#28 Hobbies as Antidote
how sucking at stuff in front of people has been filling my cup recently
Happy Wednesday (It’s Thursday),
It’s been a few months, and I wish that I could say that I am returning to this newsletter with some renewed sense of purpose or wisdom to share with you all. Alas, I am feeling — as I’m sure many of you are right now — a bit battered from a storm but trying to conserve energy for what lies ahead.
I don't know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?
- Mary Oliver "The Summer Day"You may know this poem by the more famous lines that follow :
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?Often quoted in an effort to encourage ambition in young people, a more lyrical “so what is your plan?” when they graduate or leave university, well-meaning and responsible adults have been misunderstanding Mary Oliver since the Johnson Administration, missing the point of her poems entirely: she spends an entire summer day watching grasshoppers and asks with genuine conviction “what else should I have done?” Mary Oliver was the grown up version of that weird little girl who collects frogs and brings them inside with absolutely zero regard for domestic order. She touched grass every day. With my one wild and precious life I hope to do the same.
This won’t be an election eulogy, however there are themes that are emerging from my post-November 5 reflections that I would like to share. Mostly, that we’ve been here before and we are not alone. I think it’s important to remember that violent, dangerous, unprecedented times happen to people every day and that they are met by people who also may also feel ill-prepared, divided, and afraid: people who yearn for a simpler time and lament all that they haven’t yet learned before they must act.
I don’t think social justice movements of the past saw successes because they were led by visionaries with infinitely more compassion, intelligence or skill than regular people possess now nor do I think they resisted less powerful adversaries than we do today. Social justice movements succeed when enough of us—ordinary, everyday people— decide that protecting and supporting one another is a more meaningful existence than turning away from the fray to go it alone. In times like these, when our leaders and our systems fail us, we must remember that we can gather/plant/create new ones.
We are the ones we have been waiting for.
-June Jordan, "Poem for South African Women"I don’t care if it sounds cheesy, and I don’t care if I seem naive: I do and still believe in people and our ability to come together for one another. I see it in the way a hand instinctively covers a corner when a loved one bends down to retrieve a dropped something — protecting their body from potential harm. I see it in the way every leg finds the rhythm and every mouth finds the words to perform a haka — marking the moments of and celebrating life together. I see it in the mutual aid fundraisers for people’s surgeries, for people’s travel, for people’s rent — offering to bear some of the load in the hopes that it eases some of the pain. I see it in the Palestinian flags, the watermelons and keffiyehs worn by people who believe in fighting for a world that doesn’t bestow dignity on one person while denying it to another.
I am not negating the very real dangers and constant threats of a new U.S. political administration marked by bigotry; I am offering a reminder for some who have had the privilege of feeling protected by the last one. In the words of cofounder of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee and the Southern Poverty Law Center, Julian Bond: “The civil rights movement didn’t begin in Montgomery and it didn’t end in the 1960s. It continues on to this very minute.” Similarly, the fight for reproductive freedom did not begin with Roe v. Wade, nor did it end with its overturn. LGBTQIA+ rights didn’t begin at Stonewall nor end with the 2024 election. The fight for economic justice, voting rights, environmental protections, disability justice, church and state separation, LGBTQIA+ rights, workers rights, land rematriation, racial equity, liberation from colonialism and vestiges of genocide, slavery, and segregation have been ongoing movements for centuries. They continue, as Julian Bond reminds us, to this day.
Sometimes it can feel demoralizing to remember how long people have been organizing, resisting, and dying in the fight for human rights, but this knowledge makes me feel connected to those that came before and those I stand alongside now. We do not begin anything in isolation: we continue together what folks pass down to us, and we hold together that which is too heavy to carry alone. We keep memory, we tell story. In the art that we make, in the work that we do, in the food that we share, our voices are powerful. And it is my hope that we use them to re/establish connection with one another instead of allowing the fear and hatred that drive internet algorithms and social-media engagement to have us draw the explicitly false conclusion that we are more hated and alone than we are loved and together.
When people ask me if voting third party, if boycotting, if funding mutual aid, if protesting, makes any difference in the long run, I know what they are really asking for is absolution. In their search for percentages, dates, and debates on human progress, what they hope to find is permission to surrender to apathy. And I get it! It’s seems easier. When you’re convinced that individual steps toward collective liberation will never amount to anything, it’s easier to focus on yourself without those pesky feelings of responsibility to your fellow neighbor. Guilt is easier to flick away if you’re reassured by the futility of your own actions.
