PicoBlog

[Some spoilers for Barbie ahead] I saw Greta Gerwig’s Barbie movie this weekend with my 8-year old daughter. I cackled during the Kens’ Battle of the Beach, I cried during the mom-tage, and walked away feeling both entertained and inspired. As someone who studies romance novels, mass-produced media marketed primarily to women, I’m not surprised that a movie based on a mass-produced toy marketed primarily to girls is a summer blockbuster, especially given the multi-generational opportunity for nostalgia.

That's what the film says, but was it really true? Not exactly. In real life, Ruth Handler, the author of Barbie and founder and CEO of Mattel, was convicted in the 1970s of twice inflating the company's sales figures to the SEC (Securities and Exchange Commission) in order to artificially inflate Mattel's share price. The film also says she had 'tax evasion issues'. If it is mentioned even twice in the film, I still have to dig deeper.

Robert Leonard and I teamed up to bring you a conversation with Austin Frerick, an author whose book is being released this week. This work could change how readers view what is happening all around us. As Bob said in his introduction to Austin, the author doesn’t just offer facts and data about the consolidation of the food industry; he tells stories about families and how they came to, for example, be able to invest $300,000 in an Iowa gubernatorial race.

I know a lot of people who refuse to see The Flash. Back in February, when I popped the new trailer into a group chat with some of my fellow nerds, observing that DC might actually ‘stick the landing on this one,’ the thread quickly turned to how the studio should have fired Ezra Miller long ago. (I mean, they took nearly a decade to make this movie, so something could have been done.

It’s with great pleasure and joy I bring to y’all one of the two great pillars of my musical life… BARRY WHITE! Obviously that’s White in the above photo and he is surrounded by Love Unlimited (from left to right: Glodean White, Diane Taylor, and Linda James). You can’t talk about Barry White without Love Unlimited. And you can’t talk about either without the Love Unlimited Orchestra. It’s a three-for-one deal since they were all over the work of the others.

Just a few days ago, Cecil Cooper celebrated his 74th birthday. The occasion brought to mind the trade that involved him in 1976, as the Red Sox sent him to Milwaukee in exchange for the clearly-over-the-hill George Scott and the remnants of Bernie Carbo’s once-promising career. It was the latest in a series of troubling trades the Red Sox made in the 19… ncG1vNJzZmiokaq5pcPHoqueZqOqr7TAwJyiZ5ufonyxe8Gaqp6akaG5br7EppymmpWnwG6vxJygpWWTpLyxsdE%3D

Issue #28 Hall of Famer Roberto Clemente played for the Pittsburgh Pirates from 1955 to 1972, winning four batting titles, 12 Gold Gloves, two World Series, and an MVP award. It was 50 years ago that Clemente died at the age of 38 in a plane crash shortly after takeoff, while attempting to deliver aid to earthquake victims in Nicaragua on New Year’s Eve in 1972. Today is Roberto Clemente Day.

It seems Forbes decided to doxx the identity of e/acc founder Based Beff Jezos. They did so using voice matching software. Given Jezos is owning it given that it happened, rather than hoping it all goes away, and people are talking about him, this seems like a good time to cover this ‘Beff Jezos’ character and create a reference point for if he continues to come up later. If that is not relevant to your interests, you can and should skip this one.

Movie rating: 3/10 I gained a new appreciation for professional film critics watching BASEketball. Sure, they get to write about movies for a living, but they also have to sit through a lot of bad movies. The more films you watch, the more aware you become of recurring formulas, tropes, and clichés. BASEketball has a handful of laugh-out-loud moments, but doesn’t live up to the potential of its premise. The dominant impression wasn’t of the parts that work—there are some genuinely funny moments—but the generic, cookie-cutter product that is the film as a whole.