Watching The Oscars with your Boomer parents can always bring a unique perspective on pop culture. Sometimes, your mom will ask expected questions like, “What’s Dune 2?” And with a sip of wine and a sense of expertise, you’ll answer, “It’s a boy thing.”
Sunday nights’ Oscars’ did, at many points, feel like a boy thing in a not-great sense. it wasn’t just Adrian Brody tossing his used gum at his girl before running over his time. Twice. It wasn’t just that Kieran Culkin used his Best Supporting Actor acceptance speech to tell his wife he felt owed two additional children, (presumably carried by her.)
It was also that the “Succession” star, who can undeniably act his smirking ass off, won for a movie called “A Real Pain.” On the nose, much? But also, like, who saw that movie? Who has the time when there is so much Bravo to catch up on.
Maybe it is the case that movies are the purview of boys boys – especially heady ones. Movie Pass went out of business right around the time the “male loneliness epidemic” became a part of the zeitgeist. Coincidence? We wouldn’t bet on it.
Men tend to form friendships based on shared interests, like entertainment. Movies, like sports are a common thing to care about. They’re a way to be emotional without being emotional. See: most guy group chats.
The girlies, of course, also love them a good movie night. See: the insane record-breaking box office and general cultural mayhem over “Wicked.” Tbh this jaw-dropping Oscars opener felt a little like, well, an early climax.
Still, these types of mega-moment movies can feel like exceptions in “boy” space. The true refuge for “girls “remains reality television.
Reality TV, and historically talk shows and soaps, appeal to to societal expectations placed on women to multitask — taking care of a family, earning an income, maintaining your appearance, to name a few. Reality is easy to watch. They’re made to be on while you’re doing other shit. The girlies can prep dinner, fold laundry, wear a sheet mask, and take care of the kids (or dogs), all while keeping up with the Real Housewives and their friends’ dramas. They can talk to their irl friends about these friends. In the same way, movies allow men to connect with their buddies silently, shoulder-to-shoulder, in cold dark rooms with snacks.
Since no one knows for certain who The Oscars are named after, maybe he was just a guy who wanted to go to eat some popcorn with the boys.
Where Would You Put an Extra Hour of Sunshine?
Here we go again. Our annual return to the good place. (Or at least the night-quite-so-much-seaonal-affective-disorder-place. This Sunday, March 9, most Americans will “spring forward,” aka set our clocks ahead an hour, for entirely ambiguous reasons. The history of daylight savings time in the U.S. is over a hundred years old. Still, there is no coherent narrative on how and why this practice became widely practiced. Some historians say it was originally intended to help farmers. Or school children. Or perhaps this is all Ben Franklin’s fault.
Whoever started this shit, the policy of rolling clocks back and forth is largely unpopular. According to Reuters, 70% of Americans would like to put a stop to this clock madness. A study by Current Biology found a statistically significant increase in traffic accidents around time changes.
Multiple bills to stay permanently on one time have passed with bipartisan support the senate. Yet, bills like the recent “Sunshine Protection Act,” have thus far failed to become existing law. So we keep changing the clocks for tradition’s sake, with few of us really understanding why. This more benign version of the stone-throwing tradition in Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery” doesn’t appear to be going anywhere soon.
Part of the problem with ending daylight savings time, despite its massive unpopularity, is that there is debate over which time we should land on as the “real one.” Though people across both sides of the political aisle agree that the time change, well, sucks, part of the issue with getting rid of it has to do with deciding whether we should, as a collective, have brighter mornings or longer nights.
The Sunshine Protection Act, which may not live to see the light of day, would make daylight savings permanent. Proponents of this plan argue that permanent DST could ease symptoms for people with Seasonal Affective Disorder, or the appropriately acronymed – SAD. As NPR reports, however, a number of medical experts believe standard time – the one we do in sad season – is better for our health. Standard time is more closely modeled after the human circadian rhythm, with sunlight coming earlier in the morning.
So while we as a nation seem to be able to agree that if nothing else, we all love Dolly Parton and pizza and hate daylight savings, figuring out which timeline to stay on appears to be the roadblock to stopping this madness. Maybe we should take one redditor’s suggestion and “meet in the middle. Instead of moving the time back and forth, we should move the clocks back by 1/2 hour in the fall and then leave it alone.”
Time for Some (Bath) Bomb-Ass Weed
We love cannabis for its “Calgon, take me away,” quality. In fact, if there is anything as immediately soothing and effective at erasing a day of work bullshit as weed…it’s taking a bath. We’re pretty into combining these necessary luxuries with THC and CBD bath bombs. Soaking in a stew of cannabinoids has many benefits. Studies have shown that we can absorb THC and CBD through our skin, and that this is actually one of the safest ways to consume. Transdermal consumption gives you a less intense high. It also helps with local relief for muscle soreness and tightness. This makes a weed bath bomb a fantastic apres party for an intense run or workout class.
We’re big fans of Kush Queen’s bath bombs which are available in both THC/CBD and CBD-only versions. The Sleep bomb is scented with lavender, orange, and frankincense.
🟦 25 mg THC/25 mg CBD. Though the psychoactive effects of transdermal THC are lighter, those with a lower tolerance may want to cut the bomb in half or thirds.
Stop Trying To Make Human Hamster Wheels Happen (It’s Not Going To Happen)
Human hamster wheels (which are exactly what they sound like) date back to the early 1900s, when women would use them as sort of an analog treadmill. Unfortunately, this idea has not stayed in the past but has appeared in Oculus ads, TikToks, rise and grind culture, and game shows. Allow us to point out what a Florida man facing federal charges for attempting to cross the Atlantic Ocean in a hamster wheel learned the hard way. If you feel stuck in a circular structure that demands constant, aimless motion, you’re doing it wrong.
Even if comparing an elliptical to a hamster wheel speaks to the redundancy of regular exercise, that feeling is a cue to mix up your workouts, even if it’s too cold to touch grass. A review of 28 studies found that variety increases enjoyment and adherence to physical activity. So, instead of listening to the same podcast on the same treadmill five days a week, take a class, join a rec league for a sport, or just take your chonky dog for an extra long walk a different way than usual.
Good habits are easiest to stick to when they’re fun, and novelty will keep you off the wheel. Platforms like ClassPass, Peloton, and Aaptiv are great resources for this. Unless you’re storing food in your cheeks for later, it’s not hamster time.
Forecast: Bitcoin 83,609.48/Gold 2,888.97/If you’re nervous about flying, get a pep-talk from Josh Gondleman in his recent newsletter
Hooky is a lifestyle publication featuring affiliate links. We receive a small commission for sales made through the Amazon Associate’s Program.