I’m less concerned about who is “right” about human progress and how it has or hasn’t been realized (yet). I’m unamused by conversations that retreat to an ivory tower of intellectualism when discussing human rights and bodily autonomy. (I refuse to qualify anything here…those of you who know me know that I love learning and books and am not an anti-intellectual). What I’m saying is, I’m less curious about discussing whether protests “work” to end genocide or not. What interests me is the collaborative art and craft of imagining a better world together. What compels me is the energy created between a group of people when we march, when we sing, when we pool our resources to send a message of hope to and beyond one another. To gather. To make. To heal. To me, it’s magic. And I am not really eager to stop believing in it.
Or, in the words of Aragorn, “I see in your eyes the same fear that would take the heart of me. A day may come when the courage of men fails, when we forsake our friends and break all bonds of fellowship, but it is not this day. An hour of wolves and shattered shields, when the age of men comes crashing down, but it is not this day! This day we fight!”
Or, in the words of James Baldwin, “I can't be a pessimist, because I'm alive. To be a pessimist means that you have agreed that human life is an academic matter. So, I'm forced to be an optimist. I'm forced to believe that we can survive whatever we must survive.”
Or, again when he said, “Love has never been a popular movement. And no one's ever wanted, really, to be free. The world is held together, really it is held together, by the love and the passion of a very few people. Otherwise, of course, you can despair. Walk down the street of any city, any afternoon, and look around you. What you've got to remember is what you're looking at is also you. Everyone you're looking at is also you. You could be that person. You could be that monster, you could be that cop. And you have to decide, in yourself, not to be.”
Or, in the words of Sirius Black, “Besides, the world isn't split into good people and Death Eaters. We've all got both light and dark inside us. What matters is the part we choose to act on. That's who we really are.”
Or in the words of Hyacinthe Loyson, “Ces arbres qu’il plante et à l’ombre desquels il ne s’assoira pas, il les aime pour eux-mêmes et pour ses enfants, et pour les enfants de ses enfants, sur qui s’étendront leurs rameaux”
translated: “These trees which he plants, and under whose shade he shall never sit, he loves them for themselves, and for the sake of his children and his children’s children, who are to sit beneath the shadow of their spreading boughs.”
Or, in the words of Patty Griffin, “Sometimes I feel like/ I've never been nothing but tired/ And I'll be walking/ Till the day I expire/ Sometimes I lay down/ No more can I do/ But then I go on again/ Because you ask me to.”
Or, in the words of adrienne maree brown, “And I think it is healing behavior, to look at something so broken and see the possibility and wholeness in it.”
I’m not saying that everything comes down to The Lord of the Rings, but I do think it’s as good a time as any to point out that J.R.R. Tolkien, after surviving three years of trench warfare in The Great War (including The Battle of The Somme) where most of his friends perished, wrote a series about a diverse group of people who, in their quest to defeat a corrupt and powerful leader, fought alongside one another—dwarf, elf, ent, wizard, hobbit, man—and vowed to never be corrupted themselves by power that preys upon the vulnerable. There is no hero in The Lord of the Rings; there is only the fellowship and the journey they take together.
I’ll leave you here with this interview of author Ta-Nehisi Coates on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. (You may have heard about the dumpster fire that was his CBS interview and the subsequent headlines it produced).
“I'm really a nice guy that likes like beautiful words and beautiful sentences. I… I don't… I don't want to fight I don't want to fight but…” Coates goes on to talk about how his newest book, The Message, is a punch thrown despite his natural disposition. “In the world world that we live in,” he continues, “climate change, democracy at stake, um, any number of issues that feel existential, you don't have the right or the ability just to sit back and enjoy yourself and do back flips and amuse yourself with your pretty sentences. It's got to mean something, got to be about something.”
I don’t think Coates is saying that every writer has to write to educate about the social issues of their present, (I, myself, love an entertaining, escapist romp!) but I do think he is saying that writers do not have the luxury of being apolitical in times of social upheaval. Art, necessarily, is informed by the inner-life of the artist just as it is the environment in which the artist lives.
As always, I feel like I have more to say, and also that I have said too much. When I take too long between newsletters, a lot of content gets cut and I get a little loopy, so I hope to be more consistent with it (for all of our benefit). In any case, I hope you find what you need today. All the love I feel, I am sending out — I hope it finds its way to you.
