where the hell have you been loca

(in my apartment, mostly)

You thought I was going to start this post after another long absence with another apology for being so inconsistent and undisciplined with this newsletter, didn’t you? You did, it’s okay. I thought I was going to, too. But, look, if there’s been one consistent thing about this over the past [redacted] years, it’s that I’m always going to be inconsistent and then apologizing for being inconsistent and swearing I’m going to really figure out how to make this an organized, dedicated, regular thing and then failing to do so because I have other things pulling my attention and/or overthink it to the point of inaction. So! That’s where we are!

plz do not think i have read or watched twilight i only know this because it’s a meme

The answer? Uh, okay: I’d been MIA because not to get too TMI but I was in a little relationship with a boy I actually really liked for the first time at my big age and too happy to write my sad little essays yet also too anxious to write my silly little lists because I was like “I’ve never actually dated someone this nice to me??? Who’s a good guy??? Who likes me???” But then I was too depressed to write because we broke up—in the best possible version of a breakup, the “we really care about each other and we’re still friends, it’s just bad timing at this current moment” kind—which made me even sadder because it’d be so much easier if he was a jerk, but he’s not!

I’ve also just been spending a lot of time working or hunting for work, because unfortunately I am the kind of person who has tied the majority of my self worth to my job and that’s obviously not great when my industry is in a tail spin. Cool and fun times to live in, glad I was born 30 years too late to actually thrive!

Anyway! I do have a real piece I’m working on to come soon, but in the meantime, here’s a roundup of what I’ve been doing and consuming and hyperfixating on for the past few months……...

national book critics circle awards

I went expecting to lose—and I’m not at all being like faux-humble here, the other books in my category that I read were head and shoulders above me—and did lose, though I’m mad it wasn’t to Vinson Cunningham’s Great Expectations, for which I was desperately rooting to win. (Followed closely by John Ganz’s When the Clock Broke: Con Men, Conspiracists, and How America Cracked up in the Early 1990s). I will not shut up about either book, they’re both so incredibly good.

But anyway, the events did confirm my belief that I would love going to award shows when I know I’m just going to have a good time and have literally no expectations of winning because I love hearing people talk about their work (to an extent……sometimes it’s a little “Okay, Adrien Brody, wrap it up, you’re making a case for why writers need editors right now”) and I really I love getting dressed up.

I got this vintage dress from the early 40s when I was in LA last October at American Rag—one of those magical buys that I was not expecting to fit at all when I tried it on, let alone perfectly with no alterations needed, and made me feel like Katharine Hepburn in Holiday (tall) and tbh was mostly just excited to finally have an occasion to wear it

I spent the night before at the reading ceremony too starstruck to say anything—no matter how terse and polite—to Hanif Abdurraqib, one of my all-time favorite writers and poets, whose work I revere and have been so deeply influenced by (particularly when it comes to writing about music…I’ve loaned my copy of his collection They Can’t Kill Us Until They Kill Us to so many people who have loved it and never returned it that I’ve bought at least 6 copies for myself at this point).

I mean, that first paragraph alone, come ON.

At the after party, after much cajoling from my agent and my cousin, I finally was brave enough to thank him for his work and tell him how much it means to me and then he started telling me that he read my book in one sitting and went in to vivid, beautiful detail about what he loved about it and anyway here’s a pic of that exchange that my cousin snapped because I still cannot believe it happened (partly because I fully fucking left my body while trying to be cool and not cry.) He won, rightfully, the criticism award for his transcendent There’s Always This Year: On Basketball and Ascension, a book I will force into all your grubby hands if I have to.

