Power Pop Sightings in the Wild

I am very much enjoying the new Netflix series Orange is the New Black--though less impressed with the binge-watching these all-in-one-place Netflix series inspire. (Hell, even with DVDs you had to get up and change the disc after a few episodes. Not anymore!) And my daughter, 9, frequently falls down rabbit holes made of improbably attractive and auto-tuned teen stars whose future twerking and inevitable rehabs are destined to fill my declining years. I do not really ever want to see Good Luck Charlie's mug shot.

Anyway.

 Despite the dangers off binge-watching, OITNB is a terrific show (and relatively bite-sized, at only one season), made even better by the surprise inclusion of pop-punkster Annie Golden as Norma. She doesn't have a lot of lines--Norma's distinguishing characteristic is her strict rule of omerta--but she's a constant presence at the side of the steely kitchen manager Red (played by an almost unrecognizable Kate Mulgrew).

Golden (here shown on Mulgrew's left), in case you've forgotten, was the adorable lead singer of the Shirts.

 It was she, Jane Weidlin, Clare Grogan, Josie Cotton, and the late Patty Donahue (of the Waitresses) who got me through adolescence with the brief shreds of self-confidence I managed to salvage. Little weird girls were okay, or at least had a niche to fill, and that gave me something to hang onto.

So good to see Golden again

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