sorry I'm late
Hi!
It’s Wednesday and I’m (almost) back on track with my weekly morning email schedule. Here’s what I’ve been up to:
What I’m clicking on:
I have always wanted to be a doomsday prepper. I just feel like I’d be really good at planning the bookshelf in my bunker, so I had a lot of fun reading about the super-rich preppers. This fascinating and actually pretty scary article about Andy Cohen’s America. North Korean social media stars (maybe you don’t know this but I’m obsessed with North Korea).
What I’m feeling inspired by:
All the photos from Women’s Marches on every continent. The funniest signs David Byrne saw at the march (I saw some of these too, but I guess he didn’t see this. Or this.) So many celebrities were involved too (and my friend Michelle took some photos for Vogue Italia!)
One of my idols, Jia Tolentino, on the radical possibility of the women’s march. 100 days of action and how you can demonstrate dissent.
What I’m New Years resolutioning about
My New Year’s resolution is to go to 2 new places each month. It can be a new restaurant, a new neighborhood, or a new country, or even a friend’s house I’ve never been to. I think it’s a good way to take my global wanderlust and turn it into something local and easy.
What I’m wanderlusting:
Keeping it local this week with two newish restaurants I really want to try: Ichiran and Lalo.
What I’m arting about:
I went to see William Eggleston and Hilton Als at White Columns.
What I’m writing about:
My trip to Marrakech and this one croissant I ate in Paris that I still think about at least once a week.
What I’m thankful for:
Friends that take for granted that I’m a pathetic loser who is afraid to drive on highways and city streets (hey, I’m from Idaho after all) and don’t even ask me to help drive during road trips.
What I’m reading:
Samuel Shem
This book is like if Caddyshack took place in a hospital and was directed by Ken Kesey. The whole book had very little nuance and was basically just a dirtier, more depressing, less sappy season of Grey’s Anatomy.
Did it make me cry: No.
Did it make me laugh: No. It’s funny, but it’s not that funny.
Did it make me miss a subways stop: No, but all the totally absurd sex scenes that are basically just dream sequences are riveting.
Would I recommend it: I don’t think so, but if you are a very very young person with a high tolerance for misogyny who is considering med school, you might like it.
Would I read it again: No.
Would it be a good movie: Probably. You’d have to add some more female characters that aren’t sex objects or ice queens. I see Bill Murray in this.
Maria Semple
I have a lot of mixed feelings about this book because it’s essentially trash written by a genius (she used to write for Arrested Development!). In the beginning, I hated it. In the end, I think I loved it?
If you’ve read Bernadette, don’t expect this book to have anything in common except a snarky/smart/middle-aged/fancy lady protagonist and fabulous architecture. Where Bernadette is a YA novel, this is raunchy and dirty and actually pretty dark.
Did it make me cry: Yes, actually. I thought I hated these people but then the last page was so beautiful.
Did it make me laugh: Yeah.
Did it make me miss a subways stop: Ugh almost.
Would I recommend it: Pretty much until I got to the end I was like “I can’t in good faith recommend this book to anybody” and now that I’m done with it I think I would recommend it to everybody who likes smart fiction written by rich white women about rich white women ruining their own lives. It’s a great book of it’s genre.
Would I read it again: No, but I would read a sequel and I still very much want to read Today Will Be Different (which I hear has some of the same characters).
Would it be a good movie: No. It would be great real estate porn a la “It’s Complicated” and I can’t picture the character of Teddy played by anybody except for Jesse Williams (or maybe hot felon?) and what am I talking about every woman in America would watch this movie. Yes, go ahead and make it.
What I’m reading right now:
What’s on my bookshelf waiting to be read:
The Sellout by Paul Beatty
What books are on my list to buy (this will take me months to actually do):
Now that I have established myself as a Miriam Toews fan, I want to see what else she has up her sleeve: A Boy of Good Breeding, A Complicated Kindness, Irma Voth, and her memoir, which sounds like it was inspiration for AMPS.
Since I read this article, I added a few more books to my list. This list is growing faster than I can keep up.
Do Not Say We Have Nothing by Madeleine Thien
Hot Milk by Deborah Levy
The new Bernadette book
Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead
M Train by Patti Smith
That Patty Hearst book
H Is For Hawk by Helen Macdonald
Seveneves by Neal Stephenson
The Beautiful Ones Are Not Yet Born
What Belongs to You by Garth Greenwell
The Association of Small Bombs
After interviewing Helen Ellis, I added a few books from her “classic trashy” book club to my list.
What are you reading? (You can reply to this email and tell me)
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