Fourth Friday: April

April is the cruelest month.

May is about to be a doozy, isn’t it?

Alright, everyone! Gird your loins!

The wheels continue to fall off this “functioning society” thing, yet we keep barreling forward, like Crowley keeping his flaming car moving by sheer force of will. Ah well; maybe we’ll end up in the same place as he does.

We are closing in on the end of this discount, y’all! Through Sunday, I’m offering 30% off a year of paid subscriptions. That’s $3.5/month, or $35/year if you want to go for the Blue Light Special. If one-time support is more your thing, you can always buy me a cup of tea. Either way, I’m very glad you’re here.

With that, here are the things I wrote, read, watched, and heard that got me through April:

---

Wrote

• One actor playing twins is the new sensation that’s sweeping the nation, from Sinners to Mickey 17.

• Angelica Jade Bastién
  and I reviewed Sinners, which led us to a discussion about star power, sexuality, and the South getting its due.

• A crossover episode with

  Tirhakah Love
  , where we break out the Slopostat for Viola Davis’s latest cinematic offering.

• I was incensed by the Blue Origin bullshit, and went on for quite some time about it.

• Clara
  and I rewatched Center Stage, and came to the only correct conclusion: the shit holds up.

• The Pitt is simply excellent television, and everyone is telling you that for a reason.

• My fascination with Ben Affleck as a public figure continues. Fascination mixed with frustration, of course.

• I think Cory Booker’s filibuster was the beginning of some really great, if belated, political theatre from the Dems. I love that Members of Congress are traveling to detention centers and concentration camps that the Trump administration is sending people to. Are they going to physically rescue these people themselves? Of course not. But they’re keeping attention on those people who would otherwise just disappear.

Read

• People are so eager to believe that buying knockoffs is wise, actually, that they’ll believe anyone who validates that belief. I’ve seen so many totally credulous social media posts about how China is spilling the tea about how all luxury items are made in the same factories as their dupes in order to stick it to Trump and his tariffs. But consider the source, son! Even if you don’t understand the details of these tariffs, or how production actually works—both of which this article delves into—consider that anyone who is flattering your intelligence by telling you exactly what you want to hear is almost definitely scamming you.

• When describing our country’s speed-run into fascism, I prefer to use American examples, because to think of fascism as un-American is, frankly, childish; and I prefer to be as comprehensive in my blame as possible. Meaning, I won’t scapegoat one man or one political party for creating a politics of fear when there is so much blame to go around. As this necessarily blistering essay puts it, in every example, “the liberal embrace of militarism opened the door to a reactionary politics of suppressing the left.”