First Cup of Coffee - Tuesday October 7th, 2025

Magic Reborn is a little over 22,000 words! Sharing my thoughts on Taylor Swift's new album "The Life of a Showgirl" and the online criticism and drawing comparisons between this album and my book The Tears of the Rose: both are feminist media. And also, it's fall.

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Transcript

 0:00
 This is Jeffe Kennedy, also writing as Jennifer K Lambert, author of Epic Fantasy Romance.

 0:07
 I'm here with my first cup of coffee.

 0:18
 Good morning, everyone.

 0:20
 Today is Tuesday, October 7th, 2025.

 0:25
 I'm here with my first cup of coffee.

 0:31
 Oh, really good this morning.

 0:34
 It's good every day, but it's really good this morning.

 0:36
 You know, like some days it just hits you.

 0:40
 You all can just wait a moment while I save her.

 0:42
 Well, it is a somewhat chilly October morning here in Santa Fe.

 0:48
 We've had a couple of absolutely incredible weather days, just like perfect autumn days with no breeze and hot sun and blue blue skies that are cloudless in a full circle all around.

 1:06
 Not a cloud to be seen, just scorchingly beautiful, soul searingly beautiful.

 1:15
 And the leaves are starting to turn up here.

 1:17
 So I saw some writer friends.

 1:21
 Yesterday we had lunch at Cafecito, which was delightful as always, except for OK.

 1:28
 So here's one of my my things.

 1:31
 I like my steak medium rare.

 1:34
 And I got the steak free and I asked for it medium rare and it was so it was like well done.

 1:42
 It was, it was like zombie steak.

 1:45
 It had been cooked for so long and barely resurrected.

 1:50
 And one of my lunch companions encouraged me to send it back, but I did not.

 1:55
 It was still tasty, but a lot of like I have this sort of calculus that I do at different restaurants of like what should I ask for?

 2:05
 Should I ask for 'cause I don't really want it rare.

 2:07
 I don't like it when it has the cold center cafecito.

 2:11
 I thought, well, I'm safe asking for medium rare because a lot of times if I order rare, I'll actually get medium rare.

 2:20
 But in this case, it was so well done.

 2:22
 It was like, but it wasn't too tough to choose so.

 2:28
 But that was my not my point.

 2:29
 I was actually rhapsodizing, not complaining.

 2:32
 One wouldn't know it, but it was gorgeous.

 2:35
 We sat outside and the sunlight, the afternoon sunlight was coming through the changing leaves and every once in a while a little red leaf would fall on our table like a gift.

 2:48
 And it was great conversation and good wine and all of these things.

 2:54
 Yeah.

 2:54
 So anyway, it was it was delightful.

 2:56
 I did not get any writing done yesterday.

 3:00
 So I need to start getting writing done and I'm hoping it'll be OK today.

 3:06
 But yes, I am at the end of the act one climax.

 3:11
 So working way on the writing, but I am at not a well almost 22,000 words.

 3:18
 So theoretically it should start going a little faster now and I can get it finished out with my friends.

 3:25
 Yesterday we were talking about things we wanted to write, writing ideas and kind of bouncing off of each other, which is one of the most fun things to do.

 3:33
 And so now I kind of want to do that those things that we were talking about.

 3:41
 But I went to see the Taylor Swift movie for Life of a Showgirl with Sydney at the Tyrant.

 3:49
 She came up from Albuquerque and went with me and took photos.

 3:53
 So, you know, she's doing her job.

 3:55
 We're getting content.

 3:57
 There's been so much stuff online about the release of this album.

 4:01
 So much stuff.

 4:03
 And I'm one of those listeners that like, I almost never love anything on the first listen.

 4:09
 It takes me several listens before I really start to get into it.

 4:14
 And so, you know, Upfront Life of a Showgirl is not my favorite album, but I still really like it and there's a lot of songs on it that I really like.

 4:27
 And it's more, and this has been observed everywhere online exhaustively.

 4:32
 I mean, to the point of, I mean, seriously ad nauseam, but it's more like 1989, which we could have expected because she was working with Martin and Schalbeck.

 4:44
 Again, it's a popular album.

 4:47
 It's a very happy album, and it is not the deep and reflective lyrics of her last four albums, which is fine.

