material girls

ALERT: THE SUN IS OUT

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

Witch, Please Productions

— 11 min read
ALERT: THE SUN IS OUT

Hey lovely people!

I can’t even believe I’m writing this: it’s April, and the sun is out in Maryland.

Over the last few months it has rained more than I ever imagined it was possible to rain, and I am finally starting to heal. The cat is in the windowsill. We are so back. I hope the sun is out where you are, and you’re throwing ass to the new Chappell Roan and/or Beyonce!

We’ll keep it short and sweet and get to the good stuff. Keep reading to see what’s new with us!

<3,

Gaby, Hannah, Marcelle, Coach, and Zoe

We were delighted to be joined by over at to discuss athleisure! We begin with a history lesson from Hannah about WWII's effect on the fashion industry, particularly women's clothing and the rise of spandex. Hannah offers some insight from cultural critic Jia Tolentino and her essay, "Athleisure, barre and kale: the tyranny of the ideal woman." We then move on to some helpful framing from theorist Michelle Foucault, sociologists Daniel Nehring and Anja Röcke, and feminist scholars Julie Brice and Holly Thorpe. We talk neoliberalism, fatphobia, and, of course, our culture's obsession with optimization.

Next up, Hannah and Marcelle talk about Disney and pinkwashing! What drove Hannah and Marcelle to go to Disneyland? And what is with all the rainbow Mickey ears? And where does pinkwashing end and real change begin? In this episode, Marcelle leads Hannah through a history of the term, and draws on an article by Karine Duplan called “Pinkwashing Policies or Insider Activism? Allyship in the LGBTIQ+ Governance–Activism Nexus,” to better understand what leads to making public spaces inclusive for queer and trans folks.

Together, Hannah and Marcelle think through their own pleasure in experiencing Disneyland, while dissecting the tension between corporations' bottom lines and the value of representation and inclusivity. Ultimately, Marcelle and Hannah consider: if pinkwashing is by necessity surface-level public image campaigning that masks ongoing harm, is Disney doing something different?

Be sure to listen to Part I of our bonus episode about Disney here, and listen to Part II by becoming a Patron at any tier.

A Message from Coach

It’s not that I don’t have other pleasures, but these days there really is no greater high than seeing our Patreon support grow in relation to the amount of work we’re putting into Witch, Please Productions.

We’re coming up on three years since I had the good fortune to join Hannah and Marcelle as a producer for Witch, Please (RIP to a real one). In that time we’ve brought on Gaby and Zoe, we’ve worked with two incredible sound engineers (shoutout Erik Magnus and Malika Gumpangkum!), we’ve worked with some brilliant scholars and cultural critics, we’ve created lots of unhinged merch (shoutout Zoe!), and we’ve established a production company that produces three shows: Material Girls, Gender Playground** and Making Worlds***.

Patreon support is the only way we make money and that means we are truly funded by listeners who care about the show(s). If you like what we do, consider joining! You’ll get so many perks, including access to the monthly video podcast Making Worlds!

Our Patreon tiers are money-themed and I personally think they're really funny.

P.S. At the $20+ tiers, you get a free mug every six months and our new ones just dropped. You have to become a supporter by end of April to get your mug!

*other than ads, but we get about a nickel for those!
**new episode out tomorrow!!!!!!!
***READ BELOW!

Okay kind of a huge update:

We promised to share Making Worlds with the public on a three month delay because while we need Patreon support to fund the show (like for real!), we don’t like keeping our work pay-walled.

That means, this month, APRIL, marks the beginning of public releases. Starting with THE PILOT about Our Flag Means Death with of which was released on our Patreon back in January. This is your official reminder that you should a) watch the episode, b) subscribe to our Youtube, c) become a Patreon supporter at any tier to support its production and catch new episodes.

Guess what else? We’re moving Gaby Recommends to our newsletter!

For those unfamiliar with team lore, I (Gaby) was an independent bookseller for many years before starting a new job in publishing (remember our episode on Goblin Mode? I work for the company that published that!). I love to recommend books, and it’s the one thing I really miss about working in indie bookselling. A few months ago, we got the idea to make Gaby Recommends a Read into a Patreon video perk and it was so fun!

However, there’s that “full time job” thing and the “editing a new show thing” and reader, I simply don’t have the bandwidth to hop in front of a camera these days and get into my little rat pose to edit. So: Gaby Recommends is coming to The Monthly Hoot! Only patrons will be able to submit their requests for a recommendation, but all our newsletter subscribers will be able to get book inspo, too (and of course, each rec will be cross-posted to Patreon).

Without further ado, here are 5 recommendations from me:

For Andrea: You said you were looking for some brain-tickling horror that evokes beauty and wonder at the same time and I simply have to recommend The Woods All Black by Lee Mandelo. It’s a small town Appalachian horror novel blended up with t4t romance that is equal parts nasty and horny. It’s easily my favorite book I’ve read so far this year, and it’s a novella so it’s short!
For Sam (we had a couple Sams, this is for the Sam who said their most recent favorite read was Down Among Sticks and Bones): I’m recommending Cold People by Tom Rob Smith, which hopefully slots in nicely with your preferred genres: sci-fi, fantasy, and novels where unprepared white men go into cold places and die. This novel follows a future world that has fallen to a mysterious, omnipotent force, and the only safe place to exist is Antarctica. It focuses on humanity and forging a new life when the worst has happened.
For Caro: I think you might enjoy Yours For the Taking by Gabrielle Korn. It’s a very queer dystopian sci-fi about what happens when the climate crisis makes what’s left of New York City unlivable, and a group of people who are accepted into an exclusive set of weather-proof structures as a way to survive. I really loved it and found it to be an excellent take-down of corporate, girlboss feminism.
For Becca: One thing I’ve got is an abundance of queer book recs, and I think you’ll love City of Laughter by Temim Fruchter, which is about four generations of Eastern European Jewish women that has a touch of magical realism and queerness. I hope you dig it!
For Jasper: You mentioned you enjoyed nonfiction that focuses on humans and our interactions with each other. Can I offer you a memoir in essays about humanity and queerness through the lens of sea creatures? How Far the Light Reaches by Sabrina Imbler is one of my favorite books ever, and I’m going to just copy and paste my Goodreads review here:

