"It's time to play the music..."

If the bombardment of TV feels like it’s too much right now—at one point, I was keeping up with six weekly shows—there’s a reason: Due to new Emmy eligibility rules, all episodes of a season have to air by May 31 to qualify. So many shows vying for awards have been airing in March, April, or possibly May.

One I wanted to shout out briefly that might get lost in the fray is Sanditon, PBS Masterpiece’s series inspired by Jane Austen’s unfinished novel that follows Charlotte (Rose Williams) as she visits the titular Sanditon, which many of its residents hope to transform into the next big sea resort town, and becomes swept up in romantic potential. While its three seasons go far beyond what Austen wrote before her death—and can feel like it’s heavily borrowing from Pride and Prejudice at times (one of its romantic heroes owes a ton to Matthew Macfadyen’s Darcy)—it’s just delightful.

For those in and around NYC: The annual Brooklyn Yarn Crawl—which is a different event from the NYC Yarn Crawl in the fall—is this weekend, so if you have the means/need for more yarn, go support those LYSes.

The Knit: Antler Toque

Pattern: Ravelry / Direct

Yarn: Spinning Tales Fiber Naomi Worsted in Christmas in Surrey

When I went to Vogue Knitting Live a couple of months ago, I visited a table run by the charity Knit the Rainbow, which distributes hand-knitted garments for homeless LGBTQ+ youth in New York. I have the time and so much yarn at my disposal that I’m setting aside some of that this year toward making garments for it.

And the yarn comes from Spinning Tale Fibers, which often makes really wonderful fandom-centric yarn; I first discovered the shop after it did a Wheel of Time collection.

The Flick: The Muppet Show

Streaming: Disney+

A little over two years ago, after evading streaming services for decades (mainly due to music rights issues), all five seasons of The Muppet Show arrived on Disney+. And ever since then, I’ve been slowly working my way through the entire series in what feels like a kind of rite of passage as a lifelong Muppets fan. (I rewatched The Muppet Movie and The Great Muppet Caper so often that the paper VHS covers for those movies are falling apart; The Muppet Christmas Carol is a go-to Christmas movie.)

It’s the pinnacle of Muppet mastery, from what I could tell—not that I had the ability to watch it beforehand—because the longtime critics who inevitably brought it up to illustrate how it compared to whatever movie or show Disney made with them rarely ever did it positively for the newer property.

I started watching in February 2021, and a little over two years later, I only have one more season to go. Some of the sketches are really dated—and not just with the racist stuff, which was left intact with a disclaimer up top on those episodes—and I recognize maybe only half of the guest hosts. But so much of it lands regardless of whether I understood that reference that it doesn’t matter if I don’t know who a famous mimer, ballerina, or opera singer shows up alongside Kermit and the gang. It bums me out that short of 2011’s The Muppets, Disney has struggled with making the Muppets click in recent years¹ .

Having watched nearly 100 episodes of The Muppet Show, I think I’ve got a theory about the barest elements of a Muppet sketch that makes it work. Excluding the recurring bits (“Pigs in Space,” “Veterinarian’s Hospital,” “Muppet Labs”), quintessential quirks like Miss Piggy’s diva-like nature (compliment) or the heckling from Statler and Waldorf, or the many, many covers of famous songs that got The Muppet Show stuck in licensing limbo for decades—the Lynda Carter episode alone had two Beatles covers!—here’s what I’ve got:

• Puns reign supreme. (Sorry, Animal.)

• Take a statement to its logical—but, more importantly, literal—conclusion. This ideology is at its peak in the “Muppet News Flash” segment.

• Muppet violence will never not be funny.

• If all else fails, make the Muppets eat each other.

What I’m Reading

• The Secret Lives of Country Gentlemen by KJ Charles² : I'm normally not the biggest how the trope of "one character realizes the other is the same guy he's conversed with in a much different context." But not only does that resolve itself a few chapters in, but it's also a really fun and exciting queer Regency romance with some great world-building.

