Sarah finally caved and watched Ryan Murphy’s Jeffrey Dahmer series, the second most-popular show in Netflix history. (Can you guess the first?). It was difficult viewing, if also able to inspire a kind of love for one of Dahmer’s victims. As she and Nancy discuss, the reasons to watch/not watch these shows are complicated. Is it possible to humanize victims who met a most inhumane end? Who gets to profit from misery, and what, if anything, do creators of dramatized true crime owe to those whose real lives were forever scarred? Nancy instead watched part of the Dahmer documentary, and she and Sarah compare notes on fictional vs. nonfictional tragedy. Did Alex Jones learn the meaning of “fuck around and find out”? Oh yes he did, and yet does not seem to care that he owes the parents of the children murdered at Sandy Hook nearly $1 billion. Nancy is appalled by Stewart’s much-praised interview with Arkansas AG Leslie Rutledge, Sarah misses the old Jon Stewart, and we compare Stewart’s smug “take-down” to a deeply reported, illuminating Reuters story on trans issues. We read some moving reader comments, offer our hotbox picks, and (drumroll!)… Announce our first Zoom meet-up. Wednesday, October 19 at 9pm ET. An email invitation with link will go out to paid subscribers the day before. Join us! The leaves are turning, the wind whistles down the avenue, it’s the perfect season for becoming a paid or free subscriber.Episode Notes:Chris Andrade Walks the World, and recommends Nancy do so in Buenos Aires or Lima. Thoughts?DAHMER: Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story official trailerSarah forgot to mention to her fellow Gen X-ers that Molly Ringwald is in this series, playing Dahmer’s stepmother Shari. Conversations with a Killer: The Jeffrey Dahmer Tapes official trailerConversations with a Killer: The John Wayne Gacy Tapes official trailerThe cast of Stranger Things seasons 3 and 4, pre- and post-pandemicThe People v. O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story official trailerA Father’s Story, by Lionel DahmerRichard Jenkins, who stars as Jeffery Dahmer’s father Lionel, and perhaps best known for his role in Six Feet Under (such a good show!)“Interview: Richard Jenkins: ‘If a serial killer is your son, do you stop loving him?’” by Jonathan Romney (Guardian)The Humans, upcoming film starring Richard Jenkins, official trailerRita Isbell, sister of Dahmer victim Errol Lindsey“Controversy over Netflix's Jeffrey Dahmer show has taken over social media, from TikToks 'romanticizing' his crimes to calling out its 'LGBTQ' marketing,” by Michele Theil (Insider)“Mother of Dahmer victim condemns Netflix series: ‘I don’t see how they can do that’,” by Ramon Antonio Vargas (The Guardian)“What's real and what's fiction in Netflix’s Jeffrey Dahmer series, ‘Monster,’” JR Radcliffe (Milwaukee Journal Sentinel)Photo of Robert De Niro because why not?“Alex Jones Ordered to Pay Sandy Hook Victims’ Families Nearly $1 Billion,” by Elizabeth Williamson (New York Times)Jon Stewart gives a lesson in how not to conduct an interview by acting like a self-satisfied know-it-all interviews Arkansas attorney general Leslie Rutledge about the state banning gender-affirming care for minors“As more transgender children seek medical care, families confront many unknowns,” by Chad Tehune, Robin Respaut and Michelle Conlin (Reuters)“He came out as trans. Then Texas had him investigate parents of trans kids,” by Casey Parks (Washington Post)“The Trouble with Tavistock,” by Jesse Singal (Spectator World)We Were Feminists Once by Andi ZeislerFan Art always appreciated!What’s in your hotbox? (Ed: Nice transition …)Nancy: The Information by Martin AmisSarah: Hasan Minaj: The King’s JesterOutro song: When Nancy was writing To the Bridge, the CD in her car was the soundtrack to The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, by Nick Cave and Warren Ellis. The music, and especially “Rather Lovely Thing,” was plaintive and seemed not of this world, a sort of musical representation of the story she was writing about a murdered child. She listened to it at least 400 times, until the CD disappeared. Now she listens to it on Spotify.Break the fourth wall and join us on Zoom this Wednesday, October 19, at 9pm. The fun begins when you become a paid subscriber This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit smokeempodcast.substack.com/subscribe

