What's Cool This Virgo Szn

Good morning from Tallahassee, Florida, where I’ve spent the week having an end-of-summer staycation with my family. As most trips home in adulthood do, this visit has taught me things—things like this: You’re either a “let’s talk about the situation in Afghanistan at the dinner table” family or you’re not...there is no in-between.

Now that I’m back in production mode for Season 2 of Thinking Is Cool, I’m manifesting the productivity of Taylor Swift, the hype genius of Kanye West, and as much creativity as the internet can spare. That mindset has put me on high alert for cool stuff to talk about—here’s a little bit of what I’m noodling on this week.

Oh and keep reading to learn about my new favorite bev of choice.

What’s Cool This Virgo Szn

Blurred lines. But not in the Robin Thicke way (honk if you’re astounded that that performance was eight years ago). In the musicians-turning-multimedia-creatives way.

See, I’m a very very big fan of Kacey Musgraves. I find her work to be inspiring and emotional and beautiful and somehow strong and delicate at the same time. So when Kacey announced earlier this week that she’s releasing a new album, star-crossed, on Sept. 10...I was very stoked.

But the #creator in me (I can’t find the off switch plz help) was less intrigued by her retelling of “a modern-day tragedy in three acts” than I was by the news that she’s also releasing a 50-minute star-crossed film on Paramount+ the same day the album drops.

Kacey’s director, Bardia Zeinali, said this of the film: “We wanted it to feel cinematic and epic without compromising the heart and the emotion, to feel fantastical and heightened and tell her story through the lens of art and fashion.”

All I could think: YGG. I find it so interesting that contemporary artists like Kacey Musgraves along with Beyoncé and Halsey before her (perhaps not a coincidence that they’re strong-willed women who appear not to take any sh*t from anybody) are redefining the album release. They’re expressing creativity beyond the confines of a recording studio or a three-minute music video. They’re seizing the means of creative production themselves, and hopefully profiting handsomely from it.

Though I have a lot of questions (evidenced by the screenshot below of my conversation with my dating app boyfriend you met in my dating app episode earlier this week), I applaud the creative use of a multimedia approach to the traditional (and stale) album release. Also hot people can’t text without typos.

Upon a little more thinking, I suppose the ROI (or Roi) is dual-sided: Paramount+ pays big bucks to get big content from big names to cement itself in a big streaming market. Artists like Kacey Musgraves put in a ton of upfront creative work to get that shmoney.

Okay! So that’s how my brain was working this week! Now…

Other Cool Things

1. This edition of Hung Up by Hunter Harris about a very horny Taylor Swift lyric (my favorite varietal). If you’re not a Taylor Swift fan (the door is that way) or you don’t pay for Hung Up (this is a paid edition but IMO this newsletter is worth the $$), here’s my favorite recent free edition of Hunter’s newsletter.

2. Who is the Madonna of our generation? Like whose debut record will my kids turn on when they want to impress a date with their vast knowledge of “golden” “oldies” ??

3. I’ve struggled with how to approach thinking about this tentacled geopolitical clusterf*ck happening in Afghanistan for two weeks now. This piece by Laura Jedeed was one of the first I read as US forces withdrew, and even if you disagree with her...her perspective is deeply important. I (shockingly) agree with my parents and plenty of other people that we needed to get out but simply not like this. But I’m working to think through what the “right” thing for America to do is in the aftermath. It’s got me thinking a lot about the abstract concept of American responsibility. I don’t think I’ll come to an answer/opinion anytime soon, but, hey, #buildinpublic.

4. I have never been more of a Scorpio than when I get mean, troll-y comments on my TikToks and simply cannot sleep until I respond. I am running for president on a platform of responding to your haters because they probably weren’t told they were wrong enough as a child and that’s how we got here.

Cool Sponsor of the Week

There are two types of daters: those who need a glass of wine before a first date, and those who don’t. If you’re the latter, I salute you. But I need a glass of liquid courage before I head out the door.

My go-to wine to cure those pre-first-date jitters? Massican.

You know how passionate I am about my white wine, so you know you can trust me when I say Massican is all I’ve been drinking this summer. The details:

• About $30 a bottle

• Low in alcohol

• Under 120 calories a glass

Affordable without sacrificing quality or taste. That’s a wine worth coming back to...maybe that’s why I find myself chilling a bottle of Massican’s 2020 Annia every Friday night?

Pick up a bottle of Massican today, available for purchase at www.massican.com, in fine wine shops, and in select Whole Foods nationwide this month.

That’s it! Listen to my most recent episode if you have not already. Also, I’m going live on Instagram tomorrow (Saturday) at noon eastern time to talk about the aforementioned episode on dating apps. With enough social pressure, my sister might let me audit her Hinge live on camera. Watch this space.

Have a great weekend—see you here Monday and on the ‘gram tomorrow.

XO,

Kinsey