Read this, then log off
Plus, baby animals galore!!
Welcome back to Engagement Party, the newsletter companion to the pop culture podcast hosted by BFFs Audie Cornish and Ari Shapiro. This week, the A-Team dished on dating with sexpert and screenwriter Karley Sciortino. (Watch or listen here!) I’m gonna take some sage advice Karley shared on the pod and log OFF.
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My sun-worshipping dog. I think he looks like Albert Einstein sticking his little tongue out. (Scottie Andrew)
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When four people separately give you the same piece of advice, all within a day, it’s best to just take it. This week, their guidance was easy to heed: GO OUTSIDE!!
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So much of my day is spent wading through internet detritus (useful work, I tell myself, just part of the job) that I end up interacting with the online personas people project more than the thinking, breathing humans beneath. NOT SO this weekend. I WILL leave my phone at home. I will NOT read the comments of a CNN video I’m in. But I WILL meet my best friends’ baby. I WILL bake a cake and cross my fingers that it’s edible. I will NOT watch YouTube videos while I brush my teeth. I WILL wear sunscreen.
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This Labor Day weekend, I’m doing the important work of LIVING. Join me. Toss your phone into the sea! But first, please finish reading this newsletter. THEN log off.
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Sponsored Content by FinanceBuzz
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I’m devoting the entire weekend to touching grass, so enjoy some dispatches from the animal world, where the creatures keep it real.
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Koala cuddle puddle. (Joel Sartore/National Geographic Photo Ark)
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Links some more, links galore!
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Scroll with me before we chuck our phones into the nearest body of water. We can dump them in rice on Tuesday.
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- Taylor Swift’s “alleged” dog is CONFIRMED. She’s a fluffy Samoyed named Wendy. No word on how Swift’s cats, Meredith and Olivia, are taking to their new sibling.
- The John Galliano Met Gala is off. Fashion critic Robin Givhan made the case for what the Met’s Costume Institute could’ve done instead of canceling.
- Gloria Steinem and Dolly Parton led impactful lives without children.
- A Staten Island man was struck by lightning and LIVED. He walked away with no burns, no organ damage, just an unbelievable fun fact to use at corporate functions.
- It’s been a quarter of a century since Britney Spears danced with a snake at the MTV VMAs. What happened to Banana, her Burmese python costar? Last we heard, in 2016, Banana had doubled in length — 14 feet!! — and weighed 100 pounds. She’d be a senior snake today, in her late 20s!
- Also turning 25 this week: “The Corrections,” Jonathan Franzen’s breakthrough family epic. A.O. Scott wrote an interactive ode to its mystifying opening paragraph. If you haven’t read this doorstop of a novel, please do, then come back so we can talk about Denise.
- In this week’s episode of “Cut Right to It,” I twist my face into a shape so inhuman and horrible that I cannot share a still here (but if you’d like to participate in my public humiliation, you can find it on CNN’s Instagram).
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Sponsored Content by FinanceBuzz
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Eight legal ways to pay off debt like the rich (most people ignore #6) |
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Brought to you by CNN Underscored
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Hairstylists love Kérastase’s hair oils, so we put them to the test
Oil, in most of its forms, gets a bad rap, but hair oil helps deliver softness, shine and hydration to your locks, and it’s especially great if you have dry or frizzy hair. We’ve heard a lot about the brand Kérastase, so our staff spent three weeks testing its line of hair oils on a variety of different hair textures.
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