 4:59
 I happen to love the last four albums a whole lot, particularly Midnights.

 5:06
 I think Midnights and Tortured Poets I've talked about this are my favorites.

 5:11
 But I've listened to Life of a Showgirl and there's a lot to love there and a lot of it is deceptively light hearted.

 5:21
 There's a lot of important emotions beneath it.

 5:24
 But The thing is, is this is a happy album.

 5:26
 This is her Happy I'm in Love album.

 5:30
 And I think there's a couple things going on social media wise.

 5:34
 Remember that old New Yorker cartoon from the like, probably from the 90s where the one dog is sitting at the keyboard and the other dog is down below and the dog at the keyboard is saying no one knows you're a dog on the Internet.

 5:47
 And I think that's really important to remember because we don't know who these people are on the Internet talking about things.

 5:55
 Some of them we do because they've established presences, but a lot of these are like 1 offs.

 6:03
 It reminds me of this thing that my friend Jim Sorenson said once, which I believe he was echoing other people, but he said no one is too corrupt for the right and no one is pure enough for the left.

 6:16
 And I thought that's such a great insight because the easiest way to get the left to not be united in these, even in these times when we have a very clear and present danger, very clear enemy where we're battling literal fascists and Nazis, racists, Stephen Miller wanting to decrease the population of the United States by hundreds of millions of people.

 6:44
 That's that's a thing.

 6:45
 And you know what people he wants to get rid of too, right?

 6:50
 But we it's so easy to get that, you know, struck these battles among progressives, leftists online about like, who is left enough?

 7:01
 Who's progressive enough.

 7:03
 This album is about that she's in love, that she had been lonely, that now she has this person, she has the very raunchy sexy song would which is great.

 7:19
 Gotta love that.

 7:21
 And and of course there's relentless criticism right about this, right 'cause somehow people think that a 35 year old woman should not be singing about sex.

 7:29
 And I've been seeing people gathering songs online, you know, like from our from our youth or from other times, you know, like much sexier songs.

 7:40
 And I suggested Relax by Frankie Goes to Hollywood and In My Room by the Bengals.

 7:49
 Let's pretend we're married.

 7:51
 You know, these are songs that are very explicit, much more explicit than would.

 7:55
 But there's this relentless criticism.

 7:59
 And what's disappointing to me is there are people drawing these really, they're really stretching, you know, to try to make her seem like she's racist, but then also like she's MAGA.

 8:12
 And it's like, if you know anything about her and her politics, which is demonstrated over time, you know, like she has among her dancers, you can look at a photo of of her dancers on the Eros tour.

 8:28
 She has people of all kinds of ethnicities and body sizes.

 8:33
 You need to calm down as a song that's about homophobia and how she supports queer people.

 8:41
 She has come out and deliberately not endorsed.

 8:47
 Trump has has warned US against voting for this particular administration.

 8:55
 She supported Kamala Harris.

 8:58
 She is not MAGA.

 8:59
 So, you know, it's fascinating to see these it's it's fascinating from an objective standpoint.

 9:06
 It's upsetting because it seems like people are believing it, like, you know, these bots pretending to be people, you know, saying things like, oh, well, you know, this song is racist because she's, you know, talking about a black knight, you know, the Onyx knight.

 9:23
 And it's like, Oh yeah.

 9:24
 Because a black knight has not been a literary symbol for for ages, right?

 9:32
 You know, I know there are times when people are coding racism and that's awful and they're using dog whistles.

 9:38
 That's not what's happening with Taylor.

 9:42
 That's not how she thinks.

 9:45
 And if you you know, and The thing is, is they don't care.

 9:48
 They're not listening to the music.

 9:50
 They're just trying to be divisive.

 9:52
 Taylor's a liberal icon and they don't like that.

 9:56
 So they have to tear her down.

 9:57
 And people who consider themselves progressives jump on that bandwagon.

 10:03
 And I think it's really upsetting because I have seen quite a few women jumping on there talking about Taylor being anti feminist because she's in love.

 10:15
 She's getting married.

 10:17
 She has been singing to us for the last 20 years about how she wants love, that she wants children.

 10:27
 You know, we know she's wanted the ring and pushing strollers and all of that.

 10:33
 And she's excited about that.

 10:35
 So she's written songs about being excited about having the driveway with a basketball hoop in it and having children with her amazing, vigorous lover.