“It hasn't flown the seven seas to you
But its on its way
It goes through the hands
Then to someone else
To find you girl…”
-Angus and Julia Stone "Paper Aeroplane"
One time, after a petty argument (that I won), Zach exiled himself to the couch and proceeded to purchase a six-pack of canvases, paint, and brushes and suggested that we reconnect via artistic expression. So I wasn’t shocked when he sent me the parks and rec art class offerings a few weeks later. We decided on ceramics because food, beverages, and the vessels we use to consume them are very important to Zach, and I like making messes. Ceramics, apparently, is my gateway drug, and November has been full of hobbies (I’ll talk about more of them next time!)
Ceramics: Studio One (Temescal, Oakland, CA)
Let’s hear it for the parks and rec department. They’ve got great sports and art class offerings, and this fall I took full advantage. If you are an Oakland resident, the cost of a 7 week ceramics course with all included materials is $305 ($365 for non-resident). For three hours each week, I am a kid playing in mud, free of digital distraction and full of fun community connection. Shout out to Deb and Aviva, who probably didn’t think they’d be mentoring an over-zealous novice, when they signed up for workshop time (they are not the teachers, but were unfortunate enough to set their wheels up near mine, and I like to observe as much as I like to chat, which is, a lot). Also shout out to Steven who has requested that I only refer to him as “Mr. Granola” until he achieves his ever-coveted granola bowl. I have seen him wreck at least three bowls so far, so I do fear the name will stick for the foreseeable future.
Like most things, what I love most about this class isn’t actually my own skill progression, but the people I meet and pull stories from. Samantha, for example, who makes gorgeous pies with meticulous lattice work, was usurped by her sister-in-law leading up to this year’s Thanksgiving meal. I cannot wait to hear the update when we get back from the holiday break. Then there’s Theresa, who ran track in high school but took a forty year hiatus and is now obsessed with her running club that does a donut run around Lake Merritt every Friday (she’s married to “Mr. Granola”). Erin — who wears perhaps the most giant glasses I have ever seen in my life — makes the most gorgeous little containers to pour things out of (why do I not know the word for this?) and just launched the biggest campaign of her career as the graphic designer behind the SF Department of Health’s initiative to destigmatize opioid addiction. Aviva and Ana (whom I always call Acosta because we used to work together at a public middle school and last names are just a habit teachers cannot break) are quiet and so kind. And then, there’s Deb. My favorite. She always brings a lot of snacks in her backpack and wears cool cut off sweatshirts with leftist emblems on them in case people couldn’t tell her politics by her haircut (which is also very punk and the reason I talked to her first out of anyone). Deb is always helping me and poking fun (and last night, actually physically poking me because I fell asleep during the glaze demonstration).
Basically, what I am taking a very long time to say, is that I highly recommend doing a hobby that puts you in a consistent group of the same people for a couple of months and just see what happens. Maybe you don’t need to go on anti-depressants! (Or maybe you definitely do, but a hobby couldn’t hurt). Not everyone in this group is as social as I am, not everyone is the same skill level. Everyone’s got a different story of what brought them there and what they hope to get out of the class. And that’s what makes it really fun, because for three hours a week, we get to witness each other create something. We get to be together at the wheels, generate ideas, commiserate about the state of the world or the atmospheric rivers outside or which family member is trying to encroach on sacred pie territory. And for those hours, it feels like an antidote to all that disconnects and terrifies us, to the corporate cacophony, to the political dumpster fires, to the casual and frequent heartbreaks of being alive.
Guided Instruction: ★★★☆☆
Soul Fulfillment: ★★★★★
I gave this 3 stars because if you are needing actual guided instruction and feedback, this maybe isn’t the place to go. However, if you are fine with an open-workshop feel where you learn by leaning over other students’ wheels and trying to decipher the sense of humor of the curmudgeonly teacher (whom you will obviously grow to love and has a ton of stories to tell as someone who started their pottery career in 1968) then you will have a great time.
