The Weekly Croissant: Art Hoe Roundup

Big Thief / Jacinda Ardern / Laugh Lines

Dear Croissants,

I hope June is treating you well. It is humid and stanky here in Nashville (see cartoon at the butt of this newsletter).

I wanted to share some art that I have been excited about this month! Some of these suggestions are for what I’m going to be digging into (but have yet to check out). As I always say… I’m an *aspiring* art hoe, don’t at me (couldn’t use at sign here cuz substack thought I was trying to at someone…meta [concept not company]).

The new Big Thief album has been announced, out Sept 5th! If you haven’t yet gotten into this band I suggest you start with the earlier records and work your way through… it’s a real education and you might be jarred if you start with the most recent material. It’s the kind of music where you might go from “WTF is this?” to “Holy Shit My Life is Changed” over the course of a few months.

First up, one of my political heroes, Ms. Jacinda Ardern, former Prime Minister of New Zealand, has a new book coming out about bringing kindness and empathy into positions of power. I think a lot about whether female leaders should or do employ a traditional style of leadership (by fitting into a masculine dynamic and expectation) to show that they “can,” or if it would be better to change society’s idea of what leadership could be, therefore making it OK to implement more traditionally “feminine” leadership. Grammarly says that sentence sucks and it is correct, but hopefully you understand the point. These are all generalizations of course, and I’m sure more traditionally masculine leadership styles are natural to some women and vice versa… but I think it’s interesting nonetheless.

I enjoyed reading this profile about Ardern in the New York Times and I think this idea is kind of what her book is about, although she’s not couching it in terms of gender (smart). There is also a piece about her in The New Yorker called “Why Did New Zealand Turn on Jacinda Ardern” which looks prrrrettyyyy interesting.

Speaking of the New Yorker, I finally paid up for a subscription (I consider this an Art Hoe business expense) and I found my new favorite game! It’s called Laugh Lines, and the magazine gives you 6 cartoons from the New Yorker archives, and you have to place them in chronological order. I have always been terrible at spelling so the NYT letter games give me a headache. Serve me up a cultural critique game any day (or every day as the case may be) of the week!

Alright, that’s all for this week. Remember to eat your pastries!

xo

Rachel