We talk men: They’re falling behind in school, crunched (or checked out) in the labor market, confused about their purpose. Not all men (of course, of course). But signs point toward what we in the media are calling “a masculinity crisis,” a landscape explored in two new books, Richard Reeves’ Of Boys and Men and Nicholas Eberstadt’s post-pandemic update of Men Without Work.How did the pandemic hit men? Why do men struggle to make friends? Are there too many women teachers? (And is calling your teacher “Miss” a regional thing?) Should we be red-shirting boys by starting them a year later in school so their brain development can catch up, or should society maybe just stop telling them we don’t need them? A little kindness and appreciation might go a long way.Also on the docket: The NYU organic chemistry professor fired for being too hard, and Sarah sounds off on the magical thinking toward middle-aged celebrities and their pregnancies (but also, we’re sincerely happy for Hilary Swank). This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit smokeempodcast.substack.com/subscribe

The NC-17 Blonde has hit Netflix, and boy, are people fired up (“necrophiliac entertainment” wrote Manohla Dargis at NYT). At nearly three hours, the fictionalized version of Marilyn Monroe’s life is tough to watch — unrelentingly bleak, a bit disjointed, with a camera that can be as vulturous as the vultures it critiques — but damn if that movie didn’t haunt us both, and Ana de Armas gives an incandescent performance that has both of us thinking of cutting and bleaching our hair (which Sarah promised to do if we get enough paid subscribers). We talk about the fame trap, whether the film is “anti-abortion,” and if Hollywood will ever stop feeding on Marilyn’s corpse. The fame trap came for Anthony Bourdain, the restless wanderer and beloved chef who gets the unauthorized biography treatment later this month with Down and Out in Paradise. How did the man generally regarded as having the best job in the world end up taking his own life? Can a book sourced only by the people left behind by “the Tony train” possibly give a full account? We talk addiction, how journalism can turn ghoulish, and the very complicated figure of Asia Argento.A kiss on the hand may be quite continental, but don’t you think it’s better to become a free or paid subscriber?Episode Notes:Friday Night Lights on Hulu and Bloodline on NetflixGratuitous photos of Kyle Chandler and Taylor Kitsch (Ed: What is this, Tiger Beat? NR: Hush! Dibs on Chandler. SH: Fine, he’s yours. Tim Riggins, let me fix you.)Blonde official trailerMarilyn, by Gloria SteinemBaz Lurhmann’s ELVIS (2022) and Elvis Presley: The Searcher (2018)“‘Blonde,’ ‘Elvis’ and the challenge of telling the truth about icons,” by Sonny Bunch (Washington Post)“What’s Fact and What’s Fiction in Blonde, Netflix’s Marilyn Monroe Biopic,” by Ellin Stein (Slate)“Intentional or Not, Blonde Has an Anti-Abortion Message,” by Tess Garcia (Glamour)Bobby Cannavale in The Station Agent, a really good little movie…… and Boardwalk Empire, a great series“The Last Painful Days of Anthony Bourdain,” by Kim Severson (New York Times)“Author Responds to Family’s Unrest Over Controversial New Anthony Bourdain Book,” by Nardine Saad (Los Angeles Times)Down and Out in Paradise: The Life of Anthony Bourdain, by Charles LeerhsenRoadrunner: A Film About Anthony BourdainKitchen Confidential Updated Edition: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly, by Anthony Bourdain“Asia Argento’s Time is Up,” by Nancy Rommelmann (Reason)Chef Reactions will bring you joy with more than a little of that Bourdain vibeWhat’s in your hotbox?Nancy: Dr. Loretta Intense Replenishing Serum, available widely and at Heyday, and Arcana Holocene Intense Lipid Repair Balm, at Beauty Heroes for a very good price!Sarah: The Elton John double-album “Goodbye Yellow Brick Road” (Spotify)Outro song: “Love Lies Bleeding” by Elton JohnDon’t let the sun go down on you before you become a free or paid subscriber.To commemorate the 1973 double album Yellow Brick Road, Nancy went looking for a teen pic of herself in Seventies garb but instead found one in which she appears to be dressed in someone’s shower curtain. Sarah found a pic of herself dressed the way a 15 year old in 1990 thinks people looked in the Seventies. This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit smokeempodcast.substack.com/subscribe

