The LGBTQ+ Books and Kelly Clarkson Singles That Got Us Through the Week

It’s been another long week but the weekend before Memorial Day is meant to be lazy, relaxing, reflective: Summer’s nearly here, so use this time to store up your energy and savor some final moments of peace. Listen to some tunes, scroll through some ’toks, and peruse photos of famous people wearing gorgeous gowns in France. The Jez staff has rounded up all the books and music we’ve been loving for you to enjoy during one last weekend of hibernation before the temperatures soar and the Aperol Spritzes flow.

(If you’d would like to recommend something for next week’s edition, drop it in a comment here or email it to us at [email protected] with the subject line “Jez Recs.”)

A lot of fashion discourse online can be so infuriating it makes you want to rip your clothes off and walk straight into a burning forest. It tends to run the gamut between “Are thrift stores fascist?” to “My earrings are Kendra Scott, my bracelet is Kendra Scott.” But amidst the cacophony is Rian Phin, a fashion theorist whose YouTube video essays and TikToks break down visual culture, runway shows, and fashion evolution. Her extensive and obsessive knowledge and the time and care she takes exploring her ideas feel both fundamental and indulgent to watch.

Especially in contrast to the hot take-athon of social media, these potent and brainy deep dives—a recent one I loved was about the “mysterious mundane” online photo culture and how it bleeds into fashion—feel like wading into warm waters that are a little too deep for me to stand in.

Watching her videos will change how you think about your own clothes and the clothes of those around you, which, in the fashion corner of the internet that is so hellbent on forcing you to constantly consume, is a welcomed respite. —Kady Ruth Ashcraft

Want to make goo-goo eyes at a young Marcus Aurelius’ mawkish declarations to his teacher before he ruled the Roman Empire? Does the notion of exchanges between Black, queer poets, activists, and dear friends, Audre Lorde and Pat Parker, tug at your heartstrings? If so, I must recommend The Love That Dares: Letters of LGBTQ+ Love & Friendship Through History.

Together, Smith and Vesey—both British archivists—curated a collection of letters emblematic of queer love—from all-consuming love-at-first-sight romance to fulfilling, sometimes frank, friendship. There’s a lot of pining and some pain, sure. But there are also pretty passages like this breakup letter (yes, queerness is so magical even an ending between two people can inspire feelings of a beginning) from Vita Sackville-West, a bisexual novelist, poet and journalist, to her longtime friend and first love, Violet Keppel Trefusis:

“This letter will anger you. I do not care if it does, since I know that no anger or irritation will ever destroy the love that exists between us. And if you really want me, I will come to you, always, anywhere.” Swoon. —Audra Heinrichs

We’re nearing the end of May which means, following my conception of time, it’s the season of picnics and the NBA playoffs. Of course, I respect that Jezebel readers don’t necessarily frequent our website for my NBA takes, which is entirely fair, so what I’m instead recommending is the New York Times’ cooking section’s summer recipes tag.

It’s a trove of cool bean salads, icy alcoholic beverages, and other refreshing and fairly simple summer treats and meals, like my personal favorite as of a few days ago, crudités with lemongrass-fermented tofu dip. (I might even split a plate with failed Pennsylvania Senate candidate Dr. Oz!) If you, like me, have been spending a lot of time online lately, I recommend putting together a puttanesca chickpea-tomato salad, whipping up a Prosecco lemon slush, and hitting the nearest park to touch grass and have yourself a little weekend picnic. —Kylie Cheung

It’s been two years since we’ve had a Kelly Clarkson album (but that was a Christmas album so, bleh) but more than six years since we’ve gotten a Pure Pop Clarkson album. And if her latest single, “favorite kind of high,” (released Friday, following “mine” and “me”) off her forthcoming album, Chemistry, is any indication, then we’re all in for a real Kelly-Clarkson-circa-2009 treat. Co-written with Carly Rae Jepsen (!!!!!), the song is exactly the kind of soaring-summer-love-dance-on-a-rooftop-during-sunset single that we’re all bound to be sick of by July 4. I love it.—Lauren Tousignant

There’s a lot going on in sex writer (and, full disclosure, my friend) Zachary Zane’s debut memoir, Boyslut, and most of it’s happening naked. An exercise in shamelessness (that’s a point of pride for Zane and should not be read as an insult), the book details the vast sex life of the bisexual writer. Most fascinating, I thought, was the casual way it traced Zane’s sexual evolution, from considering himself straight to bicurious to bi to polyamorous. Landing on an identity need not be one’s final stop–it can be just the step before the next one, and part of the point of life (at least in my opinion) is to keep growing. Come, watch Zachary Zane grow. —Rich Juzwiack

I thought nothing would be more disgustingly pleasing than a dermatologist removing gunk—that gunk being composed of oil, dead skin cells, a lone black hair, bacteria, and sometimes if you’re lucky, a nail or an earring—from an anonymous patient’s face, chest, or back. And yet, I am horrified to admit that watching a cow have its dirty hooves cleaned and trimmed down is at least equally, if not more, satisfying. Someone, please lock me up.