 10:47
 And she's excited and happy.

 10:50
 And people are saying that this is anti feminist.

 10:53
 And you know what people?

 10:55
 No, let's just run away together.

 10:59
 I want to get married.

 11:00
 Why?

 11:01
 Because I love him.

 11:03
 You will be bored of him in two years and we will be interesting forever.

 11:08
 Just because my dreams are different than yours doesn't mean they're unimportant.

 11:12
 No it is not.

 11:14
 It is not anti feminist.

 11:16
 And, you know, it comes back to this thing about being too pure for the left.

 11:22
 No one is pure enough for the left, right?

 11:25
 Because like, you can't be feminist enough.

 11:27
 And we end up like, turning and fighting each other on who's feminist enough and what does it mean to be really feminist.

 11:35
 And it's toxic.

 11:37
 It's really damaging because we should be standing together.

 11:41
 Because the whole point of feminism is that, for me anyway, that I am a person first and a woman 2nd.

 11:50
 And that as a person I have all of the rights of fundamental rights of any human being.

 11:59
 And that I get to choose what I want my life to be.

 12:04
 That no one can force me to be barefoot and pregnant and in the kitchen cooking.

 12:10
 But you know what?

 12:12
 If I want to devote myself to baking sourdough and if I'm met a guy and, well, if I were still capable, I'm not, But, you know, have his babies, have some children and a wonderful, warm and loving home.

 12:27
 Yeah, that's we get to have that.

 12:30
 And it it reminds me a whole lot of when the Tears of the Rose came out.

 12:37
 So the first trilogy that I have fantasy romance from Kensington started with The Mark of the Tala and then the Tears of the Rose and the Talon of the Hawk.

 12:49
 And the Mark of the Tala starts out saying, talking about the three princesses, each more beautiful than the last.

 12:55
 And the first book, The Mark of the Tala is about the middle Princess.

 12:58
 In fact, that was my working title was The Middle Princess.

 13:01
 And then I had went to the youngest who I was calling the flower Princess.

 13:06
 And the last one is the the air and warrior and she is the sword Princess.

 13:12
 Well, so book 2, the tears of the Rose.

 13:15
 She is the youngest and most beautiful.

 13:17
 And I've, I've written other books that tangle with this theme, but it's, it's difficult for women who are incredibly beautiful because they grow up thinking that that is the only worth they have and society treats them that way.

 13:37
 I have a friend right now who is my age, who is, you know, been in a long marriage.

 13:44
 And she is a strikingly beautiful woman, like, model beautiful.

 13:49
 She fits kind of this classic ideal.

 13:52
 She's very tall and very slender with long blonde hair.

 13:56
 And she's, yeah, she's gorgeous.

 13:59
 She's amazingly gorgeous and men treat her like a trophy.

 14:03
 And she has even commented from time to time on, you know, like feeling like, you know, she's arm candied, like she's just there to to look good.

 14:14
 And this is a very common thing for for women, right, especially very beautiful women, right.

 14:22
 So I wanted to play with this in this book where Amy Amelia grows up being the most beautiful.

 14:31
 Her entire life.

 14:32
 Poets have written sonnets to her praising her beauty.

 14:37
 And she grows up thinking that, OK, this is my worth, which is how life is.

 14:43
 That's this is a very common phenomenon, right?

 14:47
 And at the beginning, she says, I think it's even just part of her inner monologue where she's thinking that she doesn't have to learn to do anything, she doesn't need to be anything or anyone, that she can simply smile, that all anyone requires of her is to smile.

 15:11
 And which I stand by that this is, you know, this is how very beautiful women learn to be, right?

 15:20
 You know, you, you smile, you use your looks, and you get by Well, Yeah.

 15:24
 Well, you look beautiful, Cassie.

 15:26
 You look ******* amazing.

 15:27
 It's literally all anyone's ever told you your entire life.

 15:32
 There was a review.

 15:33
 And this was back when I saw my reviews more often.

 15:36
 But it was like a romance for feminist site or something like that.

 15:41
 And I was kind of excited for their review because I'm hardcore feminist.

 15:47
 I really am mostly in that, you know, go back to this.

 15:52
 Yeah, I believe that I'm a person 1st and and a woman 2nd.

