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Helen C's avatar

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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obsidian paid's avatar

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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Rabbit Rabbit's avatar

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

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Becca Rose's avatar

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

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Laura Bannister's avatar

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

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chen's avatar

!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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Jaclyn's avatar

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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Haley Nahman's avatar

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

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BK's avatar

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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Jaclyn's avatar

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

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BK's avatar

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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BK's avatar

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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Nov 19, 2020
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Haley Nahman's avatar

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

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