🕺🏻 Anything I can do...

...THEY CAN DO (AND HAVE DONE) BETTER BACKWARDS AND IN HEELS 💃🏽

Happy Choose Women Wednesday!

Joke's on the Women's Entrepreneurship Day Organization, which established Choose Women Wednesday in 2014 to flip the narrative that a woman's place was in the home and not leading thriving businesses — I choose women every day of the week!

No offense to my bros, but women are generally smarter, more collaborative, wittier, smell nicer, and more pleasing to interact with in a variety of modes than their male counterparts.* #sorrynotsorry

*Don't worry, I'll still talk baseball with you guys. See, you ARE good for something!

Today is also National Lemon Cream Pie (aka Lemon Meringue Pie) Day, celebrating one of the greatest pies ever created! Fun fact: you have a woman to thank for those, too! Big ups to 19th century chef/entrepreneur Elizabeth Goodfellow of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania for that delightful treat!

*****

Alright, before we get to those links, let's take note of some famous events and birthdays from November 29ths of yore. Maybe yours! If it is, happy birthday! 

• In 1877 Thomas Edison demonstrated his phonograph for the first time

• For you futbol fans, FC Barcelona was founded on this day in 1899 by a group of Catalan, Spanish, and English players, eventually developing into one of Spanish football's most legendary teams

• The Beatles' "I Want to Hold Your Hand" was released in the UK in 1963. By February 1st 1964 it became the group's first American #1 hit.

• In 1972 Atari released Pong, considered the first commercially successful video game. Think about that for a moment! How boring life must have been in 1972 for some people that THIS blew their minds:

GIF courtesy of Atari & some poor soul over on Reddit's r/gaming who sincerely believes that Pong "holds up surprisingly well."

• Birthday lemon meringue pies all around for: Philosopher, academic, abolitionist, and women's rights advocate Amos Alcott of "being Louisa May's dad" fame (1799), novelist, poet, abolitionist, and suffragist Louisa May Alcott of Little Women and "being Amos's daughter" fame (1832), educator & politician Nellie Tayloe Ross, who was the first woman to be governor of a U.S. state (1876), famed director and choreographer Busby Berkeley (1895), British novelist, poet, and critic C.S. Lewis of The Chronicles of Narnia fame (1898), pianist & composer Billy Strayhorn of "Take the 'A' Train" and "Lush Life" fame (1915), author & poet Madeleine L'Engle of A Wrinkle In Time fame (1918), legendary Brooklyn/Los Angeles Dodgers sportscaster Vin Scully (1927), English singer-songwriter & guitarist John Mayall (1933), comedy icon Garry Shandling of The Larry Sanders Show fame (1949), filmmaker Joel Coen of "the Coen brothers" fame (1954), Canadian comedian and TV host Howie Mandel of Gremlins, St. Elsewhere, Bobby's World, and Deal or No Deal fame (1955), actor Andrew McCarthy of Pretty In Pink, St. Elmo's Fire, Less Than Zero, and Weekend At Bernie's fame (1962), actor Don Cheadle of Boogie Nights, The Ocean's Trilogy, Hotel Rwanda, and Iron Man 2 fame (1964), actress & comedian Ellen Cleghorne of Saturday Night Live fame (1965), and actor Chadwick Boseman of Black Panther and 42 fame (1976)

• Pour one out for: actress Natalie Wood of Miracle on 34th Street, Rebel Without a Cause, and West Side Story fame (d. 1981), English-American actor Cary Grant of North by Northwest, To Catch a Thief, and Father Goose fame (d. 1986), English singer-songwriter, guitarist, and producer George Harrison of "being The Quiet One in The Beatles" fame (d. 2001), and comedian Patrice O'Neal (d. 2011)

Now on to the amusing links!

*****

1. 🐈 Who needs therapy when we have cats?

Josh from Boredwalk's creator team shares his cheat code to improving his mental health, and it's adorable!

For more LOLs from our team be sure to follow us on our OG social accounts such as Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, and/or Facebook.

2. 🌶️ Sure, this fun mash-up of videographic transmogrification is cool...

...but what I REALLY want to know is where creator Nico Sobolewski got his hands on that bottle of sriracha in late 2023?!

3. ☕ WTF happened to Mary-Kate Olsen?!

She just vibrated into a higher plane of existence thanks to drinking ALL the coffee. This short form vid is a little older, but it's new to me, and Elaine Carroll really nailed this impression.

4. 🥹 These miniature dioramas are breathtakingly adorable!

Operating as A House of Wonders, crafter Caroline Dewison creates handmade miniature dioramas and teeny tiny dollhouse kits that are the most whimsical things I've seen all week (and I spent most of the weekend cuddling a sleeping cat)!

5. 🍄 No one, I think, is in Ellard DeVane's tree

As an artist I love a lot of different forms of creative work, but two in particular that — for me, anyway — go together like peanut butter & chocolate (or whichever food pairing makes YOUR taste buds sing) are psychedelia and stop motion animation. 

Visual artist Ellard DeVane successfully weds the two with his clay slicing animations, and I very much look forward to pulling up his YouTube channel next time I want throw on some Slowdive or Wand or Holy Wave tracks and space out on the couch for a spell.

*****

OK! We'll be back here in your inbox on Friday with more nonsense holidays to dissect, more notable birthdays (and maybe even some notable deathdays!) to celebrate, and more witty content in general. Until then...

Peace, love, and lemony feminism,

Matt