While in pimple-popping content we see an explosion of pus from a whitehead (or the squiggle of face guts from a blackhead), on HoofTok we see layers of hard hoof get scraped away to reveal abscesses, white line fractures, and cavities—all terms I’ve learned from spending an hour watching hoof cleaning videos before bed each night. The best videos are narrated in a calm Irish (or Scottish?) accent by Nate the Hoof Guy, who is a legend in the HoofTok community. Best of all? Nate always assures his viewers that he does his best not to further hurt the cow, each careful flick of his knife intended instead to relieve the cows’ pain. A very fun crossover for animal lovers and the Disgusting Brothers (me, I am one). —Emily Leibert

Hugh Ryan’s history of the Women’s House of Detention in Greenwich Village is the perfect book to read as we rapidly approach LGBTQ Pride Month aka June. And now, it’s in paperback, which makes toting it around much easier! The prison stood for nearly 50 years and housed well-known women like Afeni Shakur and Angela Davis, but the real story is in the tens of thousands of now-forgotten dykes, studs, femmes, trans people, and gender non-conforming New Yorkers imprisoned there for the crimes of daring to be themselves in a time when people were fucking awful.

After decades of gains in queer rights—culminating in the legal right to marriage—we’re now living through a backlash against our community. Being a queer person is inherently political and part of that is knowing about the people who made our lives possible. —Caitlin Cruz

Trust by Hernan Diaz had been in my “to be read” pile for months when I finally picked it up earlier this month. By the time it won a little old thing called the Pulitzer a few days later, I was already deeply engrossed. Trust comprises four sections, each from a different perspective; the first two are billed as “books,” though the significance of this is only revealed in the latter third of the novel. The structure of the book is fascinating in itself, and the way Diaz dispenses breadcrumbs of connection throughout is exquisite. He is a true craftsman. Though the overarching plot of the book itself sounds a bit boring—the life of one of Wall Street’s first scions, and that of his wife, told by multiple characters—its interpersonal dynamics and broader themes make this a fascinating, if initially puzzling, page turner. I don’t want to say anything more, beyond that it ended up being a surprising meditation on feminism before feminism really existed as a concept, so go read it for yourself! —Nora Biette-Timmons

SuperJazzClub, a Ghanaian indie collective of artists, filmmakers, and DJs, isn’t brand new to the music scene, per se, but they are new to me and therefore qualify for inclusion here. I just discovered this group–who put out their first EP, For All the Good Times, back in 2020–via a friend’s Instagram stories Thursday night as SuperJazzClub headlined their first show in London. There’s a coolness and a specialness and a moodiness about their music that’s hard to describe–maybe just for me, because I am clearly not a music writer–but listen to “MAD” as an introduction to their sound. It’s the perfect music to have on while you write or drive or cook or fiddle with Excel spreadsheets or whatever it is that you do. —Laura Bassett

We’re smack in the middle of graduation season, which means it’s really the only time that makes sense to reread a bunch of commencement addresses from colleges you didn’t attend and from years you didn’t graduate.

Aaron Sorkin was my commencement speaker (Syracuse University class of 2012<3), so I’m biased, but I truly, deeply enjoyed his speech and admittedly reread it around this time every year: “Don’t ever forget that a small group of thoughtful people can change the world. It’s the only thing that ever has.” There’s Nora Ephron’s famous speech from Wellesley College’s 1996 commencement: “Whatever you choose, however many roads you travel, I hope that you choose not to be a lady. I hope you will find some way to break the rules and make a little trouble out there.”And Naval Adm. William H. McRaven at the University of Texas at Austin in 2014: “If you want to change the world don’t ever, ever ring the bell.” (You’ll have to read the speech for the entire context but it’s one of my favorite speeches of all time.)

Also, check out Barbara Kingsolver’s 1994 speech at DePauw University; Chadwick Boseman’s 2018 speech at Howard University; (as a Swifie I have to include Taylor Swift’s 2022 speech at New York University;) and Abby Wambach’s 2018 speech at Barnard College.

The world is bleak and we’re all jaded and cynical—but these speeches serve as a little shot of inspiration and an encouraging reminder that whatever you’re doing in this world, or whatever you want to do, it’s worth it. —LT