The Sunday Digest 038
Time for some coziness.
Welcome to The Sunday Digest — a free Sunday newsletter featuring long (and some short) reads, original columns, things I’ve saved over the last week, relaxing playlists, episodes releases, exclusive product drops, and more. Yes, you can reply to this email. I’d love to hear from you. Or, if podcasts are more your speed on Sundays, we’ve got that too.
Sunday Read: Daphne Is the Candy Coating of ‘The White Lotus.’ But She May Also Be Its Hidden Depths
by Katie Baker for The Ringer
You’re watching White Lotus. I’m watching White Lotus. We’re all watching White Lotus. Additionally, we’re all scrolling our feeds and watching conspiracy theories about it too. And yes, everyone’s passing off those theories as their own. And finally—tonight—we can all put that charade to rest.
My breakout star from this season? Daphne. It always had to be Daphne. My crush on her be damned, it’s undeniable that there are more layers to her onion than any of us realized when she was the focal point of the first scene.
This week’s Sunday Read deep dives why we should all be paying more attention to her. Here’s an excerpt:
In an interview with Harper’s Bazaar, Fahy said that “the way that [Daphne] presents her sunny disposition is one of her superpowers.” But the light of the sun also burns. When Daphne decides to ball out on an overnight trip to Noto with Harper in Episode 3, sans their husbands, she explains her logic. “Don’t you think it’s better to just do what you want, even if it’s by yourself?” she asks. “Cameron does what he wants all the time. Why let them have all the fun?” This is an empowering and unapologetic way to think, but it is also kind of at odds with something else Daphne says a little later in the same episode.
Describing a safari she went on once with Cameron, Daphne remarks that in elephant herds, it’s the women and children who form meaningful and mutually supportive communities, frolicking at water holes and raising their young as a village. The growing males, meanwhile, are cast out of their clans at a certain point to learn to fend for themselves. “I feel sorry for men,” Daphne says. “They think they’re out there doing something really important, but they’re just wandering alone.” This doesn’t exactly sound like fun worth emulating—though maybe the saving grace, for Daphne, is that she doesn’t delude herself into believing much of anything is important.
Read it in full here.
The Sunday Haiku
A Christmas movie,
a romantic comedy.
The Family Stone? Both.
New Episode › Holiday Cocktails, Comfy Sunday Essentials, Enduring Seasonal Depression, and More Listener Questions
This month's listener questions include the best large-batch holiday cocktails, the best storylines from Season 2 of White Lotus, top-five comfy things for a lazy Sunday, the worst things about the holiday season, which products are in my self-care rotation lately, getting through seasonal depression episodes, looking back at the most proud moments from Sunday Scaries in 2022, the ideal holiday morning routine, and more.
Listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and anywhere else podcasts are found.
New Episode › Retail Therapy 026: The In/Out Report
Going into 2023, we have to ask ourselves: What's in? What's out? Drawing inspiration from in/out lists that've been appearing all over the internet over the last few months, Barrett and I compiled their official lists of what's in and what's out going into the new year. To sum up a text message Barrett sent me immediately upon leaving the studio, “Dude, that was such a fun episode.”
Here’s a slideshow of our respective lists.
Yes, we’ve received hate mail already. No, we are not reading it (you know, unless you’ve actually listened and want to have a friendly dialogue about why martinis and brussels sprouts are actually out).
Listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube and anywhere else podcasts are found.
Things I Saved This Week
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