning triumphant to win gold after stepping back for her mental health in Tokyo; Snoop Dogg carrying the torch and having the time of his life; Katie Ledecky becoming the first American woman to win 9 gold medals; Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone breaking world records and defending her gold medal in the 400m hurdles... I could keep going but hopefully you got to take in some of the spectacle yourself. 

This Olympiad attempted "true gender parity," and in many cases, the women's events were indeed more competitive and thrilling to watch. I do think this visibility is a big reason why I have been a lifelong fan—US women Olympians are often the most visible and celebrated, even though we only get to see them in action every couple of years. Only very recently (literally, earlier this year) has the WBNA taken off despite its nearly 30 years of existence; before that it was basically just the US women's soccer team who got any media attention at all. We just don't celebrate women's sports in the US beyond college because our concept of sports and athleticism remains mired in gendered bullshit. Among major US sports, women have made progress behind the scenes, and can be seen and heard sometimes as commentators or reporters, but they're often only visible as cheerleaders or WAGs and sometimes referees, rarely coaches or owners and certainly not as athletes. 

While I appreciated the emphasis on parity for women's Olympics events, I also loved seeing women and men competing together even more. There were 20 mixed-gender events this year, including the 4x400m mixed track relay, the 4x100m mixed swimming medley relay, mixed doubles in badminton and table tennis, and more. This makes the strongest case for more mixed-gender team sports, which in my opinion have nothing to lose from broadening their horizons. Basically:

• Let women play Major League Baseball instead of being forced to underhand throw goofy-ass softballs on ESPN27!
• Let women play on NFL teams! Women have been safetys, kickers, running backs, and at literally this very moment I learned that there is a professional women's tackle football league, the WFA!
• Let's have a mixed USA soccer team and a mixed USA volleyball and women on NBA teams (can you even imagine Brittney Griner and LeBron on a team together?!?), and play all these mixed sports on major networks or stream live in primetime! 

This concept goes both ways for the Olympics, too: Artistic Swimming now allows men to compete, but none made the teams this year. Rhythmic Gymnastics remains the last women-only event, and do not even try to act like it wouldn't be fantastic to see a chiseled, swole-ass man manipulate that little ribbon wand in a painted-on pair of rhinestone booty shorts and body glitter! The gender politics and queer panic that still accompany American sports are so tired, and are probably a big reason sports viewership is dwindling among younger generations. Adding non-binary athletes into the mix would make things even more interesting, but this kind of massive cultural shift change will take decades, if not longer. These Paris Olympics made me hopeful we might get there eventually, maybe even in my lifetime.

A Few Good Links

Finally, here's some interesting articles I've read recently, should you need a little something while lounging in a hammock this weekend:

• 😅 This dispatch from an Esquire bon vivant as he undertakes a severe health-spa vacation has lived in my head rent-free for months now.
• 🍑 Speaking of sports, apparently butts are a big factor in recruiting and overall performance? Glutes are the powerhouse of the human musculoskeletal system, after all...
• ☺️ Self has a series on what real faces look like without filters or makeup at varying ages and what their owners do to maintain them: we've seen ages 37, 52, and 26 so far, all of them fascinating.
• 🖕🏻 Yes, everyone hates Google now, as they should because it's unusable AI dreck. Funny how that works!
• 🤣 Apparently "Ohio" is the latest Gen-Z slang to describe something cringe, and lemme tell you: Kentuckians of all generations are ahead of the curve!
• 🎶 MIT Technology Review breaks down the breakdown of Spotify's once-lauded algorithm; maybe I don't miss it that much after all!

That's all for this long weekend edition of The Enthusiast! Thank you for reading and if you're not already subscribed, you should sign up (it's free!).

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Don't forget to seize the means of production, babes!
LKH