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High interest on Laura’s beat being irrelevance. I’m sold on the investigative journalism piece about celebrity impersonators. Also bringing back the piece about TGIF’s unlimited appetizers for 24 hours. I remember reading that piece, standing on a full bus and being engrossed the entire time and needing to finish reading it all in one go. There IS an audience out there for this content!

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I feel like the best of tiktok revived the irrelevant/peripheral in a way that is so easily eroded by its institutionalization/movement towards the centre. Escapism is almost reductionist of a description in my opinion, there's something profoundly liberating in it. My niche interest is a remarkable beach house (https://youtu.be/1ufqPAhy4YQ) by architects RV and Denise Scott Brown which was filled with 'vacation house' furniture, whose sort of nondescript, non performative generic ease promised a kind of liberation (come to think of it this remind me of a piece you wrote about weekend clothes). The flip side of this is, for me, the guilt that's hard to dissociate from it, which makes it ultimately supremely relevant..(sorry)

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Solo Paris trip...so Frances Ha of you Haley

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I feel like.... Laura would be thrilled by the existence of Dollywood??

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You feel correctly! I haven’t been but I must ride the Dollywood Express.

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!i kept waiting for this to come up when yall were talking on relevancy / irrelevancy / loony tunes

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.them.us/story/bugs-bunny-usps-stamps-drag/amp

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I share Laura's interest in impersonators! When I was a kid, one of the highlights of the holiday season was driving past "the Elvis house" with my parents. The house belonged to a locally famous Elvis impersonator in NJ who decorated his mansion and huge property with an insane amount of Christmas lights, decorations, and animatronics. There was a giant TCB light display with lightning bolts next to his pond (he had a pond!). Cars would be lined up down his block throughout the winter. One day, probably more than a decade ago, the lights just weren't there anymore. So many unanswered questions.

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Omg what happened to him....we need someone on the case!

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I had to research. Seems it cost $200 per night and just became too much for the 62 year old owner in 2007. He said he would light it up again but never did. https://www.nj.com/news/2008/12/dismal_economy_dims_holiday_ch.html

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Thank you for this! I was beginning to think it was a figment of my childhood imagination.

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OMG. Totally forgot about this place. We drove by every year as well. The local news didn’t cover his sudden departure? Jeez, now i’m curious too.

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Don’t you think the perspective that Biden isn’t that different than Trump is incredibly privileged? Surely he isn’t as liberal as Warren or Bernie but he’s faaaaar from Trump.

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November 19, 2020
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Will have to look up cleanness, thank you! Also those parts are Dickies!

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