Unpaid Spokeswomen #9

Welcome to Unpaid Spokeswomen, a column where we log what we’ve been into this week. Behind the wigs, makeup, costumes, and several layers of irony, we are two humans who genuinely enjoy doing things. Here is a weekly roundup of our unfiltered expert recommendations.

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Trixie:

Pret-A-Manger

Historically speaking, the food in the UK has never been what has made the region famous. The pilgrims historically fled the Queens Land hundreds of years ago in search of religious freedom but mostly potable fluids and edible food. Back in the olden tymes, the british only had bizarre aubergine sandwiches from Gregg’s and Nando’s after 2am. Nowadays, thanks to Adele and The Spice Girls making the country mappable to the intercontinental foodies, the Brits enjoy the fruits of the UK’s Starbucks known as Pret-A-Manger. The food? Lit. The tea/coffee? Lit. The ambience? Who cares honestly but fairly lit. I had a little dish of macaroni and cheese with kale in it that I could see myself eating every day for the next week. And it probably will happen. I love a standardized corporate chain restaurant food experience and Pret is almost American in its way of providing food just okay enough to come back again.

C4 Pre-Workout

Let’s be honest folks–sometimes the process of getting into and starting a workout is harder than the actual workout. I will often put on my gym clothes and then without realizing it, I will begin to complete household tasks I would normally put off just so I don’t have to actually start the workout. Sometimes a little kick is the way to go. Now I’m not a drug user or even a drug understander. But I’m pretty sure that pre-workout is legalized narcotics. Packaged in a masc4masc bright yellow and gray canister, the packaging looks like something that would be situated next to that comically large drum of whey protein your straight roommate kept next to his bed in college.

Alone, the solution looks like neon darksided Kool-Aid. Mixed into a glass of water, the drink has the potential to bloodshot your eyes, dampen your armpits of your shirt, and ruin you life. If you don’t start a rather aggressive workout within 15 minutes of drinking the stuff, you will start to get the feeling of bugs crawling all over your body like Christy from Intervention. The room will spin, you will become irritable, and your head will feel full of blood. However, if you commence our intended physical activity, it’s a great way to spark into it and hit the ground running.

MAYBE DO NOT DRINK THIS but if you do I recommend vigorous exercise immediately.

Katya:

2000 Sydney Olympic Women’s Gymnastics All-around Final

Picture it: Boston, Massachusetts, the dead of winter in late 2001. Still reeling from the terrorist attacks of 9/11 I found myself asking the following question: How on earth did I miss the Olympics last year? Though we’ll likely never know the real answer to that question, what we do know is that in the world of women’s artistic gymnastics, there are few other elite international competitions that contain as many thrills, spills and chills that we saw in the summer of 2000 in Sydney, Australia. Now remember, this was before Youtube, so I had to go on Ebay and find two VHS copies of the competition that some lovely person recorded from the live television broadcast. This was also before NBC sucked total shit, so it was actually pretty comprehensive coverage, unlike their current broadcasts which tend to focus almost exclusively on the favored front-runners and the Americans. When I tell you I wore these tapes out, I mean it quite literally. Every morning during breakfast and most days after class, I would watch routine after routine of the all-around final, over and over until my VCR spit the tapes out one day, and said “enough!” Thankfully, the entire competition, as well as pretty much every other one, is now available for free on YouTube. From the over-the-top gold-or-nothing diva antics of frontrunner Svetlana Khorkina, to the stunning vault controversy, to the nail-biting series of falls, trips, and blunders during the final rotation on floor, it remains truly one of the most exciting and memorable finals in all of sport.  

Over the Limit (2017) available on Amazon Prime

Polish Director Marta Prus has made an incredible documentary that follows Margarita Mamun, a Russian rhythmic gymnast in her quest to cap her career with Olympic gold under the intense pressure of her coaches. What might at first seem like another triumphant sports fairytale soon turns out to be a wincing portrait of abuse, as we see the injured and exhausted young woman endure a constant stream of insults and invectives from the head of the Russian National Team, Irina Viner. Viner, who was honored in 2015 with the Olympic Order for her achievements in gymnastics coaching, is a straight up cartoon villain, skulking around in crazy hats and costume jewelry as she screams at the gymnast and her personal coach “to go to fucking hell, both of you, losers” It’s insane, heart-breaking, and so beautifully shot by Prus, who was a gymnast herself. It has an extraordinary way of making you rethink the narrative of self-sacrifice and triumph in the sporting world.