Sewing: Studio Sessions (sewing studio / creative community space, Berkeley)
My sewing origin story begins with a quilted fleece. While working the front desk at Hipline a few months back, a woman named Sadie walked in wearing the coolest fleece quarter-zip with quilted, ruffled patches all over it. After far too many compliments and squeals from me, she sheepishly admitted that she’d sewn it. Turns out, she’s quite the sewing influencer and was taking dance class with her sewing friend, Jenna (also a Bay Area sewist!) It was kismet, as I had just found my grandmother’s sewing machine in storage the week before and was determined to mend a few pairs of jeans. They recommended a sewing studio in Berkeley called Studio Sessions, and I signed up for their first module.
Eli is an incredible teacher with perfect pacing and a shame-free environment. It was so fun to learn basics and walk out with something (a funky sunglass case!). I’ve since converted my living room closet into a little crafting hut and am excited to shimmy my machine in there this week. I don’t care as much about making a bunch of intricate quilts or clothes, but I do feel empowered by learning a skill that can help me take more intentional care of my clothes: to fix and alter my garments, to reflect my personality and connect me to more cyclical, less disposable habits of caring for myself and others.
Like ceramics, the community it allows people to build is also magical. I’ve always wanted to sit with a bunch of other women and sew together, gab and eat snacks. And now, I can! It also connects me to my late grandmothers and the seamstresses in my family. There are many metaphors in here about cycles, and threads, and the comfort of blankets, and passing things down, and though I wish I had grown up learning this very-useful-in-the-apocolypse skill, I also feel empowered to be learning it now.
Guided Instruction: ★★★★★
Soul Fulfillment: ★★★★☆
Here’s a new section of recommendations that my friends have enjoyed that I cannot personally vouch for but that I want to share nonetheless. As always, let me know if you’ve tried them and what you think!
Every year on her birthday, my friend Colleen spends a day with her husband, who takes the day off of work, doing lots of fun activities in the Bay. This year they spent all day at the Legion of Honor and then filled up on delicious food and bevs. Below are her recommendations for how to spend your 40th (or any random day!) in the Bay.
📢 Legion of Honor (art museum, Lincoln Park SF)
Originally commemorating people who died in WWI, the museum now houses a lot of European art. If you have a Oakland Public Library card, plan your visit with Discover and Go — they usually have free admission vouchers for this museum!
📢 AnAns’s Deli (ramen, outer Richmond SF)
With just a few stools at a no-frills deli counter, AnAn’s serves up delicious and cheap bowls of delicious ramen compared to the pricier spots in the bay. (I’m looking at you, unnamed, unmarked, super-exclusive $200 per-person ramen shop!)
📢 Takara Sake (sake tastings, Berkeley)
$20 sake tasting in a gorgeous tasting room made of reclaimed Douglas Fir and marble? Yes, please. Learn about the nearly 200 year history of this sake company (which expanded to the US in Berkeley in 1983) at their museum and taste beautiful sakes!
Here is another new(ish) section highlighting Bay Area food culture and fun places to check out.
Scallops Boy and I have a standing date night every Wednesday (with flexibility), and it’s become one of the things I look forward to most when the bustle of a new week begins. It began as a joke, as our first date was on a Wednesday and for whatever reason so were our next three or four. Once we decided to actually date for real for real, we kept up the Wednesday thing, and it’s turned a pretty non-exciting day of the week into a time set aside just for us to hang out and catch up. Our weekends tend to be taken up by solo hobbies that decompress us from the week or social time spent with friends together and separately, so this mid-week, just-us time always feels special. Plus it’s not a super busy night for reservations, so we tend to be able to get into places we’ve been wanting to try. We don’t always do something outlandish, in fact many of our date nights are simple nights at one of our apartments with a new recipe and a good movie, but lately we’ve been treating one another to fun things in the city we both love so much. I’ll be sharing a highlight reel of a few of our favorite local spots. This week: Japanese whiskey and Chinese dumplings!
🌈 Bar Shiru (vinyl listening bar, downtown Oakland)
Bar Shiru is a “hi-fi vinyl listening bar” nestled between 16th and 17th that specializes in jazz and whiskey. It’s gorgeous (though photographs are discouraged while enjoying the ambiance) with pictures of jazz legends and beautiful bottles of primarily Japanese whiskey behind the bar. Dimly lit with furniture conducive to intimate conversation and relaxed listening, Bar Shiru caters to folks who really love the experience of listening to music and the experience of drinking cocktails: someone who searches for the notes and appreciates the process that making them requires. They’ve got a whiskey club, live events, and a lineup of jazz and soul from around the world. Stepping out of Bar Shiru felt similar to stepping out of a spa, a feeling I had never experienced leaving a bar. If I get my school work done in time, I’m hoping to check this out tonight.