• Madame Restell: The Life, Death, and Resurrection of Old New York's Most Fabulous, Fearless, and Infamous Abortionist by Jennifer Wright: A classic case of “same as it ever was” on much more than abortion (but certainly that), all while giving you a front-row seat to an utterly fascinating woman and the ins-and-outs of mid-19th-century New York City (which were as horrific and cruel as you’d imagine.)

Shameless Plugs

• I caught up with Succession just in time for everyone to dive into yet another debate about spoiler culture.

• A couple of movies I recently reviewed: Polite Society, which I loved when I caught it at Sundance and deserves to make a billion dollars, and Suzume, the latest from Makoto Shinkai that’s absolutely gorgeous.

• I will also need more of you to watch Jury Duty on Freevee.

Knitwear of the Week

Knits: A red turtleneck sweater and a light blue cardigan; a gray cable sweater.

Worn By: Barbara (Rachel McAdams) and Margaret (Abby Ryder Fortson) in Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret.; Pietro (Luca Marinelli) in The Eight Mountains.

Costume Designers: Ann Roth (Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret.) and Francesca Brunori (The Eight Mountains)

This is the rare “week” I’m including knits from two movies. Those films—Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret., and The Eight Mountains—couldn’t be more different from each other; honestly, they kind of make for a strange pairing in one day, but that’s just how my schedule worked out. (I’m pairing Benjamin Millepied’s Carmen and Sisu tomorrow, so that could top it.)

But they’re both worth watching. And they’re both unexpected knitwear movies in that they have a lot of knitwear; on top of the sweaters, The Eight Mountains also has several knitted caps. And none of these films’ best sweaters are represented in the photos I’m posting because, with theatrical releases, I’m a bit limited to promo photos and trailer screencaps when it comes to highlighting great movie sweaters.

Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret. is Kelly Fremon Craig’s adaptation of the seminal Judy Blume novel, which I only managed to read earlier this year after catching Amazon’s great documentary Judy Blume Forever. It’s warm and funny—even with the light New Jersey digs, all of which I got a kick out of—and captures the book's spirit so well. Like Turning Red, it brings back so many memories of that time. And Rachel McAdams, with an expanded role as Margaret’s mother, is incredible.

The Eight Mountains is an adaptation of Paolo Cognetti’s 2016 novel from co-writers and co-directors Felix van Groeningen and Charlotte Vandermeersch, which I wasn’t familiar with beforehand. It’s a slow and methodic exploration of a friendship between Pietro and Bruno (Alessandro Borghi) over several decades. They initially meet when Pietro’s family spends summers in the remote Alpine village of Grana to escape Turin's city life. But their bond doesn’t solidify until after Pietro’s father, Giovanni (Filippo Timi), dies and leaves behind a plot of land and a promise Bruno made to Giovanni to build a house on that land. And from there, it explores how their lives intertwine and branch off with those mountains always in the forefront.

Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret. is out in theaters everywhere. The Eight Mountains is playing at the Angelika and Film at Lincoln Center in New York. Both theaters will have Q&As with co-writers and co-directors Felix van Groeningen, Charlotte Vandermeersch, and Alessandro Borghi (who plays Bruno) throughout the weekend.

Want to nominate your own Knitwear of the Week?

I’m now offering you a chance to nominate your favorite piece of cinematic knitwear. I’ve got more information about what I’m looking for here. So, if you’ve got one, send an email over to [email protected] with your pick!

1  At this point, why not let them host the Oscars next year?!

2  I’ve noticed lately that pretty much any Regency-era romance I read includes some comparison to Julia Quinn’s Bridgerton series—or, at the very least, the wildly popular Netflix show. (For example, TSLOCG’s tagline is “Gothic scandal meets Bridgerton intrigue.”) I know very little about marketing books, even less about marketing romance novels, despite how many of them I read. But it feels less like it’s saying that all of these Bridgerton-like books are similar from a plot perspective and more like the comparison is romance marketing’s new shorthand for “this is a Regency-era romance.” I could be wrong, though!