A Saga in 5,600 Parts
The ZZ Top and ZZ plant of newsletters is surveying the splitscape and posing for a nude double portrait that will appear in next month’s Vanity Fair!
Welcome to Spreadlandia, where two veteran editors read it ALL to winnow out only the best: juicy yarns, big ideas, deeply personal essays, and hot goss—aka, the full Spread. Plus: original interviews, podcasts, and more. Come hungry!
Welcome back, Spreadlings!
Top of this morning’s Spreaditorial agenda: Should we subject you, our beloved readers, to yet more Nuzzigate? On the side of enough is enough: Our skin is a mess from all the scrubbing it takes to remove the ickiness of 51-year-old reporter, supposed grownup, and father-of-two Ryan Lizza cashing in on his revenge fantasies in paywalled Substack posts parts 1, 2, 3, and 4 and, as of tonight, this supposed backup aka “strategy memo.” Not only has Lizza attracted reporters to his front door (cue his Livvy-lookalike twentysomething girlfriend’s thoroughly staged Starbucks run), but Semafor reports (clearly via Lizza himself) that Part 1 alone got him 724,000 page views.1 (Which is amazing since everyone we know is doing everything they can to pass the story around without having to go to his site because of aforementioned ick factor.) We’re not sure how to feel about the fact that right here on Substack is unequivocally where this story is popping off, specifically because it’s a free-for-all platform, absent all fact-checking or journalistic standards, where you can say whatever the hell you want. Also, apparently, a self-sustaining mediaworld personal-PR backscratching loop: Just picturing the Substack overlords doing ecstatic donkey kicks when Nuzzi’s publisher taps Feed Me for a softball reader-submitted AMA—and then backflips when Lizza chooses the Feed Me chat to tease Part 4—sends us back to the showers for another scrubdown. (We recommend Josie Maran Sugar and Argan Oil Scrub in Bohemian Fig; a great stocking stuffer!)
On the side of let-’er-rip: Over Thanksgiving we did have a whole lot more fun armchair-analyzing the three individuals (one of whose actions, of course, have far-reaching consequences) at the center of this shitstorm than, say, doomscrolling about the demise of the planet, democracy, immigrants, women’s rights, what-have-you. Yesterday, pondering the simultaneous Dec 2 timing of the release of American Canto and the Vanity Fair Hollywood Issue—and whether editor-in-chief Mark Guaducci will simply allow Nuzzi’s VF contract to “lapse” or will have to take more immediate and more strongly worded action to save himself from being sucked down in her wake—was a way cheaper pastime than pressing “buy now” on that red-light mask we desperately need now (this story has aged us considerably—hint, hint loved ones).
Importantly, three weeks into this thing we are finally getting what we asked for. The big brains have come out to play in a series of meditations, each more scathing than the last. Do you need to read Michelle Goldberg in the Times, Molly Fischer in the New Yorker, and Helen Lewis in the Atlantic? Not unless, like us, you’re in deep. All three lament the book’s heavy dose of Didion, its overwrought language about fiery Cali sunsets, and what Goldberg calls its “grandiose postmodern pastiche.” Mostly, though, these rule-abiding journos are mad that this tell-all doesn’t tell all: In it, Nuzzi never takes responsibility for her crimes—not against her ex, but against the institution of Journalism. Not for the first time, we have to call this round for Queen Helen, who as a Brit and as the most wickedly funny writer out there, is poised to give this story what it desperately needs: scorching humor. Among her snort-inducing observations: “Journalists obviously shouldn’t sleep with their sources, although luckily most of us are so hideous, the subject simply doesn’t arise. (Once, an actor made a half-hearted pass at me at the end of an interview, but apart from anything else, it was 3 p.m. on a weekday afternoon, and I’m not an animal.)” Helen, consider this us making a wholehearted pass.
So fine, we indulged in another episode of the Nuzz. But at this point we feel about this story the way we felt about Thanksgiving dinner by 5:20 p.m. last Thursday: Please, for the love of god, no more. If Lizza is planning a Part 5 and beyond, count us out.