🌈 Shan Dong (Chinese restaurant, Chinatown, Oakland)
Shan Dong has been a family-owned Chinatown staple for over thirty years. Crates of soda sit stacked against the walls and servers bustle with hot tea between busy community tables, and suddenly you feel like an iPhone would be very out of place here. Half expecting to see a newspaper on the floor that reads “Thatcher Wins in Landslide Victory,” Zach and I walk to our tiny table by the kitchen entrance after a fifteen-minute wait and briefly scan the menu though we know the pork dumplings with cabbage and the dry braised string beans are non-negotiable. With hand-pulled noodles and dumplings that will have you fighting your loved ones for the last bite, Shan Dong is a classic, no-frills Chinese restaurant that is rightfully packed every night of the week. It’s also a favorite of Bay Area podcaster, Glynn Washington and SFGate columnist Margot Seeto.
I go through phases with what I listen to: September brought a lot of true crime podcasts while October brought a lot of audiobooks. In November, I’ve gotten back into music (autumnal, emotional, yearning). As my Storygraph likes to remind me, my reading preferences are indistinguishable from the personality traits of 125 year old, teenage vampire, Edward Cullen. (I am almost over the millennial obsession with visual data representations of fun. Almost.)
Both pods are crime-related this week, but not the classic true-crime story. I’ve got a lot of pods in the vault, so if crime / social commentary isn’t your jam, you might like next week’s picks, which are more lighthearted!
🎧 Candyman (True Crime, Film, Journalism)
This podcast documents “the true story behind the bathroom mirror murder,” at the heart of the 1992 horror movie Candyman and is undergirded by Dometi Pongo’s really sound journalism exploring the intersections between violence and entertainment, racism and urban planning, mental illness and policing, inspiration and exploitation, terror and poverty.
To summarize the movie ever so briefly, a white graduate student takes it upon herself to investigate an urban legend at Cabrini Green, a predominantly Black housing project in Chicago, and—spoiler alert—is the victim of said urban legend who enters apartments through a hole behind the bathroom mirror.
Said to be based on a short story by Clive Barker, Candyman’s similarities to the very real murder case of Ruthie Mae McCoy in Grace Abbott Homes in 1987 have been the subject of controversy since the film debuted. Ruthie Mae was a fifty-five year old Black woman who had suffered with mental illness, but according to Steve Bogira’s reporting at the time, was taking steps toward obtaining her GED and stabilizing her moods with outpatient therapy at the time of her murder.
In a 2014 retrospective on his nearly 10,000 word article “They Came In Through The Bathroom Mirror,” originally published in Reader 1987, Bogira shared what he hoped his article would achieve:
“I wanted “Bathroom Mirror” to give readers a sense of the plight of the people living in the Abbott Homes. The media, like most everyone else, tended to neglect the projects. Medicine-cabinet break-ins weren’t rare in the Abbotts, I learned in reporting this story, but they’d never been written about. (“Bathroom Mirror” describes the mode of entry.) And despite the bizarre circumstances of the McCoy killing, Chicago’s dailies and other media virtually ignored it.”
Exploiting Black trauma with its depiction of crime in CHA complexes, the Candyman movie simultaneously erased the people most impacted by that violence when they casted a white, educated, middle-class woman as the central victim and a Black man as the perpetrator. Through interviews with filmmakers, Chicago residents, journalists, and academics, Pongo underscores the message that the horror flick seemed to obfuscate: what was a fictional, supernatural horror tale to white audiences was the dangerous reality for many Black people living in Chicago’s public housing in the 1980s.
The most interesting and devastating part of the podcast was the examination of Cabrini Green and ABLA Housing Projects and how their design and maintenance schedule completely changed once Black residents were allowed to live in the neighborhood without a quota. What were once two and three story buildings with individual gardens for families of white World War II veterans, became unsafe, dilapidated high-rise towers for Black families by the 1980s where calls for repairs went unanswered and pleas for help went unacknowledged.
