The Revealing Reads, 4K Spider-Verses, and Ex-Country Anthems That Got Us Through the Week

On Friday, Morris released a two-song EP, meant to mark her official departure from country music. (She’s left Columbia Nashville for Columbia Records.) “But the further you get into the country music business, that’s when you start to see the cracks. And once you see it, you can’t un-see it,” she told the Los Angeles Times. She’s previously called out Jason Aldean and his wife, “Insurrection Barbie,” for their transphobic views and told the LA Times of his “Try That in a Small Town” success: “People are streaming these songs out of spite. Music is supposed to be the voice of the oppressed—the actual oppressed. And now it’s being used as this really toxic weapon in culture wars.”

“The Tree,” and the accompanying music video, speak clearly to her disillusionment with the genre and why she’s finally walked away. “The rot at the roots is the root of the problem/But you wanna blame it on me,” she sings. “I’ll never stop growin’, wherever I’m goin’/Hope I’m not the only one.” It’s a rousing, foot-stomping anthem that, even if you’re not in the midst of giving the middle finger to an entire misogynistic industry, will inspire you to leave anything or anyone that’s pissing you off behind. It’s the type of song that makes me both grateful and proud to be a fan. —Lauren Tousignant

It would seem that no amount of screen pixels are enough to reproduce the kaleidoscopic, at times overwhelming theatrical experience of Spiderman: Across the Spider-Verse at home, but the recent UHD disc release does the trick. I think of this movie and its Oscar-winning 2018 predecessor, Into the Spider-Verse, as acts of imagination along the lines of Hayao Miyazaki’s masterworks. They present the ideal use of animation as a conduit for the vastness of the human mind. It’s very hard to defend a superhero movie in 2023, especially one that trades in the ubiquitous subject of the multiverse, but Across the Spider-Verse is uncommonly deep. This one touches on the existential despair the various Spider-People (slash -Animals) feel about their shared canon (across the Spider-Verse, each experiences similar beats in their story, like the death of a police captain close to them). Ultimately, it’s an eye-popping story about refusing the fate one has been assigned. The bombardment of imagery—a sensory assault that strikes me as a visual equivalent of what the Bomb Squad did sonically on the early Public Enemy albums—is matched by the sensitivity and depth of thought. A true knockout, and so far my favorite movie of the year. —Rich Juzwiak

I remember exactly where I was when my chic high school friend Sophie gushed to me about a hip new brand that sold elevated, good-quality basics. “It’s nice to have a simple nice, white, tee,” she said. I nodded. Sure? I was 15 but I didn’t disagree, I didn’t think? Thus launched the tumultuous relationship I had with American Apparel, a store I loved to hate and hated to love and for years could never cut out of my life.

Kate Flannery’s Strip Tees is a memoir of her time at American Apparel and details inside intel on the cult-like retailer that defined the early aughts. I’m still working my way through the book but am really enjoying Flannery’s candid descriptions of a time when indie sleaze climbed and sat atop the corporate ladder and how appealing that was to a young 20-something in Los Angeles. Also, it doesn’t hurt for me, personally, that we share an alma mater—an all-women’s college—that she references often in the book as a launching point into her twenties. —Kady Ruth Ashcraft

A bunch of celebs are auctioning off items and experiences to benefit their crew members who are out of work during the dual writers’ and actors’ strikes. The listings are sweet and amusing—Natasha Lyonne will help someone with the NYT crossword, Sarah Silverman will answer 20 of your questions, Lena Dunham will paint a mural in your home, etc.—but I’ve also very much enjoyed perusing the parody lots. They include things like Mindy Kaling disclosing if B.J. Novak is her baby daddy, Hozier apologizing for only performing a certain song three times, and getting Epcot mascot Figment to “linger in the dark corners of your enemies.” There are parodies invoking The Sopranos, The Simpsons, and Succession, but my personal favorite gag lot is “Tilda Swinton will give you a 5-minute head start before hunting you for sport.” If people did, in fact, outbid you in the real auctions, you can donate directly to the organization behind the auction, The Union Solidarity Coalition (TUSC), here. —Susan Rinkunas

