Weekend Recs #13: The funniest movie of the year, a dreamy driving playlist, and ice cream cake

Plus: Tips for the tennis-curious, #tradwife life, and a micropod on creativity and mental health.

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This is Weekend Recs, a weekly send of ideas and diversions for your downtime. Not subscribed yet? Here you go:

Editorial note: Alisha is on maternity leave. How exciting! In the meantime, Downtime is edited by Aliza Abarbanel.

Five ideas for your weekend…

• 🎶 A dreamy driving playlist.

  I’ve been out on the West Coast visiting family this week and going camping this weekend, which means I’ve been doing more driving than normal. Of course, I had to make a special playlist for the occasion, packed with sunny pop/rock vibes to keep my spirits up during L.A. traffic. 

• 🎙Hey, Cool Life! 

  • I just got into this “micropod” on mental health and creativity from Mary H. K. Choi, the New York Times bestselling author of the YA novels Yolk and Emergency Contact. The bite-size episodes hover around 15/20 minutes, ranging from topics like scheduling creative work to getting comfortable with abundance and being diagnosed with autism as an adult. 

• 🥒 Recipes to make right now:

  • Spicy chicken Caesar wraps. A never-soggy, extra-crisp take on the classic wrap. Perfect for a beach day, picnic, or even work or school. Here’s a cute video of how it comes together. 

  • Dumpling tomato salad with chili crisp vinaigrette. This five-ingredient dinner is literally just your favorite store-bought dumplings with tomatoes and a punchy dressing, but it tastes like a whole lot more. Genius.

  • Ice Cream Cake With So Many Sprinkles. For Funfetti lovers, summer birthday-havers, and the sprinkles obsessed.  

  • Summer Squash with Basil and Burrata. Got a lot of zucchini in your garden or grocery store? Add in some creamy chopped burrata to make it feel fancy and special. 

• 🍿 Bottoms

  • The funniest movie I’ve seen all year is in theaters right now. Bottoms centers on two unpopular queer girls who start a fight club at their patriarchal, football-obsessed high school as a ploy to hook up with their cheerleader crushes. It’s a riotous, decidedly unconventional movie—just watch the trailer—with a stacked cast that includes Ayo Edebiri (The Bear), Rachel Sennott (Shiva Baby), and Kaia Gerber (yep, that Kaia Gerber). Think Booksmart meets Heathers meets something entirely new. (This article on how Sennott and writer/director Emma Seligman made the movie is a fun read too.)

• 🪩Catch up on allll the new music videos that dropped this week

  • Queueing up a music video is one of my fave ways to chill out, and the past week has blessed us with some very good new drops:

    • SZA: The long awaited video for Snooze features SZA cuddled up with a roster of megawatt boyfriends like Benny Blanco, Beef actor Young Mazino and Justin Bieber (yes, really).

    • Miley Cyrus: Used to Be Young, a reflective new song and video complete with a Mickey Mouse shirt nodding to her Disney past.

    • Selena Gomez: Single Soon, a new single girl anthem with all the girls’ night out staples: glittery dresses, Aperol spritzes, and karaoke.

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What paid subscribers got this week: A special audio edition of Winding Down With featuring Elise Hu’s downtime recs and her conversation with Alisha about her new book, Flawless. Plus: An opportunity to win five giveaway copies of Flawless!

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A grab bag of links and reads worth sharing with the group chat.

Coco Gauff 👑 Image via AP Photo / Frank Franklin II

Articles worth reading:

• A Cheat Sheet for the U.S. Open [The Cut].

  A guide to players worth watching (and the off court drama!) for the tennis-curious. 

•  How to Become a Morning Exercise Person [NYTimes] *gift link*

  An actually-helpful tool to maximize your morning without hating your alarm clock.

• The Scooter Braun Exodus, Explained [Vox].

  There’s been a ton of chatter online about Ariana Grande, Justin Bieber, and all the other celebs dropping this notorious manager (a.k.a. the reason Taylor Swift had to re-record all her masters!). This article is a great deep dive into everything going on. 

• My So-Called #TradWife Life [ELLE]

  The great

  Anne Helen Petersen
  attempts to follow in the footsteps of #tradwife Instagrammers who forgo work to be the “ultimate wives”—and has plenty of meditations on the politicization of modern gender roles in the process. 

• The Art of Friendship: How to Travel Together [Shondaland].

  Because not everyone’s travel style is the same, but you should still get that trip out of the group chat and into the real world.

🌼 And more fun fluff…

A calming end-of-day face massage. // My new favorite salty/sweet Trader Joe’s snack. // The best IG account for someone with a tinned fish obsession.// The cutest candle for corn season.

Links continued below…

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