But what allowed for home invasions through holes behind bathroom mirrors? Bogira explains that “the buildings were designed with the pipe chases behind the medicine cabinets to provide easy access to the plumbing; if something’s leaking, janitors simply have to remove the medicine cabinet to check the pipes.” What was built to be a convenient way for maintenance workers to address needed repairs within the units became seemingly infinite passageways for people to move drugs, escape raids, or burglarize tenants as “the rise in drug addiction and desperation, along with the increase in vacant and illegally tenanted apartments” skyrocketed for Black folks in CHA complexes in the 1980s. The confluence of structural racism, high unemployment rates, and a war on drugs culminated in a brutally violent neighborhood physically isolated from any through-streets, neglected by the city and disenfranchised of any of its resources.
I think its important to remember that what lands people in poverty and the incredibly desperate, dangerous situations born from them is often chance. It’s what you are born into, the hand you are dealt. It’s luck. Of course you can choose what to do with the cards in your hand, but you’ve got to survive long enough to learn how to play. And far too many people required to play this game are children.
Very few journalists reported on the terrors occurring at the towers or centered the humanity of the Black folks living there, but Steve Bogira was one of them. I highly recommend his original 1987 article and his 2014 retrospective linked in the reading section. I could go on and on about the threads of this podcast and all the articles, films, interviews and photography it led me to, which is always what I want out of art. But I will stop yammering on and let better writers explain these themes if you are moved by them.
Storytelling: ★★★★★
🎧 Criminal Attorney (Law / Investigation)
If you liked “The Wire” or “Better Call Saul,” if you like organized crime films and court room dramas, you’ll probably really like this. It’s about a former prosecutor turned criminal defense attorney and the cases that defined his career and ultimate demise. I feel kinda queasy when main characters of podcasts have really rigid definitions of right and wrong based on the law because of how messed up our criminal justice system is: really heinous things are legal while really normal things remain unlawful. I don’t care for the woman at the center of this podcast, but I was interested in learning what makes a lawyer go from prosecuting drug kingpins to defending them.
Storytelling: ★★★★☆
🎵 Post-Election Playlist (Talia Litle)
I’ve spoken loads about Talia before, but she is a dance and fitness instructor that teaches at a few studios in the Bay Area. She made this nearly 5-hour-long playlist after the returns came in. Lots of empowerment / girl power type songs.
🎵 pareesa a while ago (me/spotify algo)
I put on “In The Cold Cold Night” by the White Stripes, Spotify did it’s thing, and Pareesa ascended. This was our Ramen Night playlist, and the vibes were immaculate, but specific. This one is mostly for her.
Since I’ve last written, I’ve seen a few bands I’ve written about before: Briscoe, Mt. Joy, Richy Mitch and the Coal Miners, Novo Amour. I’ve also seen Hazlett, Bonnie Rait, and Modest Mouse, all of whom were phenomenal. I don’t have any shows queued up for the rest of this year, but I’m sure I’ll shimmy to something soon. Anyone going to any shows they’re excited about?
🎬 ¡Casa Bonita Mi Amor! (Paramount+) ★★★★☆
If you lived in Colorado between 1973 and 2020, you’ve definitely heard of Casa Bonita. I visited this storied establishment for a friend’s birthday in 2016, and it is seared into my memory. If you are unfamiliar, Casa Bonita is a 52,000 square foot Mexican restaurant that is also an amusement park that is also an indoor pool that is also carpeted. Think of it as the Action Park of Mexican food restaurants. When I was there, it felt less like an experience you pay for and more like an experience that, if you survive long enough, you win a million dollars. It closed during the Covid-19 pandemic and resident governors of Colorado, Matt Stone and Trey Parker, bought the building and made a documentary about its remodel. It’s a really wild ride about a really wild place.
🎬 Eileen (drama, Hulu) ★★★★☆
“This movie feels like it had a 20 million dollar budget and 19 of it went to Anne Hathaway.” - Zach, with whom I do not disagree
This movie is about a young woman working at a men and boy’s prison during a very cold Massachusetts winter in 1964. Thomasin McKenzie gives a phenomenal performance with incredible accent work per usual, Marin Ireland and Shea Whigham are spectacular in their supporting roles, and I am not sure what Anne Hathaway was doing there. Her accent was all over the place, and I know that she’s supposed to be this beautiful out-of-town, Ivy League educated psychiatrist, but ugh she bugged me. And I’m not even an Anne Hathaway hater! I think because I love Mindhunter, seeing a representation of a beautiful, perhaps-lesbian, prison psychologist in the 1960s wrought with all the stereotypes of a bottle-blond, pinup model just bugged me.