Our Master Cleanse (remember the Master Cleanse?!) starts now,
Rachel & Maggie
Stick around, we’re just getting warmed up! In tonight’s issue:
The next chapter in our favorite open-marriage story
Chloé Zhao’s Hamnet birth story
When did “inflammation” become public enemy No.1?
O.G. celebrity Rachel Zoe: She’s baaaack!
#MeToo: Don’t call it a comeback?
🎵“Divorce is divorce, of course, of course…” 🎵 (What? No Mr. Ed fans here?)
Nothing says “It’s the holiday season” like a fresh crop of essays about marriage and whether or not to end one. Since the start of Thanksgiving break, we’ve been treated to several; whether you find them depressing or inspiring is something of a Rorschach test. Here’s the rundown:
In Times Opinion, Spreadpal Cathi Hanauer, the woman responsible for not one but two Bitch in the House anthologies, one-ups Gwyneth and Chris by consciously uncoupling from her husband of 33 years and the father of her children. Now she’s moved back to New York City, where she lives alone! She is sleeping well! She is dating! She is still on her ex’s health insurance! Which, honestly: sexy! Rating: 📚💃🤷♀️✈️
Also in Times Opinion!! (Seriously, we’d read that they were beefing up over there but had no idea the MidLife Desk was so bumpin’!) Lizzy Goodman—another Spread pal, if you can believe it—declares Lily Allen’s post-divorce album West End Girl to be more than the definitive breakup album of the All Fours generation (no, that was us who just declared that—feels accurate, no?) but the definitive midlife crisis soundtrack for all elder millennials. Lizzy writes that Allen captures “the sense of looking back at your old life, knowing it’s gone, and finding this new one full of horrors that your younger self couldn’t even have imagined but that are also sort of mesmerizing and hilarious.” Rating: 🍷💪😜🙃🧀
In the Cut, Monica Corcoran Harel applies a modern workplace coinage to a depressing and age-old marital dynamic: “The Women Quietly Quitting Their Husbands” is just another way to frame the decision to live an emotionally separate life from one’s husband while staying married. We emerged from the piece feeling sad for our peers who are stuck, and especially for our grandmothers’ and mothers’ generations ahead of us, who felt really stuck. Rating: 💔😭🧟♀️
Must We Hate On Madeline?
The Spread equivalent of Dickens serializing Oliver Twist in Bentley’s Miscellany? Jean Garnett, popping up every now and then to drop a few more breadcrumbs about her open marriage-cum-divorce-cum-dating life. The latest installment is inspired by Lily Allen, whose relationship flame-out has attracted only slightly fewer column inches than Ms. Nuzzi’s. (See aforementioned Lizzy Goodman piece. Also, last week, one loyal Spreader sweated it out with a bunch of elder millennials at a SoulCycle class devoted to Allen’s breakup album, West End Girl.) This time, Garnett is challenging “the idea of straight open marriage as a thing done by men to women” as portrayed in Allen’s song “Madeline.” We take her point, but must confess: You can count us among the “alarming number of readers” of Garnett’s initial story—in which, as we recall, her then-husband needed sex so badly after the birth of their child that they decided to open the relationship—who were “determined to apprehend it as a story about the domesticity-destroying capacities of the male sex drive.” Yeah, that largely seemed like a thing done to her by him. Was that our bias talking, or the way it actually read?
Read “Postscript to an Open Marriage: On Lily Allen’s West End Girl” here.
Hamnet’s Other Mother
It’s been weeks since one Spreaditor saw Hamnet2 and she’s still weeping, mostly silently but with the occasional guttural crescendo, as one does. Luckily an old-fashioned profile of director Chloé Zhao by Spreader Michelle Ruiz is helping her process. The story has all the elements: gorgeous writing, solid access, evocative secondaries from the likes of Paul Mescal and Steven Spielberg, a Norman Jean Roy portrait (above) that we literally want to frame and hang, and a few surprises. The generally woo-woo Zhao, who is the second of the only three woman to ever win the Academy Award for Best Director (for Nomadland), reveals that she’s obsessed with the theater of the Oscar race, which “she likens to Halloween, a reality show, and a war zone.” The big theme of the piece, however, is motherhood. To direct a movie about a mother losing a child, as a childless person, Zhao said, required a decision: “I’m going to come in and work in a way as if I were the mother that I wish I had. When you feel like you are loved by that kind of mother, you’re not afraid to show your emotions. You’re never going to be judged. You’re seen unconditionally,” she tells Ruiz. Now on the other side, she says that for the first time in her life, she wants children of her own. “I think the reason why I have not had children is because I didn’t think I would be a good mom,” she says. “I didn’t think I could do it.”
