oops i lied!
but lying is the most fun a girl can have without taking her credit card out, or whatever panic! at the disco said
Y’all remember when I said I was taking a break from reading… anyways…
You may notice under my reading section that I finished two books since that last newsletter. Oops! As it turns out, I am powerless to the whims of the library hold line.
Honestly, I found it really overwhelming to try and tackle the problem of my reading habits. It’s not that I think there’s anything inherently wrong with reading mostly new releases, but it feels antithetical to some of my personal goals: namely that 1) I want to be well-read and 2) I want to keep refining my personal taste when it comes to all things, but especially literature.
To this end, I need to devote some energy to filling the gaps in my literary knowledge. But alas. Where to start?
One friend (hi Priya!) suggested creating a syllabus for myself to tackle—an idea I love and will be saving for another time once I noodle over it a little. Another friend (hi Ella!) suggested finding an existing list or project to tackle (like my ongoing alphabetical 1001+ movies to watch before you die project), which my Type A/color-coordinated spreadsheet loving ass would definitely have fun sinking into. There is a 1001+ books list, but just looking at it makes me feel dizzy.
There’s definitely something here for me; but the exact shape of it eludes me. Do you have any thoughts? Please text me (or leave a comment) with any ideas!
For now, I’m starting with winnowing down my physical TBR—that is, the books that I own that I haven’t read yet. I used to say that buying a book was the most sure-fire way to ensure that I wouldn’t ever read it. However, half my (very NY-apartment sized bookshelf) is taken up with those books now and I’ve gotta finish some and give them away to make room.
The books I own but have not yet read:
The White Album - Joan Didion (1979)
Sex and Rage - Eve Babitz (1979)
Getting Lost (partially read) - Annie Ernaux (2001)
Nightbitch - Rachel Yoder (2021)
Breasts and Eggs - Mieko Kawakami (2012)
Vladimir - Julia May Jonas (2022)
The Overstory - Richard Powers (2018)
Autumn - Ali Smith (2016)
The Sympathizer - Viet Thanh Nguyen (2015)
Interior Chinatown - Charles Yu (2020)
On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous - Ocean Vuong (2019)
Kitchen Confidential - Anthony Bourdain (2000)
I’m thinking that in the next two weeks I’ll pair Didion’s essays and Babitz’s party girl novel, both reflections of California in the 60’s and 70’s and originally published in the same year. Feel more than free to partner read either with me! I look forward to sharing my thoughts.
If I come back here in two weeks and a book that’s NOT on this list appears in my what i’m reading section… you have permission to track me down and throw tomatoes at me in the street. (but since I know there is a decent chance that I will break my own rules—please do not actually throw any projectiles at me. I am very easily startled.)
What i’m reading
Martyr! by Kaveh Akbar
Martyr! is a new novel this year that will be on every best-of list—and for good reason! It follows an Iranian-American poet who spent most of his twenties drunk and/or high and is now struggling to find meaning in life. He grows obsessed with the idea of martyrdom and learns about an Iranian artist with a terminal disease who, as a final piece of performance art, is spending her last days in the Brooklyn Museum. Akbar’s writing is simultaneously clear-sighted and surrealist. It’s a gorgeous novel about art, living, and dying. You know, all the important stuff. I already know some people are going to hate the ending.
I also just realized it was published on my birthday. What a great belated gift to myself!
Emily Wilde's Encyclopaedia of Faeries by Heather Fawcett
This diary-style fantasy novel is about a scholar who travels to a remote community to study faeries (which are confirmed real in this universe, and a real menace). Her project gets interrupted by the arrival of her fellow professor, who she suspects—in addition to being a lazy playboy who fabricates his research—is a faerie himself. Either this alone interests you or doesn’t! If it doesn’t, well. Booo, how boring of you.
The titular Emily Wilde is an extremely lovable protagonist: no-nonsense, resourceful, and fearless (and definitely coded as being on the spectrum). The plot was also super engaging. I loved this style of writing; it reminds me of some of the best YA I enjoyed as a teenager, without ever really feeling like YA. I don’t ever really read fantasy, but I had so much fun with this that I might have to start.