“How far does the light reach? Right into your heart. What is a life in ten sea creatures? It's sweaty bodies at a gay club, it's a swarm of queers on a beach, it's reckoning with the ugliness and the beauty of your past. It's a stranded humpback whale, it's the unrelenting pressure of the dark, it's the feeling of being "unsuspecting" in a world much bigger than you. How Far The Light Reaches is a masterclass in connection—seeking it through relationships with others, or finding it between one's human life and that of the sand striker. Sabrina Imbler balances scientific fascination with careful observation of their own experiences, and it results in something close to perfect.”
he is so me

It’s an eclectic mix this month, folks! I thought about making it all Beyoncé, but I held back. Enjoy! Get your happy little frog on!

Get your playlist on Spotify here or Apple Music here.

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.

Want to sponsor an episode of Gender Playground? Learn more here!

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.

I would like to say that I've been diving deep into the new Beyoncé or the new Kacey Musgraves but the truth of the matter is that I've been spending most of my time lately listening to a playlist I made called "Breeding like White Rabbits" which is every cover of "White Rabbit" by Jefferson Airplane that I could find. Why? Well, it feels like a good time to be returning to the Summer of Love and the surrealist and psychedelic music that accompanied a cultural moment dedicated to the rejection of norms of sexuality and gender intertwined with anti-war and anti-capitalist politics. Also it's a song about feminism and the importance of consciousness raising and also using drugs, and I like all those things! The whole playlist is here if you use Apple Music. I'm particularly partial to the bluegrass cover by Molly Tuttle & Golden Highway.
I want to tell you about a novel that literally changed my life: Ten Thousand Lovers by Edeet Ravel. I took two summer classes in 2004, the summer after my first year of university (I was in love with Montreal and ready to live a very bohemian Life of the Mind). One of these classes was my first ever class on Canadian literature, and one of the novels my professor assigned was Ravel's Ten Thousand Lovers. I have to confess that like many Canadians, I did not adequately understand what was happening in Israel and Palestine, but being in university had given me the opportunity to meet and befriend my beloved Samer, a Palestinian from Bethlehem who lived just across the hall from me in residence. So when my Canadian Literature professor assigned a novel about Israel in the 1970s, I was ready to get a grip on the history I found so overwhelming. Ten Thousand Lovers didn't exactly give me a history lesson—it's not that kind of book. It's a breathtaking cis-het romance that is ultimately about coming to understand one's own complicity in Israel's occupation of Palestine. It's about the calculated brutality of the Israeli military and the impossibility of being a "good guy" working in service of the occupation. It's about falling in love so fast that you finally understand why it's called falling. Edeet Ravel is an Israeli-Canadian novelist who writes about the occupation from an anti-Zionist Israeli perspective—a perspective I didn't even know existed until I read this book. And that is what changed my life. The novel introduced me to a complexity of Israel-Palestine that we rarely see represented in North American media: Israelis who know the occupation is immoral and who want it to end. Ten Thousand Lovers is the first of what's called Ravel's Jerusalem trilogy. I've read them all and this one is by far my favourite. I think it's out of print, so you'll have to find it used, but you must find it. It will change your life.
I have been re-watching Sex and the City this month and I'm positive it's because spring is coming, I now live in Brooklyn (so very different from early aughts Manhattan but still), and I'm 31. I don't know that I recommend anyone joining me on this journey but if you're already on it, feel free to slip into my DMs with your takes. I just got to the introduction of Aiden Shaw, so you know I'm having an absolute ball (proof here)! Also, when I’m feeling nostalgic for my youth I tune into Jesus Nalgas videos which are pretty much exact representations of my years in Chicago Public Schools.
I think it’s really important for every one of us to have a really good tried and true chocolate chip cookie recipe that we can rely on. You’ve got to be able to count on this recipe. This is the recipe you pull out on a Tuesday night when you’re feeling crumby (get it) and you really just want a comforting little cookie guy to make you feel better. For gluten free folks it’s not so easy. Either we spend an exorbitant amount of money on a box of GF cookies from the store that are sure to be hard as rocks, or we take a chance on a recipe only to end up biting into a dry sandy mess of a cookie. Well, I stumbled upon this recipe. And it’s not that sandy, guys, it’s not that sandy at all! It’s actually quite gooey and chewy and perfect!! I have made this recipe three times so far and it has come out perfect each time. The dough also freezes well. GF and non-GF folks alike will enjoy these!
I was just in New York, which convinced me that there’s actually nothing available on planet Earth that costs less than $10. But as I was getting ready this morning, mulling over what I was going to recommend, I realized: perfume samples. Did you know you can buy perfume samples for like $6, often less? If you’re trying to find Your Signature Scent, I highly recommend going to someplace like microperfumes.com or even getting a little sample pack to try out a bunch of different scents. If you ever wondered what I smell like, it’s either Jasmin et Cigarette from Etat Libre d’Orange (a Coach recommendation, thx Coach!), which is my standard these days as I splurged on a full bottle when I got a new job; Falling Into the Sea from Imaginary Authors; or Sundrunk, also from Imaginary Authors. I’m in my summer scent era, just trying to feel something. You can be a whole new person with the right kind of perfume!

Okay, bye! xoxo

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