A listicle of everything I have been consuming/considering. Keeping it casual…
Autobiography of Red by Anne Carson
A reimagining of a classic Greek myth. A coming-of-age story full of sensuality and the nature of art.
The Babysitters Club, Netflix (2020-2021)
The Babysitters Club (tragically canceled after just two seasons) is a thoughtful, well-constructed slice of Young Adult television that manages to take serious adult topics and make them age-appropriate. The series takes its subjects seriously without attempting to adultify them. “Claudia and the Sad Goodbye” (written by Sascha Rothchild) is a gently stunning meditation on a child confronting grief for the first time.
Alicia Silverstone (in a killer supporting role as one of the moms) deserves everything in the world.
Music written by literal teens
Red Car by Jais
red blue and green lights by bh and saoirse dream
cracked teeth by dacelynn
Hyperobjects by Timothy Morton.
Object-oriented ontology frankly scrapes just above my head, but this bit of excellent ecological philosophy genuinely changed how I saw the world.
THAT Moon River Frank Ocean scene in The Summer I Turned Pretty.
Steven never did find a suit that fit, but Taylor looks lovely as always! They are the only healthy couple in the entire show (including Susannah and Laurel).
Charli XCX belongs to them and no one can tell me otherwise.
Love is Blind in junction with the recaps on Bachelor Fantake.
Is it just me or is Season 5 particularly chaotic? (Uche and Lydia deserve each other at this point.)
Donald Judd was never hot, but Kevin Bacon is.
Give I Love Dick a watch if only for the shirtless cowboy splendor.
Columbus (Kogonada, 2017)
A meditation on modernist architecture, grief, and hometowns.
From behind a pane of glass, Haley Lu Richardson’s Casey mirrors a rectangular structure, hands moving in clear lines. We see rather than hear her, but we know what she is saying. She sees how architecture forms matter and energy. Casey understands how a cut of light could encapsulate a physical philosophy—how philosophy itself can be physical, too.
Love of cinema is not enough to make it—It’s a form with too short a history to build your work solely upon it.
Cinema is the point of intersection, a summary of light/color/sound/motion. How can anyone make a film without photography—the very substance of filmmaking itself; motion picture—without music or philosophy?
When John C. Reilly sings Aimee Mann in Magnolia and when Annie Baker name-checks it in The Flick I rediscover the medium as a synthesis of what has come before and what is to come.
At the end of Magnolia, Claudia smiles.
Barbara Loden is dead but Wanda (1970) is not.
Elia Kazan and William Inge are dead too, but Splendor in the Grass (1961) is not.
Fountain Baby by Amaarae
There’s a fucking song called “Co-Star” with the line “Crazy like Aquarius / Text me when you’re serious." Need I say more?
Every music video directed by Petra Collins.
The Olivia Rodrigo ones are perfect (especially Vampire) but go back and watch Selena Gomez’s Fetish. Not only was it sexy and ahead of its time, but it remains Gomez’s best music video to date—serving as a predecessor for films on femme desire and pain like Swallow and Titane.
The West Wing popularized the term POTUS.
I could watch Allison Janney performing “The Jackal” every minute for the rest of my life and never get bored.
Lines I think about on a daily basis:
“Sorry, my Prada’s at the cleaners along with my hoodie and my fuck you flip flops.” - The Social Network
“This isn’t you! This, going out with this jerk with a Porche? We made fun of guys like this!” - Gilmore Girls.
I know everyone talks about “WHY did you DROP out of YALE?” but the Porche line sticks with me more for reasons I’d rather not get into.
“Shut up and deal.” - The Apartment.
“Slime puppy.” - Succession.
I would pay Gerri ungodly amounts of money to speak to me like this.
Cher: “Duh. It's like a famous quote.” Dionne: “From where?” Cher: “Cliffs Notes.” - Clueless
It did not, in fact, originate from Cliffs Notes.
Cher: “An Alaia. It’s like a totally important designer.” Mugger: “And I will totally shoot you in the head.” - Also Clueless
You know that one scene when Cher says her white dress is Calvin Klein? It’s not Calvin Klein, it’s Anna Sui but nobody knew Anna Sui yet so they said Calvin Klein, and anyway the plosive consonants are incredibly satisfying.
Bunk: “Fuck fuck fuck fuck.” McNulty: “Fuck.” - The Wire
The iconic “Fuck” scene. If you haven’t watched The Wire now’s your chance.
Tracy: “Are you learning anything about the idle rich?" Mike: ”Yeah, they drive too fast.” - High Society
If you have ever been driven by me, I’m sorry. I saw this movie at an impressionable age.
“The last time you got fucked was by genetics.” - That one NYFW PR employee.
“SHUT UP NERD I FUCKED YOUR MOM!” - Bottoms
Remember that time I said in full sincerity, “I too would become a man of God for the right pussy?” Yeah, me neither.
“…But I’m so lonely.”
The final, crucial part of Jo’s “women” monologue from Greta Gerwig’s Little Women.
“If I loved you less I might be able to talk about it more.” - Emma
I cannot stress to you the irreparable damage seeing these words in print did to me at the ripe age of nine.
“How can anyone love anyone?” - Weetzie Bat, Francesca Lia Block
“…And she felt so happy, so grateful that they lived in the same city, where she could see him even without meaning to, where he could appear like this in front of her just when she needed most to see him, someone who loved her for her entire life. All of that. And their phone calls, the messages they wrote to one another, their jealousies, the years of looks, suppressed smiles, their dictionary of little touches. All the stories they had told about each other, about themselves.” - Beautiful World, Where Are You?, Sally Rooney
SIMON AND EILEEN SUPREMACY.