Read it here.
A Bananas Move
We are not Bravo people or Rachel Zoe people, but we can appreciate her as a trailblazer both in reality TV and in introducing the masses to the now wildly mainstream concept of “celebrity stylist.” A dozen years since The Rachel Zoe Project wound down, Zoe is joining the cast of the Real Housewives of Beverly Hills. For the Cut, writer Louis Staples, who is becoming the journalist of record for the Housewives, spent an afternoon with her at BravoCon (it is what it sounds like) on the eve of the premiere. We’ll shut it down here.
Read “Rachel Zoe’s Homecoming” here.
Knocked Up
We don’t usually quote SmartLess around here, but we’ll make an exception for Claire Danes. On getting pregnant at 44:
“I did not foresee this at all, and it was weird. Suddenly I felt a kind of funny shame. Like I was naughty. Like I had been caught fornicating past the point I was meant to. No, it was weird, like I had discovered an edge I wasn’t quite conscious of, like I was going outside the parameters a little bit.”
In a world filled with celebs using surrogates (Are celebrity surrogates a thing? Like, you know, celebrity chefs? Now that’s a million dollar idea…), it’s almost quaint that Danes ground out the baby-havin’ old-fashioned way, no?
Listen to the full ep here.
Body News! Get Your Body News Here!
Everybody’s throwing around the word “inflammation” these days—influencers, medical professionals, Spreaditors (it’s just a feeling, you know?). But what actually is inflammation? Less clear! Erica Schwiegershausen reports on the culprit of the moment. Read it here.
In Amanda Hess’s Spread-beloved book, Second Life, she gets into the contradictions and complications inherent in the unassisted birth movement via the Free Birth Society. Now, the Guardian is out with an investigation of the group, revealing connections to infant deaths the world over. Read it here.
A new drug called zuranolone—which JLaw called out by its brand name, Zurzuvae, a few weeks back—is wildly effective in treating postpartum depression, which new data shows is quite different from other severe mood disorders. Survey says: BRING IT! Read about it in Scientific American here.
“Reports of patriarchy’s death have always been greatly exaggerated. But so, too, have reports of feminism’s.”
In the Nation, the ever reliable Katha Pollitt asks the question that’s been on many Spready minds since the Epstein emails rolled out (and for many of us, long before): How dumb do you think we are? I.e.: Are we supposed to believe that all of these captains of industry and Nobel laureates who palled around with the financier just… didn’t notice? Or is it that they didn’t care? Meanwhile, Rebecca Traister declares an end to the end of #MeToo. Despite claims that the movement overreached, and the rise of an antifeminist backlash of openly sexist men and butter-churning women, here we have Trump losing his battle to squash the emails, and there we have Larry Summers stepping down. MeToo is still alive, Traister writes, in part because things like “quiet, piggy!” keep happening. “A year after Donald Trump’s reelection, we are beset by daily reminders of why MeToo, and feminism more broadly, came to exist in the first place. And why, despite the fondest wishes of those whose authority it threatens, it is not likely to go away anytime soon.”
Read “Why Did So Many People in Epstein’s Circle Look the Other Way?” here.
Read “Me Too Forever” here.
A little back-of-the-envelope calculation. If even 10 percent of Lizza’s page views are from subscribers paying $9.99 a month, so far he’s netted $723,276. And he didn’t have to pay a single fact-checker!
Your other Spreaditor is the kind of party lady who would invite a gaggle of friends to a movie the New Yorker calls “grief porn”... to celebrate her birthday. We’ll bring the travel tissue packs! Who’s got the canned rosé?