Spring is...here??? Maybe??

Welcome back to The Monthly Hoot: Witch, Please Productions' Newsletter!

Hey lovely people!

Happy March! It’s finally getting warmer, and even though I’m suffering through the agonies of losing an hour of sleep (fuck daylight savings time all my homies hate daylight savings time), I’m starting to feel ready to be outside in the sun like a lizard on a rock.

My body has really been keeping the score these past two weeks as we approach four years of a pandemic, but I’m keeping my head up and my mask on, so onward we march (ha, March).

Big things happened in the WPP world this past month! We released our second episode of Making Worlds all about Dimension 20 (join our Patreon at any tier to see it!), we launched Gender Playground to the public, and Marcelle turned 40! Wish Marcelle a happy birthday in the comments, she loves when her birthday lasts a whole month.

Keep reading for the usual dispatch from your girlies.

Love ya,

Gaby, Hannah, Marcelle, Coach, and Zoe

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Two episodes, both alike in dignity, but also about very different topics

Remember when we were all freaks for sweet potato fries? Well it turns out, that beloved appetizer was more than a tasty treat circa 2007. In this episode, Marcelle leads Hannah through research about the “orange-flesh sweetpotato” and its relationship to GMOs, cash crops, fat phobia and food imperialism. She pulls on the work of Joe Kobuthi for an analysis of food systems that informs her understanding of the sweet potato's zeitgeist-y moment, and she ends with a thesis that's got quite a bite to it.

Next up, we were joined the incredible Karen Tongson, Professor of Gender & Sexuality Studies, English, and American Studies & Ethnicity at the University of Southern California to talk all about normporn and Gilmore Girls!

We begin with a discussion of the early 2000s postfeminist Bush-era that defined the early days of Gilmore Girls. Karen then offers some insight into the viewing practices of queer adults who have returned to this show en masse over the last two and a half decades since its pilot aired. We talk about the appeal of the Gilmore girls themselves, the tragedy of Lane Kim's journey into adulthood, the conservative reproductive politics that shape the show and the phenomenon of queer viewers finding both a pleasure and a shame in consuming sentimental content that showcases a fantasy of assimilation and acceptance.

Raise your hand if you rewatch Gilmore Girls an alarming amount (Coach does, too)!

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My favorite thing to do is unlock perks for our Substack subscribers and this is a week where I NEED SOME JOY. So here it is, Cookies (term of endearment, you are cookies): an unlocked perk with Karen Tongson (who absolutely knocked my socks off during the Gilmore Girls recording). If you want to become a Patreon supporter, I truly think it’s the one of the best $5/month a person can spend.

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Gender Playground’s Second Episode is OUT TOMORROW!

Have we yelled it enough? Gender Playground is here! If you have the energy (it’s in short supply this time of year, we know!), please leave the show an Apple Review. Reviews are hugely helpful for new podcasts! In fact, we just hit 1,000 reviews on Material Girls, which means Coach can finally rest having accomplished her life’s goal.

Like, what if instead of two reviews, we had one million?? Or even 10.

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me when it’s above 65 degrees and sunny outside

We’re picking up the tempo a lil bit!!! There’s more than one hyperpop song on this playlist!!! If you start feeling alive again when the weather gets warmer, we got you covered—take this playlist on your walks or your park picnics.

Get your playlist on Spotify here or Apple Music here.

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Have a topic you want us to tackle? Feel free to submit to this form!

Something else you want us to know? You can always email us at ohwitchplease@gmail.com.

Want to talk to us all the time? Join our $30 Patreon tier and find us on Slack, where we live.

Have a strongly worded comment about this newsletter? You can now reply right on Substack and we’ll be able to see it and even reply! Just be nice to us.

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Some of you might know that I came back from sabbatical in the fall and immediately took over as Director of my program, which means I went from grappling with the emotional and cognitive challenges of unstructured time (what can I say, I'm a workaholic!) to being a whole new level of busy. As a result, I've been thinking a lot about time: how we structure it, how we experience it, how capitalism turns it into a scarce resource and how we might resist this sense of scarcity. If you also want to think about time, I recommend Jenny Odell's brilliant book Saving Time: Discovering a Life Beyond Productivity Culture. A kind of intellectual sequel to How to Do Nothing, it dives into how capitalism has shaped our understanding of time and how we might experience time otherwise. If you've ever wanted to understand what Marcelle and I mean when we say that time is a construct, then this is the book for you!

I have been eagerly waiting for the chance to Influence You since my last recommendation. Buckle up because I am about to Change Your Life: You need the IKEA OMTÄNKSAM shoe horn. I am serious. Using a shoe horn revolutionized my footwear experience. I use it to put on every shoe/boot I own except sandals. I keep a shoe horn handy at both my front and back doors so that I never have to suffer again. "But Marcelle," I hear you saying, "why does it have to be the IKEA OMTÄNKSAM? Surely all shoe horns are equally awesome?" My friends, I have used several different shoe horns and only the OMTÄNKSAM is sufficiently long and tapered, and the hanging function is cleverly designed to maximize the shoe horning experience. This is truly the Cadillac of shoe horns. At $6.99 Canadian it's probably free in the US. Don't even hesitate. Buy two!

I lost a childhood friend last month and have been struggling to find the right music to listen to for comfort or distraction. So, even though I can’t bring myself to, in honor of her, I recommend listening to For Good from Wicked. A musical we both loved and a song that’s been used by musical-loving tweens to express big feelings about friendship and growing up for two decades. May her memory be a blessing.

My experience of watching of The Holdovers in one word: anemoia. Anemoia means “nostalgia for a time or a place one has never known.” It’s a Christmas movie, sure, but it’s a lot more than that. It’s got a sad curmudgeon, a grieving mother who hoped for better, and a young man who is dealing with the unimaginable. Paul Giamatti’s character reminded me of my favorite high school teacher who was similarly difficult to be around, but I really loved him. I felt like I knew all of these people somehow. The way they spoke and interacted with each other felt unstaged, they felt real. And they were so dear to me by the end of the movie, I want to hold them close to my chest forever. I hope we all have people looking out for us the way that these Holdovers end up looking out for one another.

When it was Hannah’s turn to recommend something they cooked, they recommended a soup. When it was Marcelle’s turn to recommend something SHE cooked, she recommended a soup. And me? Well, you guys just aren’t gonna believe this: I’m recommending a fucking soup. I have been fortunate enough to find escarole twice this winter, which is notable because in recent years finding escarole has been like searching for gold. My Nanny (my grandma, not someone in childcare) has a handwritten recipe for escarole soup that I won’t share here because as an old Italian queen her recipes are basically “just make it,” and it simply won’t help you. The gist of escarole soup is this: you make tiny meatballs. You slice up a head of escarole, put it in a bowl, cover the bowl with a wet paper towel, and microwave it for 6 minutes. In the meantime, you heat up some chicken broth and drop your meatballs in. Let them simmer for 20 minutes. Add your escarole. Then drop in some tiny pasta like acini di pepe or something similarly small. Cook, eat, get emotional about how many meatballs your grandmother has rolled in her lifetime for her loved ones, go to bed.

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Okay, bye! Enjoy these blindingly beautiful pictures of Hannah and Marcelle at Disneyland!

I love them, they are so beautiful, I can't stop staring at these pictures?