This is a lovely movie about friendship in your young twenties, a gutting health diagnosis, and baking—kind of like the younger, cooler cousin to Waitress, in a sense. But what I really need you to know about this movie is that Ron Livingston and Martha Kelly (of drug queen in Euphoria fame) play parents to perfection...off-kilter, gruff, deadpan, and totally endearing. I wonder if Nick Offerman and Meghan Mullally, though not parents themselves, were their source material because Livingston and Kelly embody a version of them that suggests their zany partnership but under the influence of quaaludes. One of the actually real, not-memed celebrity auction items to support striking crew members is “Rosemarie Dewitt and Ron Livingston Relationship Advice Squabble Over Zoom”—an enticing offering on its own—but I wonder if it could instead be “Martha Kelly and Ron Livingston Explain Every Choice They Made in Portraying Their Parental Relationship in Sitting in Bars With Cake in Granular Detail.” I simply must know!

Anyway, this movie was very nice and made me cry and want to cuddle my friends and call my parents. Also, the cakes are so fun. It’s on Prime Video now. —Sarah Rense

For some not-so-brisk fall reading, I recommend Rachel Cusk’s A Life’s Work, the controversial memoir by the renowned novelist about the untold intricacies of pregnancy, childbirth, and early child-rearing that was widely controversial when first published in 2001. Cusk is, generally, a master at her craft by putting to words ineffable, achingly familiar experiences and emotional truths with surgical precision. As someone who devotes a decent amount of time to covering the more unsavory aspects of pregnancy, reproduction, and how society mistreats both pregnant people and new mothers, I was drawn to the concept of the book, especially as I’ve always known I want to have kids but am increasingly nervous about what that will look like in reality.

The book doesn’t disappoint (though it certainly devastates), illuminating all the hard truths about pregnancy and early parenting that are seemingly withheld from us until we actually live these experiences ourselves. Through the medium of Cusk’s real life and intimate musings, it guides us through the complex, seemingly conflicting feelings that go hand-in-hand with pregnancy and parenting, feelings that we’re told are innately shameful and wrong. Written over 20 years ago, A Life’s Work was indisputably ahead of its time, but in a post-Roe v. Wade world, we are collectively becoming a lot more honest with ourselves and each other about what it’s really like for pregnant people, and A Life’s Work has perhaps never been more relevant. —Kylie Cheung

Mitski is back, babes!!! Last week, I took a long walk with my dog through western Atlanta and put on an early copy of her latest record The Land Is Inhospitable And So Are We. For the Makeout Creek heads, this is more of a return to the sound through which we were first introduced to Mitski so many years ago. As I wrote in July when her first single “Bug Like An Angel” premiered, Mitski’s art is a constant surprise. While the return of some ballads and acoustic guitars are a guiding light in this record, there are beautiful revelations like the gospel choir on “Bug” and the orchestra on “When Memories Snow.”

In Atlanta, the trees are still so green, and this album feels like it should be played while you’re sitting on a back porch watching the fireflies come out. It’s perfect for those liminal weeks between summer and fall. I found myself missing the synths that made Laurel Hell so much fun but don’t take that to mean I’m couching my affection. I really like Inhospitable, but I’m glad that I can revisit “The Only Heartbreaker” when I need to dance through my feelings and “I Love Me After You” when I just need to walk through them. —Caitlin Cruz

Jenna Lyons is a tastemaker. This much a new audience is learning thanks to her current stint as a Real Housewife of New York. In many ways though, Lyons is also the original influencer. Remember statement necklaces? Distressed denim paired with some kind of sequin? Such fixtures in fashion history were all her doing during her tenure at J. Crew. But, as this profile in The Cut deftly notes, there is so much more to Lyons than reality television and really fucking cool outfits.

As it turns out, the woman who dressed America is deeply relatable. Of her hesitancy to share her life with an ensemble of strange, sometimes bitchy women on national television: “Yeah, I’m fucking guarded. I’ve been fucked so many times.” On her later-in-life lesbianism: “I didn’t even know that I wasn’t myself.” And on her current mental state as scores of viewers declare her the season’s darling: “Now, I don’t feel like I’m the center of anything other than my own deep, dark thoughts.” It’s a must-read right down to its kicker (an allusion to her false eyelash line): “You’ve got to be Seen to be Loved.” —Audra Heinrichs