 15:56
 And I think we all get to choose how we want to live our lives.

 16:02
 And my books, I feel like, are very feminist.

 16:07
 But this gal, I believe even DNF D it and had put an unhappy face on it.

 16:14
 And she had pulled out that line saying, oh, well, it turns out that this book isn't feminist at all because the heroine thinks this.

 16:22
 And it's like, yeah, makes me want to set my hair on fire because how do you not understand that human beings are flawed, that you buy into this relentless programming from the patriarchy and that being feminist doesn't mean that you never doubt, that you never fall into these traps.

 16:48
 It doesn't mean any of those things at all.

 16:51
 And it's so frustrating that people think some people think that to be feminist you have to reject everything feminine.

 17:04
 And, and I know that's true because I have had people come up to me and tell me that I don't need to be so performatively female, as if I don't know that.

 17:18
 And as if because the fact that I choose to have long hair and I wear makeup and I do my nails and I like pretty clothes, that that is somehow me not being true to myself.

 17:31
 Whereas the whole point is that I get to be this.

 17:36
 That nobody gets to tell me on from either direction how I should dress and how I should act and what parts of being a woman I embrace and what I don't.

 17:48
 And yeah, I just think that it's it's amazing to watch this on such a mass scale because I do think that the disinformation bots are working overtime to try to cancel Taylor Swift, which they're just not going to be able to do.

 18:07
 The album said all sorts of recording industry milestones again, yet again.

 18:14
 But to have us somehow lose sight of of what we want that because she's happy about getting married.

 18:24
 And I hope she does get to have a baby right away.

 18:27
 I mean, she's 35.

 18:28
 She needs to start having her kids.

 18:30
 She knows that.

 18:31
 You know, I hope, if I hope, if that's what they want to have kids right away, I hope she gets to have them because, you know, she has given her life to, you know, being a showgirl, right?

 18:44
 That's what this album's about with that final song, which is a really great song.

 18:49
 You know, that that's what the life of a showgirl is about.

 18:53
 And, you know, I will never experience her level of fame.

 18:59
 But, you know, I think we are all of us trying to to balance, you know, like when you pursue something that you want the kind of career you want to have and it involves a level of performing and being in the public eye, then yeah, that's that's not easy.

 19:19
 And you still get to want like the quiet things of life.

 19:25
 You still get to want to make bread.

 19:27
 One thing that I loved in watching this movie was getting to see, you know, the behind the scenes on the video that that was her loaf of sourdough, which she talks, she's talked about baking sourdough a whole lot.

 19:40
 She's really into this.

 19:42
 And she got to have her loaf in the video and it was incredibly gorgeous.

 19:46
 It's yeah, much better than anything I could bake.

 19:51
 Mine never come out that pretty.

 19:52
 It's like, well damn.

 19:56
 So anyway, I am disappointed.

 20:00
 There was a fairly big name author whose politics I thought I generally agreed with, but apparently she went on a rant about Taylor being anti feminist and it's like, could we not?

 20:12
 Could we try not to shark feed on each other?

 20:17
 Right.

 20:18
 Tell you what, once we get rid of the fascists and the Nazis and restore democracy and some decent social programs to the the US again and remove the threat of having our own military attack our citizens and especially if they're Democrats.

 20:41
 And I'm very proudly wearing my blue today.

 20:45
 We don't need to be fighting each other.

 20:48
 If if you all want to, you know, throw down and let's, I don't know what, what do you want codify what it means to be a feminist?

 20:57
 Sure, let's have that conversation at some point.

 21:00
 I'm really interested to hear the counter argument for how I don't know how I'm supposed to be a feminist.

 21:07
 Actually, I'm not, but sounds good to say I am.

 21:11
 I don't want to hear it.

 21:13
 All right, on that note, I'm going to get to work and write my my feminist books that may or may not seem feminist to anyone else.

 21:23
 And I will talk to you all on Friday.

 21:25
 You all take care.

 21:26
 Bye bye.

 21:36
 Do we have a cat visiting?

 21:39
 So Killian, stop, go on Act 1 climax.

 21:46
 So I'm all right.

 21:49
 What was my point?

 21:50
 I know I had one.

 21:51
 I put him back in the bedroom so I don't have to hear it.

 21:54
 My mean, mean cat mom.