Sarah interrupts Madame Nancy in the middle of a seance, but hey, no better time for a podcast. After a brief discussion of their top five liquids (inspired by a recent interview with Malcolm Gladwell), they turn toward a 4000-word New York Times story about how Russian trolls might have influenced the implosion of the Women’s March. Nancy thinks the story whitewashes the leaders’ excesses and prejudices, particularly the anti-semitism of Linda Sarsour. Sarah finds the prospect of outside forces stoking civic discord legitimately worrisome, but both agree the Women’s March fell apart because of in-fighting over ideology, money, and mismanagement. We turn toward a story in the Atlantic that argues against sex segregation in sports, making some head-scratching assertions about girls’ ability to compete with boys. Sarah thinks it’s yet another failure to balance equal opportunity with biological difference, while Nancy points out that even Serena Williams admitted to David Letterman she’d lose every game to tennis champ Andy Murray since men were faster and stronger — none of which makes women inherently inferior, since women have other assets. Have we mentioned we love breasts? In the hot box this week: Crying in H Mart, a memoir that explores a complicated mother-daughter relationship and how food connects us, and Michael Moynihan chatting with Andy Warhol’s right-hand man, Bob Colacello. This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit smokeempodcast.substack.com/subscribe

Nancy Rommelmann was fortunate, through accident and the fog of war, to stay with Oksana Hutnyk and her family in Lviv, Ukraine this past March, two weeks after Russian forces invaded the country. Now, in mid-September, Oksana and her daughters, ages 13 and 7, have received special permission to leave Ukraine and visit America. First stop: Nancy's cramped apartment in NYC, where Oksana has a chance talk about why Ukraine banded together so quickly to fight Russia (hint: super-not interested to again live under a murderous Communist regime), why Ukrainian schoolchildren draw chalk pictures of "dead Putin," and what up with all the Boris Johnson adulation?Episode notes:"Dispatch from Ukraine: the Hutnyks of Lviv," by Nancy Rommelmann (Reason)  "Dispatch From Ukraine: Living as a Russian in Ukraine," by Nancy Rommelmann (Reason)"Dispatch From Ukraine: 'Let's Go. Let's Not Go.'" by Nancy Rommelmann (Reason) This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit smokeempodcast.substack.com/subscribe

Nancy’s reporting from Portland, where tragedy struck after a man accused of domestic abuse was bailed out by an activist organization. Sarah’s reporting from her couch, where the Emmys forced her to sit through a women-pooping commercial not once but three times. They discuss the glory of Sheryl Lee Ralph bursting into song and how Jimmy Kimmel’s gag went wrong. Is “White Lotus” worth watching? Did everyone but Sarah know that Matthew McFayden, aka Tom on “Succession,” was British? And can Ricky Gervais just host all future award ceremonies, please?We turn to the dust-up at Oberlin College, where an altercation at a beloved local bakery exploded into accusations of racial profiling and protests that cratered a family business. The resulting court case led to a $36 million fine for the college, which has not paid a dime — until now. We wonder if cases like this will make administrators think twice before jumping into the fray, and we notice how enclaves of privilege often protest the loudest about other people’s privilege. In the hot box this week: Nancy praises the genius who made “Pet Sounds,” while Sarah tries to decode the sounds of her pet. This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit smokeempodcast.substack.com/subscribe