We Tell Ourselves Stories: Joan Didion and the American Dream Machine by Alissa Wilkinson

I went to Albany the other weekend to do a conversation with the brilliant Alissa Wilkinson about my book and her fantastic new book and our subjects’ involvement in Hollywood in the 70s and 80s. It’s one of the best pieces of material on Didion I’ve read in some time; it’s a book fascinated with Didion’s fascination with the movies, and how the movies have shaped our culture—and our political system, and how Didion made that connection in her writing decades ago. Truly thought-provoking, enlightening stuff, perfect for the grown up not-like-the-other-girls-stopping-at-deifying-the-infamous-packing-list Didion heads [cough cough] who have read the entire canon (we’re talking After Henry, we’re talking Miami, we’re talking Salvador…). Again: I will to force this book in your hands if I have to.

new haim

According to last.fm I have played their new single “Relationships” 44 times (the majority of those were probably while I was on a walk, as one does while listening to the sisters that love walking in a music video more than anything). While trying to be patient through the slow, single release cycle leading up to a new album, I’ve been revisiting their last album, 2020’s Women in Music Pt. III, far and away their best, and one of my favorite albums from this decade so far. It doesn’t get old for me: the unique blend of inspiration from 70s Cal-rock bands and New York punk, 80s power pop, and 90s-early aughts R&B alike; the way these disparate genres they pull from somehow work together; the musicianship—I’m constantly yelling “whatever happened to ROCK BANDS” and Haim is maybe one of the last few carrying the torch—the vivid songwriting about depression and doomscrolling and hooking up and breaking up…folks, it’s gold.

While writing this, I paused to watch their banger of a lockdown-era late night performance of “Gasoline” from the empty parking lot of the Forum, which reminded me that the other week I procrastinated so bad that I taught myself how to play the drum part because (a) about twice a year I think “I should learn drums” but because I know I would grow tired of it in two weeks once I realize I won’t be brilliant at it right away and it would then just be an expensive toy collecting dust I just don’t sit on a little stool in front of my couch with various pillows arranged just so as a “kit” with drumsticks I bought years ago during one of these phases (b) it’s been one of my lifelong fantasies to be in a band with my two sisters but that will never happen because one is tone deaf, the other thinks I’m terminally uncool, and none of us live in the same city or possess much of an ability to read music. So I shall live vicariously through Haim for the rest of my days.

new japanese breakfast

Terrible title—For Melancholy Brunettes (& Sad Women)……it’s like, okay, 2018 is calling…—but a pretty good album. I can only imagine following up a career-best album that blew you up the way 2021’s Jubilee did would be a tall order. There have been a host of albums from young women indie artists about grappling with fame in the past few years, and, for the most part, I loathe the format. The “I hate being famous” stuff is so cringe, I’m sorry. No, you don’t, because you still continue to participate in the cycle! You’re not simply “fulfilling a contractual duty” and dropping out of the industry altogether when you’re done—you’re chasing bigger deals and bigger stages. Shut up!

Michelle Zauner manages to tread the line carefully—it’s more fiction-based, more interested in the concept of performance and the concept of fame, rather than her personal experience. (It also helps that she actually talked the talk, and after the coinciding release of her memoir Crying in H Mart and the insane tour schedule to promote Jubilee, quietly and with little fanfare, moved to Seoul for a year.) For Melancholy Brunettes is more melancholy than the mostly-upbeat Jubilee, but it’s not maudlin—I think it’s more closely related to 2017’s meditation-on-grief Soft Sounds from Another Planet, albeit more polished, with its blend of spare ballads, dream pop, grunge, and country-tinged rock. Oh, and there’s a Jeff Bridges duet, and it absolutely goes.

old lorde

Every year around this time when it starts to get warm enough and bright enough out to go on very long walks long into the evening, I revisit Melodrama to see if it still holds up or if it just hit me the right place and the right time. Good news: It’s still really that fucking good, a triumph in pop music (and music in general) from the past decade, so incredibly self-possessed in its lyrics and wildly unpredictable and thrilling in its production. (I’d do anything to have the feeling of listening to “Green Light” for the very first time once again.) I can’t remember who described it as something like a breakup and a house party in one album, but it’s…….mad true. The older I get, the more listening to it makes me wish I had more reckless fun in my 20s instead of being an addicted to the grind loser. I think I like art that has a self-destructive streak through it because I recognize the same urge in myself, but I’m just too much of a cautious goody-goody to ever give into it and truly be reckless. And even if I wasn’t, I’m too old for the early-20s partying and running on fumes and antics lifestyle now.