The actual plot was so disturbing, that I felt sick afterwards. I think putting a trigger warning would spoil the entire plot, but if you are super sensitive to violence, maybe don’t watch it. However, everything that goes into a feeling of a film — the cinematography, costumes, lighting — was perfect.
As the credits rolled, and I saw that it was based on a short story by Ottessa Moshfegh, everything made sense.
📰 Condemned to be an Optimist: Celebrating James Baldwin by Elia J. Ayoub
Elia J. Ayoub is a Lebanese cultural analyst, writer, researcher, and podcast host based out of the UK. Framed as a Happy Birthday Letter to James Baldwin, it is also an analysis of his 1970’s interview wherefrom I quoted JB in my introduction. Ayoub situates that interview in the politics of the time, but also contextualizes it against the backdrop of genocide and apartheid in Palestine and displacement in Lebanon.
“The world we live in is rarely one where hope is obvious. If anything, the opposite is true: hopelessness is all around, and for good reasons. As someone who grew up in Lebanon, and whose family history is one of constant grief and forced displacement, I am no stranger to despair. It was discovering Baldwin that led me to conclude that hope is a matter of politics, a decision to take…” — Elia J. Ayoub
★★★★★
📰 John H. White’s Photographs of Black Chicago for DOCUMERICA (1973–74)
The photography of John H. White captured the everyday life of Black folks in Chicago in the 60s and 70s and dovetails with Candyman and “Bathroom Mirror,” highlighting the joy of Black Chicago and contextualizing residents’ circumstances within the larger frameworks of structural racism and poverty. I recommend looking at these photographs and reading their captions — all written by John H. White— which are now within the public domain. If you want to read more about his impact on other photographers, give The double-consciousness of John H. White a read as well.
★★★★★
📰 Further Reading From Candyman: The True Story of the Bathroom Mirror Murder
Ruthie Mae McCoy: The Chilling True Case Behind Candyman (2021)
Cabrini Green Housing Project, Chicago, Illinois (1942 -2009)
How a story about the horrors of housing projects became part of a horror movie (2014)
📚Rock, Paper, Scissors by Alice Feeney (thriller) ★★☆☆☆
Alice Feeney may be my new Freida McFadden, which is to say, my new nemesis. And for that reason, two stars is honestly generous. Alice Feeney, like Freida McFadden, seems to have a ton of people (bots! bots, I say!) leaving positive reviews and skyrocketing her titles to the tops of best seller lists and yet…the books are nonsensical nightmares of the most boring, unlikable characters who have such completely incomprehensible motivations I struggle to call them people because their thoughts, actions, and responses are so far from the realm of believably human.
I am fine suspending disbelief for fantasy and science fiction, and I am perfectly willing to read about characters who behave according to a different psychology from me or a different set of social mores, however none of that is happening in Alice Feeney’s Rock, Paper, Scissors. Not only are there plot holes galore and a ridiculous dependence on a character’s disability (!!!) to patch them up, but every question I had about why the characters do what they do, seemed to be answered with a shrug emoji🤷🏻♀️.
Like most kids obsessed with stories, I spent a decent portion of my childhood frustratingly asking aloud “why is she doing that?” or “why would he say that?” in parts of movies or books I felt had veered in a direction disloyal to the characters—ones in which I had spent a hefty bit of time and energy investing. My father, armed with a pin, would inch toward my balloon and say “because that’s what’s written in the script.” Pop! Illusion shattered. I left the land of make-believe and remembered this is just a story someone wrote.
I hesitate to call myself a writer, but I do read books with a craft hat on because I know how difficult it is to create a fictional world that feels immersive to a reader. That experience we have all had of seamlessly transitioning from our everyday reality to that of a good book involves a painstaking process of drafting, revising, and editing, of asking yourself a thousand questions and debating the answers to the point of near insanity. And for every corner an author cuts, every easy road they take to avoid getting down to the real nitty gritty of their work, a slight glitch is visible to the reader. They leave, if only for a moment, the world an author has created and remember that they are reading fiction. Like Beetee in Catching Fire, they see the glimmer of the forcefield. They take their glasses off and see the architecture of the game and the flaws in its construction.