“You're needy love sponges, and I'm a plant that grows on rocks and lives off insects that die inside of me.” - Also Succession
I like to imagine Alan Ruck in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off as a previous incarnation of Connor Roy. Without Cameron, Connor does not exist.
“Does it matter if I tell you now that Jane was not beautiful?” - Jane: A Murder, Maggie Nelson
“A tripped Claymore explodes straight up.” - Democracy, Joan Didion.
The hottest thing an arms dealer has ever said.
“IT’S A MORAL IMPERATIVE.” - Real Genius
Did you know Jeremy Strong auditioned for the role of Roman first?
He looks so hot in The Big Short. I watched The Romantics for Anna Paquin but I rewatched it for him.
Michelle Pfeiffer in anything and everything. Ditto for Melanie Lynskey.
Taylor Swift at Arrowhead.
I, like her, live for the drama.
Reading, Writing & Arithmetic by The Sundays.
Whoever gave a fuck about an Oxford comma anyway? I’m late to the party, but “Hideous Towns” is a particular favorite.
If you think Elena Ferrante is a man you’re a fucking idiot.
I ripped out the final page of My Brilliant Friend where I wrote my future daughter’s name.
Being hot is an energetic mindset.
Wear long skirts. Read Keats. Read blogs. Read Don Juan. Cut your hair with kitchen scissors.
Live with a philosophy of honesty but be generous.
I am driving by the LA river where they filmed To Live and Die in LA.
I am at a Vidiots screening of To Live and Die in LA.
I am listening to music at Goldfish.
I am playing darts at Johnny’s.
I am drinking at Bar Flores.
I am dancing in my kitchen.
I am thinking about teenagers.
I am wondering when full-throated enjoyment of things gets beat out of us. Is that what we mean when we talk about 25-year-old teenage girls? The capacity to enjoy things without embarrassment?
Do we learn in adulthood to hedge our bets? To make our attributes and interests more mature (read: masculine, straight), to align with the “right” or “cool” things, eschew sincerity and call it “young” because we have misnamed the sincere thing as immature rather than call it what it is (brave, full of humanity).
Stacy Kranitz told me she listens to Ke$ha so you should too.
I am driving down the 110 listening to Liz Phair.
I’m at Semi-Tropic talking about Val Kilmer.
I’m at Lowboy talking about Olivia Rodrigo.
I don’t want to talk about Caroline Calloway or Natalie Beach anymore.
I’m at The Roosevelt talking about Past Lives.
I’m at Aroma talking about Zoe Cassavetes.
I’m at the Tiki bar by the Scientology building.
I look up at the glowing radio tower and wonder what channel they’re on.
I fall asleep at 3 AM or 11 PM there is no in-between.
I wake at 7 AM or noon there is no in-between.
I’m at the shave ice place on Hollywood playing Connections on the NYT Games app.
Near to the Wild Heart by Clarice Lispector
We could talk about her comparisons to Joyce, but let’s not. When the book was published in 1943, Lispector was a twenty-three-year-old law student and hot as fuck. They called her “Hurricane Clarice,” which… jealous.
She makes me want to take a kitchen knife to my jugular out of envy.
I am watching the early seasons of Vanderpump Rules.
Most of its subjects were younger than I am now.
Tom Sandoval wanted to be an actor but he settled for being a “personality.”
The one scene after the party in 10 Things I Hate About You.
Cameron is driving Bianca home and he asks, “Have you always been this selfish?” Quietly, an admission, she says, “Yes.”
Kat and Patrick are totally doomed (she’s moving to New York for fuck’s sake) but Cameron and Bianca will be together forever probably.
Annie Baker’s The Antipodes.
Do you miss the writer’s room? This will make you stop missing it.
The premiere of Bachelor in Paradise confirms it will be reliably messy.
Wells’ job is “Beach” and being Sarah Hyland's arm candy. We should all congratulate him on being so lucky.
I refuse to watch The Golden Bachelor—I’m in no mood to cry.
I am fantasizing about eating my own 35mm celluloid in a screening room.
Romantic Comedies come alive in two shots.
Nothing kills chemistry more than single coverage.
Normal People makes it work but I could hardly tell you why, except how close the camera gets (an unusual choice in television). It is Marianne and Connell’s individual desire that makes the whole thing emotionally satisfying, not necessarily their actual physical proximity.
In Normal People's filmmaking, we feel their minds enter one another’s.
I was nineteen when I drank an entire bottle of champagne and fell asleep on the couch to Jean Marc-Vallée.
Jean Marc-Vallée is dead but Sharp Objects is not.
I think about that Martha Wainwright scene with Shailene Woodley on a daily basis.
Do you remember the American Idol Karaoke game for PlayStation 2?
Without Secretary, 50 Shades of Grey would not exist.
I love Maggie Gyllenhaal but I wish they hadn’t recast Katie Holmes in the Batman series.
Do you like Dawson’s Creek? I do, but that’s just because of an emotional attachment to Joshua Jackson (condolences on the divorce, by the way) and the fact that Kevin Williamson wrote Scream.
Christopher Nolan is in love with Cillian Murphy.
Christopher Nolan is in love with men like how Taylor Swift is in love with women.
Don’t you have to love what you write about?
I write for teenage girls and their 45-year-old mothers and no one in between.