Fourth Friday: June

Another scorcher!

The whole right side of the country is in the middle of a truly dangerous heat spike right now, so I hope you’re all staying safe and hydrated!

Read on to discover…

• the book that made me cry in an airport restaurant

• my favourite Cinderella adaptation since Ever After

• a double feature on Zohran Mamdani’s soaring victory/Andrew Cuomo’s stinging defeat

• Where I fall on the America’s Ass/Internet’s Daddy divide

• my summer 2025 playlist!
  

Wrote

The two that I wrote in May after my last Fourth Friday essentially composed my Tom Cruise two-parter:

• Tom Cruise thinks that he’s Tom Cruise

• Becoming and unbecoming Tom Cruise

And here’s all of what I wrote in June:

• So, you’ve publicly condoned a politicians actions

• The sickness of “this isn’t our fight”

• Queer horror recommendations in honour of this Pride Month Friday the 13th

• The last time I wanted to lose weight

• Our Carrie, ourselves

Finally, the new Jurassic Park movie starring Mahershala Ali’s smile¹ and Jonathan Bailey’s slutty little glasses drops next week. I’ll be there taking notes on whether they took my advice on how to right this franchise.

They know what they’re doing with this. I’m furious that it’s working.

Read

• Zohran Mamdani’s victory in the NYC mayoral primary has me so revved up, y’all. I let myself get my hopes up, and I’m so glad I did. By way of recap, this Intelligencer look into Cuomo’s defeat pairs nicely with this Teen Vogue op-ed about Mamdani’s success.

• I’ve talked a lot about my aversion to stan culture (Zohran is testing my limits, but luckily I’ve learned that he’s an Arsenal fan, so he’s still got feet of clay).

  Gen Zero
  ’s essay about how it’s infected the already stan-vulnerable PR cycle, Why Are All Pop Star Interviews Like That?, is a really excellent take.

• Our tech oligarchs’ insistence on relying on AI for the simplest of tasks, including writing emails and having thoughts, is just the latest example of what I feel to be true: a lot of these people are, quite simply, fucking idiots.