I Finally Learn How Martha Stewart and Snoop Dogg Became Friends

A recap of everything I've been watching recently

Hello close friends,

I am back. The past few weeks have aged me. Donald Trump is once again our President-elect and I turned 28! And then I got food poisoning, but we don’t need to talk about that.

I didn’t have a set topic for this week’s newsletter, so I thought I’d do a roundup of everything I’ve been watching lately, because art is truly the only thing that has been motivating me these days.

Left on Tenth

My dear friend had an extra ticket to see Left on Tenth, a Broadway play adaptation of Delia Ephron’s memoir by the same title. If you don’t know who Delia Ephron is — like I hadn’t — she’s the sister of Nora Ephron and a writer in her own right, having published multiple books and worked as a contributing editor of New York Magazine and on several movies including You’ve Got Mail (1998) and The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants (2005). Simply happy to see a show for free, I didn’t have many expectations going in… and unfortunately they still weren’t met.

From the opening scene, a live re-enactment of Ephron’s viral 2016 essay, “Love and Hate On Hold With Verizon,” my friend and I agreed this play just did not need to exist.¹ The entirety of the show was basically Julianna Margulies (who plays Ephron) hastily narrating the events of Ephron’s life after her first husband’s death with abrupt time jumps. No show, all tell. Peter Gallagher played Ephron’s late in life love interest (to the best of his ability with the poor material he had lol) and two other actors filled in for all the tertiary characters in Ephron’s life, changing costumes with each scene to the point where you couldn’t even take their characters seriously, as it felt more comical than anything.

Overall, the story seemed much better suited to the medium of a book where you can really go in depth into Ephron’s takes on what I thought were the more interesting topics that she was only briefly able to mention in the play, such as the representation of older folks in media. The plot itself also just didn’t feel compelling enough for the stage. Even the “quirky” jokes felt like they were written for an older, wealthy white UWS New Yorker to chuckle at, Ephron saying things like she’s addicted to getting blowouts and one of the actors doing a vaguely racist interpretation of a young man in a snapback as the butt of a passing joke. (The majority of the crowd we were sitting with probably could have given us this hint too, to be fair.)

It’s saying something when the climactic conflict — battling cancer — didn’t inflict any emotional reaction whatsoever for me. My friend and I even had to stifle our laughter at one point in the story where Ephron’s dog² passes away because it felt so overdramatic. I kept thinking, are we bad people or is it really that bad! I felt as invested in Ephron’s life leaving the theater as I did entering it, which is to say, not at all. Unfortunately, Delia Ephron is not my icon.

We Live in Time (2024)

This was my film of choice for my birthday! I was a little disappointed there wasn’t anything showing that I was raring to go watch, but I figured seeing Florence Pugh and Andrew Garfield act together would still be a treat. The two play a couple who meet under unlikely circumstances and then navigate the questions and trials of life together, including whether to get married and/or have children, what the legacy you’re leaving is for said children, and most notably Pugh’s character coming face to face with her cancer diagnosis. I know, more cancer!

Not to keep shitting on Left on Tenth, but seeing how cancer came to life on stage versus on the screen, made me appreciate again how much the medium matters when utilized correctly. Here, Pugh’s subtle acting shined, and Garfield’s ability to tear up on command in every scene should be studied. That being said, I think the movie heavily relied on Pugh’s and Garfield’s acting abilities and star power to carry the film. I left the theater having almost shed a tear or two of my own, and satisfied with the age-old question the movie poses, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?³ However, my friends started rightly pointing out many of the flaws of the film — what was with the strange chronology that didn’t necessarily build towards a climax? where was the wife’s loving family and friends when her health declined and why weren’t they helping take care of the daughter? (An Asian family would have never let that fly, lol.)

I personally would have loved the film to explore more of Pugh’s character’s bisexuality in grappling with those big questions of marriage and children, but maybe this was my sign to finally watch Anatomy of a Fall.

Also can we take a moment to appreciate the hot queer sous chef, Jade, played by Lee Braithwaite. 😍

Martha (2024)

I finally learned how Martha Stewart and Snoop Dogg became friends — through sitting next to each other together all day at a Comedy Central roast of Justin Bieber, which apparently resuscitated Stewart’s career because she was so funny?! I first became aware of the pair through their collaboration on an ad for Bic lighters which caught my eye in a Walmart years ago and thought to myself, that is so random, and then didn’t ever look into it further. I did see their appearance together for a segment during NBC’s Olympics coverage this year, and thought, wow, they are still at it!

