1) The batching scale on this is off the charts. Consider me dialed down to 1 lb. of beef and pork each, respectively.

Disclosure, I haven’t read the book or seen the HBO doc yet. But goddamn, that podcast was incredible.

The Gibney documentary zooms in tight towards the end to focus on the sociocultural forces of Silicon Valley that seem to foster that fake-it-til-you-make-it mindset.

The impression I got from the Carreyrou book being that Elizabeth’s tragic flaw was getting lost in the limn between vision and delusion.

Ugh, take your damn star. Take it.

I would precisely 0.0% surprised if functional imaging were to demonstrate that loot crates trigger reward structures in the CNS and neurochemistry in a manner similar to, if not indistinguishable from gambling.

I also have a strong draw towards Yvie’s thoughtfully off-kilter aesthetic, as well. I get otherworldly, alternate-universe non-classical beauty in parallel dimensions to Katya, Milk, Betty, Sasha, Vixen, Shea.

On the marquee in the Thunderdome:

Getcher wig on.

Last set o’ Random ‘pinions for the season. Lucky you!

Funny enough, half of your list applies to just Gia Gunn alone.

To my mind, stripped down warehouse is still an aesthetic that’s associatively fixed in time and place with at least a few of those, even if it was borne of necessity and circumstance, more than choice. Even your own preferences speak closer to a matter of choice; one of non-decor, and a primacy of music over other…

Also, Manila is denied a win for this week’s challenge because she was too overbearing and kept grabbing the spotlight to be funny... but isn’t that kind of the point of this whole show?

For me, mashing the beauty pageant queen into the Barbie doll concepts kind of diluted both ideas. The latter definitely speaks to the challenge, and papers over even the slightest hint of coming for Trixie’s gig. I just wish Valentina had gone full-tilt for the styling, beyond the crotch into something like Diesel’s…

I’m hopeful that last week and tonight are the turnover in that arc. Prior to her elimination, I’d be in full agreement - only to reframe Latrice’s arc as one of complacency, at its worst.

This episode coming right on top of the telecast feels like conspicuously coincidental timing. It only extends my conspiratorial thinking that Producer Fuckery extends to time-travel wizardry.

She’s got the persona. One hopes that’s not a paper-over job for janky, baby-queen bustedness, because she seems genuinely sweet and entertainting.

I just think the critique just didn’t complete the thought. For me, the beakers and dry ice gave me more Mad Scientist Laboratory; in execution, the Black Hole felt like someone without Deep Nerd bona fides trying to project a bunch of mish-mashed sci-fi ideas, without specificity, from a place of unawareness instead…

Inviting Susanne Bartsch, I find - lampshades the implication that the brief is really more specific than a generic club scene. The Limelight Club Kids are the clear go-to inspiration, of course. But there are plenty of club scenes in other metropolises worthy of meeting that spirit. The Tranimals of LA. The…

Slipping past the velvet rope with some Random ‘pinions: