542. Recs and Reality TV with Shana and Maya

[music]

Sarah Wendell: Hello and welcome to episode number 542 of Smart Podcast, Trashy Books. I’m Sarah Wendell, and today Shana and Maya are joining me to talk about the books that rocked their world, and because Shana was reading Seressia Glass’s The Love Con, we take a nice detour into what we would do if we were in charge of some reality television shows. From the Bake Off to Project Runway, we have some thoughts. Thank you to Maya and Shana. Do not worry; all of the books we talk about will be in the show notes at smartbitchestrashybooks.com/podcast.

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All right! Are you ready for books, recs, and reality TV? On with my conversation with Shana and Maya.

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Maya: My name is Maya, I live in Los Angeles, and I am a lawyer today. I am, like, ready and willing to quit sort of, you know. [Laughs] Every week I’m like, is this my last week? And so, yeah, I’m an attorney.

Shana: I’m Shana, and I’m also in California. I’m a Social Work graduate student, and I am a social justice consultant, and I like both of those things, but that was a hard-won shift – [laughs] – ‘cause this time last year I could not have said that.

Sarah: So what’s different this year?

Shana: Well, you know, I left my nonprofit job that fit all the stereotypes of things that are annoying about nonprofit jobs, and I started grad school just a few months ago, and I started consulting, so then I just get to work with people I want to work with. [Laughs] It’s amazing!

Sarah: That’s fabulous. Congratulations! I worked in many, many nonprofits before my last job, before I quit – nonprofits are a special kind of dysfunction, aren’t they?

Shana: I have a lot of love, but, you know, as the consultant then you just get to support people. Like, you come in and you’re like, here’s another way of being! You, like, get really excited, you help them, like, do what they want to do and be better, hopefully, and then you leave so that if they don’t do it, you’re not emotionally invested in that –

Sarah: Yep!

Shana: – ‘cause you’re – [laughs] – doing something else!

Sarah: You are done! Yeah, I worked at one of those nonprofits where there was an entire corps of volunteers who were the leadership, and so you had staff who were paid and then volunteers who were, like, assigned to each division, and they’re volunteers, so you can’t, like, really tell them what to do, but some of them have absolutely no expertise in the divisions in which they were put. But you had to listen to them ‘cause they were the volunteers and they were in charge. It was not a good system. It’s the same reason I dislike the idea of, like, CEOs of nonprofit not taking a salary? All right, first of all, that’s, that sends so many complicated messages that are deeply disrespectful to your staff – but anyway, enough about nonprofit nonsense.

Shana –

Shana: Okay, ‘cause I was about to dig into that!

Sarah: Yeah, really! Go ahead!

[Laughter]

Sarah: Go ahead! I would love to hear your take on this ‘cause, you know. My, my in-laws came from the same nonprofit world and they’re like, what do you mean? It was great! And I was like, are you high?

Shana: Like, who can do that job? The kind of people who can do a job where you don’t get paid are the kind of people you don’t want, usually, like – [laughs] – running your nonprofit!

Sarah: Nope.

Shana: If you have the amount of privilege or family wealth or you married an oil baron, like, is that really the person who’s necessarily going to have the most information and knowledge about the work of your nonprofit? Unlikely, unless the job is to dismantle the, like, fossil fuel system.

Sarah: [Laughs] I, I get the idea of having very high-placed executives in nonprofits who have the social connections with which to fundraise? Like, I understand the value of that, although, of course, that sets up the idea that wealthy altruism is the source of our social network in America, which is not great.

Shana: No! And yet the foundation of so many historical romances.

Sarah: Oh my God, I never thought of that, but you’re so right! Oh my goodness!

Shana: Oh no, I just made it sad to read your problematic faves again! [Laughs]

Sarah: Ah, I was already sad. I have a real hard time with Har-, with, I have a really hard time with, with historicals right now. I mean, certain historicals, specifically the Regency? Like, I can’t, I can’t visit there for a little while. No. We’re going, we’re going to leave that be.

Shana: [Laughs]

Sarah: All right, so Shana, what are your holiday wishes for everyone?

Shana: Ohhh, well, my holiday wishes are that people get the book that they want for the holiday of their choice, that they have the time to read it and no one bothers them, and a delicious hot drink of their choice while they’re reading, and a book that has an emotionally satisfying ending and definitely not a cliffhanger.

Sarah: I love not getting a cliffhanger, thank you.

Shana: Yep!

Sarah: Maya, what about you? What are your holiday wishes for everyone?

Maya: Healthy boundaries!

Sarah: Aw! I love those!

Maya: [Laughs] Being able, ‘cause holiday time is like a lot of togetherness, and some of us are very aggressive introverts who just – and, like, very happily an introvert that needs, like, peace and quiet, and that is sometimes hard to get during the holidays, and so I hope everyone can, like, get the amount of time that they need with family and then the amount of time they need without family, because that’s how you have a really great holiday, is how I feel about it.

Sarah: Oh, gosh. Healthy boundaries. Healthy boundaries are very important; I agree with you.

So what is a book that made you really happy this year? Maya, let’s start with you.

Maya: The Heretic Royal by G. A. Aiken! Yaaay!

Sarah: Oh, that’s such a good choice!

Maya: [Laughs] It comes out at the end of December, but it’s always beautiful chaos with those books, and, like, you know, people getting murdered that totally have it coming, and so I just love all of it? In this book the, like, love interest is this centaur who is the Grudge Holder for his, his clan, and I identify very deeply with, like, that sort of like holding grudges for, in his case for his people for, like, thousands of years? And so I just, like, loved it? Like, it was just like, yes! Am I my people’s Grudge Holder? I might be. I kind of want to be that now. But yeah, so, you know, G. A. Aiken all the time.

Sarah: I love the idea of codifying the Grudge Holder as a role in a society.

Maya: Yeah. Love it.

Sarah: Like –

Maya: Like, just like, it was in there and I was like, of course!

Sarah: My mind is blown.

Maya: Right?

Sarah: Of course!

Maya: Yes.

Sarah: Of course you always need that one friend in the friend group who’s like, does, is this person – ? Yes, that person is trash. Let me give you a chapter and verse history of what they are trash for. Yeah. Absolutely.

Maya: When I worked in local politics –

Sarah: Oh God!

Maya: – for a city councilor in Baltimore, I was the Grudge Holder for the office? Like, I, that was my job was to be like, this is my list, and these people do not get what they want, and I was also, like, his scheduler, right, so, like, being the Grudge Holder was actually, I was perfectly placed to be the – [laughs] – to be the Grudge Holder, ‘cause it was like people had to go past me to see the elected, and so, so I was, at one point, that was part of my job was to be the Grudge Holder, and so yeah. I was good at it!

Shana: I love that!

Maya: Yeah.

Shana: That is such an important skill, too, and it’s not a skill I have? So I feel like it’s so important to have that, like, in your circle and in your squad, because I’ll forget! I’ll feel like, oh, maybe that wasn’t that bad, what that person did, and you really need the Grudge Keeper to say, no.

Sarah: No.

Shana: We don’t talk to them? [Laughs]

Sarah: No. They were harmful to you.

Shana: We don’t let them in. [Laughs]

Sarah: You’re lucky I haven’t burnt their car.

[Laughter]

Maya: Yeah. Like, you’re just lucky that they’re just a name on a list on the wall –

Sarah: Yeah.

Maya: – that is, like, codenames. They’re just lucky that that is who they are. That’s what we had in my office, was just – [laughs] – we had a list of codenames on the wall. People would walk by and they’d be like, what’s all that? It was like, don’t worry about it.

Sarah: Yeah, don’t worry about that. You don’t need to know.

[Laughter]

Sarah: I don’t always remember the specifics, but I always remember the feeling? Like, oh –

Maya: Yeah.

Sarah: – you’re, you’re giving me a not-good feeling. Did we have a problem? And I can’t ask them! Like, are you a tool? Is that why I think you’re a tool right now? Are you actually a tool, or am I just having a bad day? But whoever it is that I know in that group, they’re like, nonononononononono, that person, that person is very, very wrong for many, many reasons. It’s a very important role!

Maya: Yeah.

Sarah: Especially with –

Shana: You’re actually asking, like, do I hate you? ‘Cause I would be really curious how people respond to that! [Laughs]

Sarah: Sorry, I’m not getting a good vibe from you. Are you a schmuck? Or am I a schmuck? Maybe it’s me; it could be me!

I also love that G. A. Aiken, with this series, is basically demonstrating how much better Game of Thrones could have been?

Maya: I mean –

Shana: Okay.

Maya: – and she ties in her, like, previous series, so, like, it becomes a very explicit, like, tie-in to the, the dragon series she had? And I was just so excited that everybody got to come back that I then immediately started over at the beginning of the dragon series, ‘cause I was like, we’re hanging out with these folks again; like, I need to get reacquainted. Happily so; my library has all the books, so, you know, I just get to read them all over again, and so, yeah, it was great to be like, yay! It’s like Annwyl the Bloody is back; she likes to read books and then she’s always covered in the blood of her enemies. Like, those are two things I identify very deeply with, and so it’s just, it’s been, I just really enjoyed that book, that it came out and I was like, oh, it’s here! I’m so excited. Yeah, so good.

Sarah: What a good recommendation, especially because books that are released at the end of the year, they count as the current year’s books, but they don’t get a lot of attention ‘cause everyone’s looking ahead or looking at the big, the Big Holiday Book. That is such a great rec. And I can’t read a lot of this series ‘cause I can’t put too much violence in my brain at the moment, but when I am in the mood for absolute, like, limb to limb just tearing apart destruction, I love G. A. Aiken’s books for that.

Maya: Yes.

Sarah: Especially because the people who need to get it, get it.

Maya: Yeah.

Sarah: It’s very satisfying.

Maya: There’s no moral conflict there. You’re like, absolutely, please rip their lungs out. I would really like that to happen now. And then it happens, and everything’s amazing!

Sarah: The dragon ate the bad guy? Oh, that’s hot! [Laughs]

Maya: Yeah.

Sarah: Shana, what about you? What is a book that rocked your world this year?

Shana: Well, it’s funny that you mentioned books that come out at the end of the year, ‘cause I think that for me it was The Love Con by Seressia Glass, which came out in December 2021, but I, you know, with all the holiday stuff, missed it, and I didn’t read it until this year. But I loved it! Like, it’s a contemporary romance; it’s about cosplay, which I love, and it’s a reality show setting, and I also love reading about reality shows I think even more than watching them?

Sarah: Really!

Shana: ‘Cause I feel like the reality shows in romances are usually like what I wish was on television. So, like, this one, this show is called Cosplay or No Way I think? And it’s kind of like Project Runway but for cosplay, and I would watch this show! [Laughs]

Sarah: What a great show! [Gasps] I don’t even like reality TV and I would watch the shit out of that!

Shana: Right? Right, there’s, like, glue gun drama that – [laughs] – that happens. Like, it’s fun. And the show kind of, or the, the book starts like near the finale, so, like, the, it’s very much like Project Runway where the characters go home and have to make the last, like, project at home, so there’s a, you get to kind of see the drama with their own lives.

And the main character Kenya is just, like, such a lovely character. She knows she’s really good at it. She’s a fat Black woman who’s very, like, intentional about understanding how she’s treated on the show and, like, how she’s represented and villainized on the show, so there’s a lot of, like, critique about, you know, how Black women are treated on reality television which is kind of like woven through in this, like, smart, fun way, you know, because she is so self-aware of it, and she ends up doing a fake relationship because she feels the pressure from the evil judge. There’s always that one judge – [laughs] – who, you know, makes comments about, like, you know, her size and how she probably couldn’t date anyone, and so she says that she has a partner, but it is, in fact, her best friend. So then she has to go home and have a fake relationship with him while they’re being filmed for the cameras, and of course it’s fine! Because he’s in love with her and has been this whole time, and it’s just, they’re so cute, and he’s adorable, and then they make costumes and – yeah, I love it. It made me really happy.

Sarah: I love that! Isn’t it great, though, when you read a book and you know, oh, this author is deeply fluent in this world and also sees all of the things that are wrong with it?

Shana: Totally. You could really tell that, like, this is the lifetime of, like, analyzing reality TV shows, which I do too, so I felt so seen! Yeah, it was great, and I listened to it on audiobook –

Sarah: Ooh!

Shana: – which, and the audiobook narrator was on point.

Sarah: Really!

Shana: Really good. And I don’t, I’m not a great audiobook listener. I often, like, get frustrated halfway through and I’ll just pick up the book and read the rest. [Laughs]

Sarah: Oh, it was read by Zenzi Williams? They’re so good!

Shana: Oh, really?

Sarah: They’re so good! Yes. They did Denise Williams’ The Missed Connection and a couple other audiobooks that are really, really good. Yeah. Zenzi Williams is awesome.

Shana: Yes. Oh yeah! I listened to The Missed Connection; that was good too!

Sarah: Mm-hmm!

Shana: So yes.

Sarah: There you go!

Shana: Great. So basically –

Sarah: Oh, that’s fabulous!

Shana: – I need just to follow everything that Zenzi Williams narrates, I guess is –

Sarah: So if you had to pick the reality show that you would most want to influence, like if you are now in charge of a show, which one would it be?

Shana: Oh my goodness. That’s so hard!

[Laughter]

Sarah: I want to be in charge of Bake Off.

Shana: Ah! Oh my goodness, the things you could do? Like, especially about the Eurocentrism on that show –

Sarah: Oh my dear God.

Shana: – and the way they won’t pronounce anything, like, correctly that’s not in English? And I’m sorry, this is your fantasy, but I’m already stepping in! [Laughs]

Sarah: No, please join me! I think it’s more than a one-person job, and certainly additional perspectives are needed on that show. I, I was so, I was so offended by Mexico Week?

Shana: Oh my God!

Sarah: I was so mad? I was like –

Shana: Peeling the avocado? [Laughs]

Sarah: Oh! And, and, and just – okay, first of all, so many of the things were not actually baking. Let’s just start there. It is a –

Shana: Tacos are not baking.

Sarah: Baking is in the title, for God’s sake! But also, just the inability to engage with other foods? I was so mad about Mexico Week, and I was like, listen, I – this is not my fight, I am not Mexican, but I’m so mad about this! How dare you insult our neighbor like that?!

Maya: There are so many pastries! And, like, I was, I’m like, you go to a panaderia and it’s just magic everywhere. There are so many choices –

Sarah: Oh my God!

Maya: – and you don’t understand, and it’s like, what are you doing? Like, if you took ten minutes to walk inside a panaderia, just that, somebody just, like, did a, like, FaceTime, whatever, with anyone. Like, you don’t have to go to Mexico; if you just, like, go to, go to, like, I’m in Los Angeles, right? Like, panaderias everywhere, and it’s amazing, and there’s just so many choices, and I didn’t understand why they didn’t do the time to understand all the choices?

Sarah: Yes. Ugh.

Maya: Or, like, even talk about the relationship between, like, French baking and Mexican baking as a result of colonization so that you could have, like, it’s in conversation, right, with –

Sarah: Yeah!

Maya: – with the history, and you could do all the, you could have that sort of – I mean, I’m, I’m assuming they don’t want to talk about that narrative, colonization, but, like, that’s the, it’s a really interesting relationship of how those pastries developed and how they’ve become their own thing and how, how it was influenced by, you know, other cultures. But I just, and it’s like, wait, there’s so much magic, there’s so many good things, and you just, like, you missed all the tasty stuff

Sarah: Yep.

Maya: It’s very tasty.

Shana: You missed it because instead they treated Paul Hollywood as though he was an expert on Mexican baking because he went on vacation in Mexico once. How does that, how does that make any sense? Like, am –

Maya: It doesn’t.

Shana: – am I an expert in Japanese baking ‘cause of that time that I ate Japanese doughnuts? Yeah, maybe!

Sarah: Yes, absolutely you are!

Shana: Actually, I probably know more about them than Paul Hollywood does about Mexican food. [Laughs]

Sarah: No kidding, right? The thing that made me the, the most angry? Like, it’s, this past season had moments that made me deeply angry, and then also there was a moment where I was, like, crying I was so excited because of what they had managed to do? So the thing that made me so angry was every time they went to Syabira it was like, wow, your flavors are so exotic. I’m like, you need to stop saying exotic

Maya: Yeah.

Sarah: You need to.

Shana: They’re so unusual! Who would have thought chicken satay? Did you know that existed? Who knew? Who would combine those flavors together?

Sarah: Oh, for fuck’s sake.

Shana: Not people all over – [laughs] – that are not you!

Sarah: I mean, these are people who got blown away by the concept of peanut butter and jelly? So, you know, they, they’re telling on themselves.

But then! There was a moment where Janusz was making a cake, and everything he did had queer coloring elements in it. He did like a, a cake that had a rainbow heart through the middle, and on one of his big, big cake bakes, like in, later in the, in the season – spoilers if you haven’t seen it: Janusz does pretty well – the, he did, I think it was rainbows at the bottom, and then moving up there was a section that was trans pride color? You know they do that little illustration of it, and the illustration really played up the color, and Matt Lucas actually says very specifically to celebrate transgender rights, Black rights, and Asian rights, and I was like, they said transgender on the Bake Off? The bar is so low that I cried when they said transgender rights on the Bake Off. Like, on one hand that’s deeply sad, and on the other hand, I was so glad that that whole swath of whoever’s watching that show is like, oh yeah! Transgender rights are a thing! It’s, it’s a very complicated feeling, you know what I mean?

Maya: It’s like one of those moments when you realize you’re not the audience that they’re speaking to? Because you –

Sarah: Yes.

Maya: – like, you don’t need a cake to remind you – [laughs] – about those people’s rights, and it’s beautiful and it’s lovely, but it’s also, like, yeah. Like, yeah. And so it’s just that, it’s just one of those things where you realize, like, oh, there are audiences that still need to be convinced or reminded or that idea needs to be suggested to them in a way that is palatable and beautiful. If you just say –

Sarah: Literally palatable, yeah. [Laughs]

Maya: Right – if you just say we believe in transgender rights, they’re going to be like, well, right? But if you say, look at this gorgeous cake and all the pretty colors they’ll be like, oh my goodness, it’s gorgeous, right, and then you can bring in other ideas, and so it’s, like, one of those moments where you’re like, oh, this is it for me, because – [laughs] – I’m excited about groovy cake, but I was already there. I didn’t need a cake to, like, get me to there?

Sarah: Yeah. It is really a moment where I realized – that, that and Mexico Week – I realized I was not the audience for that one either. I, I, I went in just like, oh, this is going to hurt my abs from cringing.

Shana: And I also think just about the pressure on the contestants, too, because you don’t know how you’re going to be edited, which is like some, a big part of the, the plot of The Love Con. And I –

Sarah: Which is so scary!

Shana: Right? I mean, for queer participants I feel like you must, like, you have to make the rainbow cake, right? Because you don’t know: are they going to, like, keep the parts where I talk about my partner? Are they going to keep the part where I talk about, you know, my activism? There’s, you know, all of these shows where you, I only find out people are queer when I read about them later.

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Shana: Like, they don’t, they don’t keep that part, you know –

Sarah: No.

Shana: – in the, in the reality show itself, because they can only have like one queer contestant or something, right? [Laughs]

Sarah: Yeah!

Shana: So – [laughs] – like, instead you’re, you’re the college student contestant. We can’t mention the queer part. Like, we, we can’t make it clear that apparently half the bakers are queer; that would be confusing to our audience.

Sarah: That’d be really, that would just be alarming. That’s just –

Shana: [Laughs]

Maya: Well, right, and they’re looking for non-complicated representation, right, and so they want somebody that’s, like, very clearly queer, right, that they have, that they do these things that are very clearly marking them. They don’t want, you know, some, like, high femme, right; they want somebody who’s, who’s butch or whatever because they, they don’t want to have to explain over and over again or, like, even deliver a complicated message in terms of, of what it means to be and perform queerness, right, and so I think that’s also, it feels, I know it’d feel rough for me to be like, I am this person, and I have to perform this in a very specific way or it’s going to get totally erased by this, by this medium that is not interested in my complicated identity? I mean, there’s many reasons why reality TV freaks me out, but that would be a whole reason why it’s like, if you’re not allowed to be a whole person, you’re not allowed to be a complicated person, you have to be somebody that fits within a storyline they’re trying to develop, and that often means flattening out all the things that make people really interesting and complex and, you know, whole people? [Laughs] So yeah, I would be, as, like, if I was a queer person I’d be really worried about the way they might erase me to, like, fit whatever normative expectations of performing queerness.

Sarah: I remember after the show ended, Janusz did a post on his Instagram about how each week he deliberately wore a different color of the rainbow so that at the end he could do a series of himself? And I was like, this guy was like, I’m going to queer code.

Shana: [Laughs]

Sarah: I’m going to queer subtext; I’m going to queer text. I’m just going to queer my cakes; I’m going to queer my clothes. Like, there was no stopping him, and like you said, it’s so easy, especially because the editorial decisions in the creation of the reality show character that is a part of you is, is in the hands of the producers; it’s not in your hands. Like, one of the weird things about this past season was that one of the finalists was hardly ever on camera, and not even the contestants know why that is.

Maya: Hmm.

Sarah: Like, he was hardly on camera! Like, everyone’s like, who is that guy? He was never, he was never featured; there was not a lot of talk about him. I think you’d be very good if you were in charge of Bake Off, Shana. But I didn’t need to, mean to give you an answer. If you have a show you’d like to take over, I am all ears.

Shana: [Laughs]

Sarah: I also think you could do marvelous things with Fuckboy Island.

Shana: Oh my goodness! I sure could!

[Laughter]

Shana: Although I love that show. Like, that show, as, as written, has – [laughs] – has, like, a lot of appeal and entertaining things. I don’t know how to choose – I actually might choose Project Runway, because I feel like it’s a grande dame, it’s been there for so long? And other shows like The Amazing Race or Top Chef have, like, gotten better at representation over time and were similarly terrible like, like at the beginning? Top Chef particularly I feel like has become much more politically aware around, like, the politics of food and race and representation in the industry, although really still needs to work on gender, but I just feel like Project Runway just, it’s like it’s trapped in amber? Like, it just struggles with that, and there’s, you know, so much classism in the industry and the language that the judges use to, you know, talk about the work?

Sarah: Yeah.

Shana: Like, oh, it looks so expensive, you know, or like, that looks really trashy, and, you know, there’s just so much embedded classism in that? Which doesn’t make any sense given, like, you know, street fashion culture and how important that is to drive it? And yeah, just the way that they kind of talk about race and culture on that show just feels like it has not moved forward – [laughs] – you know, at all. And I disagree with who wins almost all the time.

[Laughter]

Shana: Like, so, so if nothing else –

Sarah: That’s your first sign.

Shana: – that’s why I need to take over. [Laughs] Like, I disagree. Yeah, I mean, there’s just a lot of interesting things that are happening in fashion and, like, dynamics around size also?

Sarah: Oh yeah.

Shana: Like, some of the best episodes are the fun ones where they bring in, like, non-models and they’re forced to make clothes for people with different shapes and they, like, fall apart? [Laughs] Like, like, there’s always the man who’s like, I can’t handle breasts; like, I don’t know what to do with them! And, you know, those are really good episodes!

Sarah: I feel you, sir. [Laughs]

Shana: Like –

[Laughter]

Shana: And I’m like –

Sarah: I feel that way too sometimes?

Shana: – you know, it is hard. It’s hard for us too, but we somehow manage to clothe ourselves, and not in a sack.

Sarah: Yeah.

Shana: So – [laughs] – you too can manage that. Yeah, I just think there’s, like, a lot to do to really decolonize Project Runway and to, like, celebrate creative ingenuity? And it’s, and it’s not just about, like, casting more people of color; it’s, like, actually, the problems are with the challenges and the judges and really with, like, inherently what people think is good in fashion and who gets to decide that, and, you know, who gets to decide, like, what taste is? ‘Cause they’re often talking about, like, they’ll critique particularly working-class contestants? Like, I’m questioning your taste level. Like, you know, they’ll say that; what does that really mean? What it means is that this, like, appears too poor for me. Or, you know, they’ll question, like, who did you make this for? I can’t understand your client. And I’ll be watching it thinking, oh my God, I would wear that! Please make it for me! But they have such a limited understanding of what your client could be. And even though they have had some great guest judges and, you know, it’s just, they really need a rebound on that show.

Sarah: And then they peeled an avocado with a vegetable peeler.

Shana: [Laughs]

Sarah: Yeah, it’s, it’s the same problem, isn’t it? Right, it’s a very limited vision of audience and they don’t realize how many people they are leaving out of their directive.

I do have a recommendation for you. You might have seen us talking about this in the Slack? If you have HBO Max, The Big Brunch is so good. So it is Dan Levy from Schitt’s Creek, who used to host –

Shana: Mm-hmm.

Sarah: – The Great Canadian Bake Off, two seasons, and it’s like, as Tara put it, it’s like he took everything from The Great Canadian Bake Off that was good and brought it to his own reality cooking show. So he is a judge. Sohla from, formerly of Bon Appétit, the one who blew the lid off of how racist Bon Appétit was, she’s a judge; she’s incredibly good. And then the gentleman, I can’t remember his name, but he was the owner and operator of Eleven Madison Park and some really high-end restaurants, but he’s delightful. He’s also married to Christina Tosi, so he knows brunch.

But the, the three of them are so kind; the contestants are so queer and so inclusive; and they, they created, like, they de-, they decided that they were going to do family meal before the show starts? My favorite thing was, the last episode that I watched last night, they were doing a team competition, and Dan Levy is the producer and the host? Like, it’s very, very clearly his vision, and the team challenges was, were set up where they had the captains based on who was best in brunch last week and then who won the first challenge that episode. And so they were the team captains, and Dan was like, okay, so you know what this is not? This is not gym class. You’re not picking; you’re going to draw names from a hat because I don’t do gym class. And I was like, oh my God, I was actually nervous about watching them select the other contestants, and they just drew names out of hat and figured out how to work together. I’m like, that’s, that’s what I like. That’s what I like right there! Just thoughtfulness and kindness? It’s very, very good. You might really like it.

Shana: Well, I have, so far, I think, liked every reality show you have suggested.

Sarah: Which is weird, ‘cause I am not a reality show connoisseur, but then I’m like, ooh, Shana would like this!

[Laughter]

Sarah: I, I just have Shana, like, I have a, a, a Shana vibration; like, ooh! That’s a Shana thing!

Shana: It’ll be really different! You’ll, you know, you’ll suggest, it’s, it’s rich people in London! Shana, you’ll like this! And then you’ll be right! [Laughs]

Sarah: Oh! Ladies in London, wasn’t that some, just some vintage nonsense?

Shana: I can’t believe how deeply invested I got in the nonsense so quickly.

Sarah: Maya, it was like Real Housewives of Snobby English People. And then they threw in an American – no, there were two Americans at one point! They had two Americans –

Shana: Yeah, there were two – uh-huh, they didn’t like each other. And I don’t, I, I find Real Housewives unwatchable, yet I found this, like, so entertaining!

[Laughter]

Shana: Maybe ‘cause it’s, it’s, like, anthropological. They’re fighting over Thanksgiving like the very beginning. Like, the first episode I thought, what is Sarah talking about? I don’t know. But by the end of the episode, like, who should get to host Thanksgiving?

Sarah: Right?!

Shana: Which of these Americans do I support in hosting Thanksgiving and introducing it to these British people? [Laughs]

Sarah: Yeah!

Shana: I cared a lot; it was very strange. I don’t know if it’s like a Stockholm syndrome situation, but –

Sarah: It was, it’s wild.

Shana: Everyone had their dark side, and everyone had something actually I liked about them? Even the woman who made like weird, like, yoga nut balls for people to eat? That was her business? Like – [laughs] – every time she would talk about, like, selling balls, like –

Sarah: [Laughs]

Shana: – the twelve-year-old me just like would start giggling? But she took it so seriously? She would bike around town with her balls.

Sarah: Oh yeah, she was way into it.

All right, so what was a win for you in 2022, Shana?

Shana: Well, it’s funny ‘cause it kind of piggybacks on what Maya said: I think it was setting boundaries.

Sarah: Yay, boundaries!

Maya: Congratulations!

Shana: Yay, yes! It’s, it’s –

Maya: It’s so hard!

Shana: Right?! Oh my goodness, it’s so hard! [Laughs] I’m such a people-pleaser, so it does not come innately to me, but I feel like I really am starting to get good about it, and also, like, not feeling guilty, ‘cause to me that was the battle. Like, it’s not just setting the boundary, but it’s, like, not feeling terrible about setting the boundary, but instead feeling great about it, so. No is a complete sentence. It’s great to say.

Sarah: Oh, it really is. And it’s the guilt part that’s the thing that’s the most deeply conditioned, isn’t it? Like, if you set a boundary and it’s inconvenient for me, then, then you have done something wrong.

Shana: Yep. Exactly. And then I, you know, you feel like you’re a terrible person! But the thing is, like, when you fill your life with things that you don’t really want to do, then there’s no room for the things that you actually want to do.

Sarah: Yeah. Absolutely true.

Shana: You know, like one example is that I don’t read books that I don’t want to read, even if people gave them to me as a gift. And that was very hard, because – [laughs] – ‘cause sometimes people ask you how you enjoyed the book that they gave you, and it doesn’t mean that I have to read it.

Sarah: Nope.

Maya: It sure doesn’t!

Sarah: The obligation, the obligation ends when the gift exchanges hands. A gift that comes with an obligation is not a gift.

Shana: And instead of just sitting the gift in my house for years until I finally get rid of it, now I immediately let it go –

Sarah: Oh!

Shana: – so it does, it doesn’t have to live here anymore!

Sarah: And it gets to find somebody –

Shana: Just go to someone else.

Sarah: – who will like it!

Shana: Hopefully!

Sarah: Yeah!

Shana: And if not, I don’t have to care! [Laughs]

Sarah: No! That reminds me of one of the other guests on my end-of-the-year episodes. Sue said, I don’t make myself finish books. If I don’t like it, I’m not going to just rage-read it and then text all my friends. If I don’t like it I’m going to move on, even if I don’t finish it. And I’m, that’s a really hard conditioning to undo.

Shana: It is. And I’ve had a lot of group projects, you know, now that I’m back in grad school –

Sarah: I’m sorry!

Shana: – and so –

Sarah: Ugh!

Shana: I, I know, but they’ve been great! And I realized that is it that I hate group projects or that the way I was participating in them when I was constantly resentful because my needs weren’t being met, ‘cause I would try to set a boundary, then people wouldn’t follow it, and so then I would fall back and not hold them accountable to that boundary, and now I just don’t do that! Like, if I’m not going to work on something on the weekends, then I just don’t! And it’s amazing ‘cause then people step in, like, when you don’t let yourself be a doormat, so I’ve, I’ve really enjoyed all of our group projects, and if you had asked undergraduate Shana that, like, I would never believe it. It was always the worst.

Sarah: Oh my God. [Laughs] I can just hear my kids now, ‘cause they’re both in high school groaning about group projects.

Shana: [Laughs]

Sarah: That’s a great win? Way to go!

Shana: Thanks!

Sarah: I hope that makes grad school a lot easier overall.

Shana: So far, so good! We’ll see how my next semester goes. [Laughs]

Sarah: Maya, what about you? What was a win for you in 2022?

Maya: So during COVID I did nothing? Like, no exercise, no movement, and so that was, at the time, a win for me. I love not leaving the house. It was so great. But a thing I used to do for more than fifteen years was I was a dancer, and then I hurt myself pretty badly and was not able to do that type of movement anymore, and so this year I started doing aerial dance? And so I’ve been loving it? I have no upper body strength, and I am like, almost at being able to do a pull-up, and so, but, like, with aerial dance it’s like a pull-up, but you’re upside-down, right? It’s like a pull-up, but you’re in the splits, right? It’s always these crazy pull-ups, and so I’ve just been loving being able to dance and getting strong again and accepting the fact that perhaps I should leave my house with some regularity. And so – [laughs] – that has been, that’s what I’ve been doing that I’m really excited getting started this year.

Sarah: I love that so much. It looks so fun! Whenever I’ve seen videos –

Maya: It is.

Sarah: – of people on YouTube doing aerial dance, it looks so fun!

Maya: It’s so fun. You get lots of bruises and fabric burn?

[Laughter]

Maya: And so there’s, like –

Sarah: Well, there is chafing. [Laughs]

Maya: There’s the – yeah! I just had, like, this fabric burn that was, that’s been healing, and it’s always, like, under the armpit, right, so it’s a, like, very tender place already? Or I have these, like, yeah, weird bruises on my legs from, from drops or whatever, and so, yeah, it’s, it’s really great, and it’s really nice, like, being able to tell how much stronger you’re getting, you know? ‘Cause if it’s like one day you can’t do a thing and then the next day you, like, can do a thing, and you’re like, oh my God, it’s, like, happening! I can see the progression, right, ‘cause it’s sometimes hard if you’re in school or if you’re just, like, out here living life, you can’t see, like, change?

Sarah: Yeah.

Maya: You can’t see yourself getting better, and so aerial dance, going from having no muscles – [laughs] – to having some amount of muscles has been really fun.