As someone who works in brand marketing by day, this makes me jealous of whoever came up with this partnership, because it’s just perfect.

Unlike Left on Tenth (I promise after this, I will stop complaining!), this documentary is a great example of how to make someone’s life story compelling to those outside of that person’s target demo. I genuinely learned so much about her life (did you know she worked on Wall Street at one point?!), and appreciated the producers’ attempts at both praising and criticizing her, through their interview questions, and at one point, simply showing us footage of Stewart behind the scenes instructing her employees, to let the audience decide for ourselves if it was troubling behavior. It left me still pondering, days later, about what constitutes a toxic workplace culture.

I never watched Stewart’s shows in their heyday, but even without that deeper knowledge, it was fascinating to learn about a public figure who did have a very big influence on how we sell “lifestyle” culture and content now. It’s also rare to see a strong female public personality that can’t help but exist outside the norms of media training and niceties. Move over, Chappell Roan!

Party Dish

Last Thursday, I attended a play put on Amanda of Amanda + James, the co-producers of FAMILY, which I reviewed last month.

My Weekend With Celine Song

Party Dish is a “solo performance that mourns, ridicules, and celebrates the joys, necessity, and pain of consumption. It’s a rambling lecture given by an unstable dinner host. It’s a party.”

Y’all already know, I love this type of unhinged stuff. The play started off with Amanda walking into the room at least three times trying out different “openings” to her monologue, one of which included tap dancing. While filming herself cooking her party dish of choice — linguini with clam sauce — live at her station much like a vlogger, projections of what was recording played on the wall nearby. The subject of her monologue contained the history of clam distribution and the rise in popularity of other seafood in the US, esoteric references of Slyvia Plath’s time at a renown mental institution, and the narrator’s own experience with eating disorders. My favorite part was when she looked into a mirror next to her and held the camera up alongside her, a never-ending panopticon of self-awareness projected onto the wall. It was definitely not a Martha Stewart type of cooking show to say the least.

Towards the end, she served up a couple bowls of pasta for those who requested it in the audience and poured her own meal — what looked like a bottled chocolate protein smoothie — into a martini glass, taking sips as she finished her ramblings. I almost wanted the play to take those moments of strangeness farther and go bolder with its risks, but I still think it was a feat in of itself as a one woman show (and provided inspiration for some of my own writing projects!).

the cooking station as it stood pre-show

and the playbill, with some hidden ingredients

The Traitors (S2)

This binge was purely for my own enjoyment. A no thoughts, head empty kind of watch.

That being said, I did enjoy the discussion on the reunion episode of how the “gamers” (those who have been on game show / competition-type shows like Survivor, The Challenge, Big Brother, etc.) view their relationships with others on the show versus the “non-gamers” (those who are on reality tv shows which capture their day-to-day lives such as Housewives). The gamers did whatever it took to win and didn’t take in-game betrayals as intensely, still remaining friends afterwards, and almost respecting that level of gaming even more. The non-gamers, while surprisingly just as, if not more, skillful than the gamers, took things more personally, translating those in-game acts as a reflection of their real-life relationships with the others in the house.

This begs the question, what does it mean to go “too far” in a show like this? Are there moves that are “off-limits”? Earlier this year, I wrote about the you-know-what-you-signed-up-for phenomenon at play in The Traitors (S1). It was cool to see the contestants themselves reflect on the psychological aspects of reality tv that we as audience members are observing as well. Can’t wait to see what mindfuckery season 3 will hold!

You Know What You Signed Up For (or Do You?)

I hope you enjoyed this extended recap. As always, let me know in the comments if you have watched any of the above, are planning to, or have other recs that are sparking your interest. Next time, I’ll be chatting about the recent trend of horror fiction both in books and movies surrounding aging and wellness products, so stay tuned for that. Until then!

1. We found and read the article after the play and were disappointed to find it was somehow even WORSE in its original essay form. Be warned…

2. My silver lining in the show was that they had a live dog playing Ephron’s dog, who fun fact, was trained by a friend’s dad. Even though it was also unnecessary, it was very cute!

3. Credit of course to our existential queen and poet, Mary Oliver