It was hard to be a person on the Internet last week without getting sucked into the sordid drama of Don’t Worry Darling, whose premiere at the Venice Film Festival brought a carpet-bombing of memes and gossip and online buffoonery that proved just how badly we all needed a collective experience. The psychological thriller, directed by Olivia Wilde, got middling reviews but captivated the masses with backstage feuds, both real and imagined (“Q’Anon for very online people” as one Twitter user called it), culminating in SpitGate, in which Harry Styles may have spit on co-star Chris Pine, who may have also just discovered his sunglasses between his thighs at the moment Styles sat down. Gossip rags used to generate this kind of melodrama, but now we the people are the National Enquirer. Internet drama is the subject of our next discussion, as we look at a sad dust-up at Arizona State University, yet another tale in which a low-stakes but racially charged moment turns into a culture-war flashpoint that rattles young lives. This week’s New York Times magazine has a nuanced portrait of the controversy by ASU professor Sarah Viren, who experienced her own nightmare a few years ago when her partner, another ASU professor, was falsely accused of sexual harassment, which she unfolds in a different (but also riveting) NYT mag story.Also discussed: Is the publishing industry broken? What’s in the hot box? And lastly, a coda: We started this episode speaking of an ailing Queen Elizabeth, but as we write these episode notes, we wish her Godspeed. Elizabeth Alexandra Mary Windsor, Elizabeth II, died Sept. 7, 2022, at the age of 96. Her reign of 70 years and 214 days was the longest of any British monarch; she ruled for one-third of the time America has been a country, and during some of the 20th centuries most trying times. We can only hope some of you have met Brits who lived in London during WWII, who developed a tenacity and even keel that puts the truth (is that an expression?) to Keep Calm and Carry On, the slogan on the motivational posters in 1939, when Britain was threatened with massive air attacks. British friends sometimes refer to Elizabeth as “our dear queen,” a fealty Americans do not come by honestly, but we can pause and remember a figure whose like we will not see again This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit smokeempodcast.substack.com/subscribe

Mikhail Gorbachev’s passing reminds Sarah of one of the strangest assignments of her career: Interviewing the man who presided over the end of the Cold War … about his luggage. Meanwhile, Nancy is apoplectic about an uptick in Portland violence, including a tragic and preventable murder over the weekend.But the crux of this week’s episode is “Untold: The Girlfriend Who Didn’t Exist,” a two-hour Netflix documentary about the Manti Te’o catfishing scandal that hijacked the college linebacker’s career and reputation. This was one hell of a hoax, raising questions about con artists, our capacity for belief, and love in the age of social media. Nancy sees similarities in literary hoax JT Leroy. Sarah sees similarities in that dude from OKCupid who kept her on the phone for hours but canceled every date. Also discussed: A NYT opinion column on “the myth of maternal instinct” that places ideology over biological realities. Recommendations from the Hot Box include a podcast combining hair metal and CIA intrigue as well as a great book on the writing life, but Sarah’s ill-fated attempt to share an inspiring quote from that book includes the phrase “know your bone,” which goes over as expected ... This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit smokeempodcast.substack.com/subscribe

Adventures in failing to become a movie star, from chocolate "blood" squirted onto peignoirs to having a Times Square "agent" ask me to stand on his chest. Next chapter of my book, FORTY BUCKS AND A DREAM: STORIES OF LOS ANGELES, being published on Substack This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit smokeempodcast.substack.com/subscribe

Linda Evangelista’s appearance on the cover of British Vogue sparks controversy over beauty and fantasy. The ladies discuss "quiet quitting": Is it good, bad, a sign of progress, not a story at all? Is "House of Dragons" worth it? And how did Andrew Dice Clay get memory-holed? This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit smokeempodcast.substack.com/subscribe