What i’m watching
Saturday Night (2024) dir. Jason Reitman
This movie follows the 90 minutes leading up to the first ever Saturday Night Live. It’s chaotic in every way: the sets aren’t done being built, the crew is in open revolt, and one of the cast members hasn't even signed his contract. Reitman reflects this in the frenetic filmmaking (which kind of pissed me off—stop swinging that damn camera around, I’m getting motion sick!), but it does settle into a groove and gives its (many) characters a bit of space to shine.
I thought I would love this, since it checks off so many boxes:
A compressed time frame
A chaotic, character-driven script
Dylan O’Brien, one of my original beloveds, ty CW for your ridiculous teen shows
Lamorne Morris, who I loved as Winston in New Girl
& Rachel Sennott! my NYU princess
In the end, I only liked it. The acting is great across the board and there are funny bits, but the movie gets in its own way. The script tries too hard to make meaningful moments out of thin air. There’s one too many monologues about how Lorne Michaels is saving the world through avant garde sketch comedy. Matthew described it as a bit of a “theater kid circle jerk,” which: harsh but fair. Or maybe we’re just cynical assholes.
Out in theaters now
Casino (1995) dir. Martin Scorsese
This movie has card shark Robert De Niro running a Las Vegas casino while trying to temper the consequences of the actions of his trigger-happy mob buddy and hustler wife. Apparently people give Scorsese some shit for basically remaking Goodfellas but in Vegas and without all of its iconic Italian cooking scenes. To which I say: who cares, Goodfellas is great, let Scorsese make whatever he wants!
I really liked Casino; it’s a movie from a Sicilian Catholic filmmaker about flying too close to the sun and the inevitable corruption of the soul—what’s not to love? De Niro’s character is a hardass whose hatred of incompetence lowkey leads to his downfall. Relatable king!
Streaming for free (with ads) on Tubi
Megalopolis (2024) dir. Francis Ford Coppola
YES! HA! HAAA! THIS IS WHAT CINEMA’S ALL ABOUT BABY!
Here’s a non-exhaustive, spoiler-filled list of things that I loved/cackled really hard at at the Megalopolis screening. Although can anything be a spoiler if the plot doesn’t matter/exist? Regardless, for maximum enjoyment, do yourself a favor and watch this (in a packed theater, ideally, maybe post-edible if that’s your thing) before reading this list.
Aubrey Plaza IS Wow Platinum
“You’re anal as hell, Cesar. I, on the other hand, am oral as hell.”
“They’re siblings and furthermore they have sex with each other!” or whatever it is that’s said
When Julia (who is sometimes inexplicably called Juliette) is closing her eyes and “““walking into the future””” and it looks like they paid a guy $12 dollars and a ham sandwich for half a day of CGI work. She is literally walking around in a radiation-filled McDonald’s Play Palace.
The guy who was holding the tuba? What happened to him? Who was that? Where did he go?
When they bid on that girl’s virginity (or whatever) using paddles with QR codes on them
“If it’s a girl, we’re going to name her Sunny Hope. If it’s a boy, we’ll name him Francis.” Icon. Legend.
When the satellite crashes into New York, presumably destroying half of it and then we simply never acknowledge that again
The swastika stump??? Hello? At some point there’s a clip of Hitler in the middle of the movie? Like why
When the twelve year old child SHOOTS Adam Driver in the FACE???
When they showed the dead wife on the seafloor and then her twin fetuses (feti?) start glowing and morphing into rocks. Again why. Also I need a permanent, legal ban on showing any kind of cartoon fetus in movies
“Marcus Aurelius.”
The whole Aunty Wow sequence (although I feel really bad Aubrey Plaza had to do that with Shia Lebouf)
“Do you like my boner?” and then he whips off the blanket to reveal a bow and arrow—and THEN he shoots Wow Platinum in the chest. Genuine gasps in the audience
When they put the baby on the ground? I thought for sure it was about to be a magic carpet moment. Why would they end on that?
My parting thought on this movie is that it’s the first time I’ve ever gone to use the bathroom and there was a line outside the men’s but not the women’s. Francis Ford Coppola, you invented feminism!
in theaters now
okay ta ta for now! remember do NOT throw tomatoes at me thank you
anna x
you should read the overstory!! if i weren’t gainfully employed it and also a wuss, it probably would have moved me to blow up a logging camp or an interstate highway widening project or something