And by the time 2021’s Solar Power came out, Lorde was, too. Released to mostly mid reviews at the time, it’s slowly grown on me since it came out. (Once again, I don’t envy having to make a follow up to an all-timer.) Solar Power isn’t as full of Big Feelings as its predecessor, but then again, Big Feelings are hopefully something you grow out of when you get older. And, sure, it brings up some perils-of-fame themes, but it’s from an angle that’s less “I hate this” and more “I don’t know how I feel about this, but I accept the responsibility even though I know definitely know it isn’t healthy and I think you shouldn’t worship me because I’m just a fallible human being.” Mostly, though, it’s just a pleasant, a nice warm weather album to add to the springtime rotation.

parker posey in the white lotus

I love when a character actor shows up in a prestige cable drama and everyone acts like they’ve loved them all along but the real heads know the majority of them could not name one film they’ve loved them in that isn’t Josie and the Pussycats. (And, hate to say it, but within a certain demo, even Party Girl is approaching fake-fans ubiquity. That’s not to say you shouldn’t watch it if you haven’t seen it though, obviously.)

Posey shines in everything she does, but like many character actors, she’s so often typecast—something touched upon in this great profile in the New York Times from a few weeks ago. This season of The White Lotus has been kind of meh for me, but I perk up every time the bizarre Ratliffs are on screen. She’s still playing a Parker Posey-type, for sure, but there’s a little more meat to it than just a bizarre caricature of a woman. Mike White, we love you for all you do for character actresses of a certain age!!!

But a performance where I think she really shines, and actually plays sort of against type (i.e. is cast as the lead, not the best friend, and isn’t quirky or funny or offbeat but is just a normal contemporary woman) is in Zoe Cassavetes’ Broken English (2007), a lovely peak-mid-aughts-indie I have thought about at least twice a week since seeing it for the first time last fall. Posey plays a 30-something New Yorker who is single and depressed about her job and depressed that she’s still single while all her friends are coupled up and spends a lot of time wondering what the fuck is wrong with her and having panic attacks and bad dates………wow, I wonder why it makes me say “she’s so me” over and over again with increasing concern.

the studio

the shriek i shruk

Obviously I do not have Apple TV because it, in my opinion, offers the lowest ROI out of all the streaming platforms, but every once and awhile they’ll have a series that makes me steal the login from my parents and right now that show is Seth Rogen’s The Studio. (Yes, this means I have not seen Severance, and, no, I do not really care to.) Anyway, this show was literally made for me.

playing the sims 4

I quite literally have not played the sims since middle school but in a move of increasing need to dive deeper into dissociation mode, I downloaded the updated version and have been playing it the past few weeks. Like middle school, I mostly just enjoy the part where you’re building and designing houses. Unlike middle school, I’m less than optimistic that I could ever live in a home that looks like this, so the game is just kind of bumming me out.

I’m sure part of that is also that I’m playing a version of myself, obviously, and she’s fucking crazy (she keeps making hot dogs for breakfast and I don’t know how to stop her and it’s making me so mad), so I do believe this hyperfixation will come to an end soon.

in my freelance consulting era

So maybe hire me or refer me to someone who can hire me. I do it all!!!!! Social media! Writing! Ghostwriting! Editing! Content strategy! Etc etc!!!! (The more specific part of the “all” I do is listed here on my real life website.) In the words of Fran Lebowitz, I hate money but I love things (and I love working too), and I obviously want to work to gas up other people rather than myself (otherwise I would have turned this substack into something by now), so get at me. :)

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