Sarah: That is so awesome. I’ve noticed as I get older – and I think aerial dance would fall into this – I don’t want heavy impact, jarring exercise. I don’t want to vibrate my bones. Like, I don’t, I don’t want to make my skeleton go uh! Ee! Er! And I also, I started going to physical therapy a couple of weeks ago. I actually read a tweet – which is embarrassing – from Tressie McMillan Cottom – which is not embarrassing – that everyone should go to physical therapy because we all carry purses and men’s bullshit? And I thought, wait a minute, my back does hurt! Shit! I can do things about that? And the number of people who are in there because they injured themselves from something very high impact and repetitive, I’m like, oh! I am doing right by my body by doing yoga, by doing stretching, by doing things that aren’t high impact. I think aerial dance sounds so cool!

Maya: It is, and I’ve actually been doing physical therapy a lot this year because once I started doing movement, my body was like, hey, you have all these old injuries that you’ve just been ignoring. Like, you’ve just been ignoring your pain, right, and so I started doing physical therapy, and so it’s been a whole lot of like everything hurts, and I need this nice man to, like, work out all the pain in my back so I can, like, look to the left again. [Laughs] And so it’s been really, it’s been really great, like sort of getting back into my body and being able to really, like, be in there and inhabiting my body and, like, doing all this movement and stuff that I, during COVID, did not do. And I loved it; I loved not doing it, and I’m now loving, like, doing stuff.

Sarah: That’s so great! Isn’t physical therapy amazing?

Maya: It’s so great. I just, every time I’m like, fix it; it hurts! And then he, like, does a lot of working it out, and then I can, like –

Sarah: Yep.

Maya: – lift my arm and stuff. [Laughs]

Sarah: I have a lot of problems with hypermobility. I’m very flexible, and as I get older that’s really not great. But the best thing about doing physical therapy, there’s two parts that I love: one, at the end they put a TENS device on my back, and then they put a heating pad on top of that, and they’re like, okay, just lie there and relax, and I’m like, sure. Not a problem! Happy to help you! How long? Fifteen, twenty minutes? Two hours? Sounds great.

The other thing is that when I’ve been going, World Cup games have been on? And so they put the World Cup games – y’all want to watch the World Cup with physical therapists. You want to watch the World Cup with physical therapists because when it’s, when it’s like a, a floppy foul? They’re like, yeah, that guy didn’t do anything. That, that guy’s, that guy’s limbs were fine. Like, they all look and they go, mmm. Then when there is an injury they all go, oh God, don’t, don’t look! Nonono, don’t look at the screen! Oh, they’re replaying it! Like, they, they, they’re like, oh, it’s so bad! Oh, he just – and then they’ll tell you what happened and what got injured. I mean, it’s great. Their insight into the World Cup is fantastic. It’s such a great way to watch. Like, if you can find a bunch of physical therapists to watch soccer with? Or football if you’re not American? Highly recommend.

[Laughter]

Sarah: Your wins were both boundaries and freedom. Like body, freedom in your body. Those are such good things. Thank you so much for doing this!

Maya: Absolutely!

Shana: Yeah! I’m excited about all of our wins, especially ‘cause now I can pretend like I have a friend in the circus? Which is how I’ll be referring to Maya from now on.

Maya: Yeah, absolutely.

[Laughter]

Sarah: Well, thank you so, so much for doing this. I absolutely love doing these episodes, and I’m so excited to share this with everybody, especially our thoughts on reality TV. I have a, I have a feeling there’s going to be a lot of thoughts on what reality show we should renovate next.

Shana: Yeah, I look forward to being hired to run a reality show now, once, you know, they hear our amazing ideas. We would do a good job on that!

Sarah: We really would.

Shana: We, we could create like an alternative to the bachelor that, you know, wasn’t terrible!

Sarah: Oooh!

Shana: If anyone could do it, I trust Smart Bitches code.

Sarah: Thank you, guys, so much for doing this; this has been delightful. Let’s hang out again –

Maya: Yeah!

Sarah: – in the New Year!

Shana: Any time! It’s great to get to see both of you!

Sarah: Yes!

Maya: Totally!

[music]

Sarah: And that brings us to the end of this week’s episode. I am curious if you have thoughts of what you would do if you were in charge of a particular reality show. You know how to get in contact with me, but I will tell you anyway: you can go to [email protected] and you can email me your thoughts. You can also record a voice memo and email it to me, and then I’ll include it in a future episode. Or, you know, just leave a comment on the, on the entry at Smart Bitches and tell me! What, what would you do? What are you going to fix? How are you going to make things much, much better?

As always, I end with an absolutely dreadful joke. This joke comes from Clay  in the jokes channel of the Smart Podcast, Trashy Books Discord. This is perfect for this week. Are you ready? Share this with all of your family.

What’s a holiday tree’s favorite candy?

Give up? What’s a holiday tree’s favorite candy?

Orna-mints.

[Laughs] Thank you, Clay! 

On behalf of everyone here, we wish you the very best of reading and a wonderful holiday weekend with whatever you are celebrating. We will be back here next week, but until then, have fun; be safe; set boundaries.

Smart Podcast, Trashy Books is part of the Frolic Podcast Network. You can find outstanding podcasts to subscribe to at frolic.media/podcasts.

[end of pretty festive music]