Plot: So what is Rock, Paper, Scissors even about? It’s about a wife and husband who take a weekend trip to a remote chapel-turned-vacation home in Scotland to reconnect with one another after what has seemed to be a few fairly tumultuous years of marriage. They both become suspicious of the other’s intentions and become unnerved at the mysterious goings-on in the anything but warm and friendly house. But then the whole thing spirals into nonsense.
📚Just the Nicest Couple by Mary Kubica (thriller) ★★★☆☆
This books was…fine. It was nice to read in line for the grocery store and listen to while cleaning the house. Do I remember much of it? No. Would I go out of my way to recommend it? Also no. But it’s fine.
📚Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin (thriller) ★★★★☆
I read this with Zach and we both really liked it! If you and your partner like to read, I recommend reading a book together every once in a while and chatting about it (or in my case, racing to finish it after he fell asleep and starting a small argument in the morning).
This book was very good. It’s more sad and more lyrical than I anticipated (I love sad and lyrical) but after realizing Gabrielle Zevin wrote Elsewhere, those facts don’t surprise me. The dust jacket will have you believing that this is about a very smart boy and a very smart girl’s relationship from childhood through adulthood in a will-they-wont-they journey that spans twenty years of their video game designing careers. It is that — an American Normal People with MIT and Harvard software engineering instead of Trinity literature courses— but it is fundamentally a commentary on loss and loneliness and what our roles are as friends when we witness (and may be complicit in) a loved one’s grief. What choices do we have and what codes do we hold ourselves accountable to when we are suffering at the same time but in different ways as those we love.
PS: If you were reading Elsewhere like I was in 2005, how are your weekly therapy sessions and unfinished novel going?
📚 I Have Some Questions For You by Rebecca Makkai (mystery) ★★★☆☆
My Goodreads review: (I’m trying to make the transition to Storygraph but I swear the platform makes tracking and sharing books feel like unpaid labor. It simply isn’t fun?)
I really liked this book. The writing was beautiful without being too precious or overly poetic. It gave me what I needed out of a North East boarding school setting. I do think it dragged in places, and I wasn’t in love with any of the characters, but I’ve been recently admiring how authors can have me love a book without necessarily loving its characters. The audiobook is also well-narrated (I went back and forth between reading and listening).
🧑🏻🍳 Fall Harvest Bowl ★★★★☆
I’ve been chopping and roasting a bunch of veggies on Sundays and throwing together this Fall Harvest Bowl a few days a week with variation, and it’s the only time in my life I’ve ever once felt “put together.” I have only one being to thank for this and that is the delicata squash. The reason I love this recipe is that it’s very low stakes: even when you fuck it up, it still tastes delicious. It’s inspired by Sweetgreen’s Harvest Bowl (and ginger miso dressing), this Tiktok recipe, this Tiktok recipe, and my brain.
Ingredients:
Directions:
Is the order I do these things necessarily smartest? No. But this is how I go about it.
Roast Veggies:
Pre-heat oven to 425 degrees F
Prep the quinoa (I don’t like the quinoa to be super warm when it goes in the bowl so I prep it first so it has time to cool). Rinse quinoa first! I make my quinoa in a rice cooker w/ a tablespoon of salted butter and a 1:1.5 ration of quinoa to water. Click the white rice button. It takes like 15-20 mins.
Dice the sweet potatoes (2) into cubes, place on baking sheet and sprinkle with olive oil, salt, pepper, and whatever spices you want. I did paprika / cinnamon! Roast until soft (or crispy if that’s how you like them!). 30-40 mins
Drain and rinse 1 can of chickpeas and dry them completely. Place on baking sheet and douse them with olive oil, cayenne, garlic powder, salt, and pepper. Roast until crispy. 25-30 mins
Cut delicata squash in half, take all the gunk and seeds out with a spook, slice into thin half-circles and place on baking sheet w/ olive oil, salt, pepper, and honey. Roast until delicata is soft and caramelized (golden, brown color). 15-25 mins.
Chop Veggies
Shred kale (if not already)
Slice cucumber into bite-sized wedges
Slice granny smith into bite-sized wedges
Chop 1-2 leaves basil
Make Dressing
I eye-ball this every time, so if it tastes, off, adjust accordingly! My ratio of oil to vinegar is usually 3:1 but sometimes 2:1
1 tablespoon miso paste
Grated ginger (I use a cheese grater - yolo!) I use a nub the size of an adult thumb(?)
2 cloves garlic (grated as well)
Small splash maple syrup (a teaspoon maybe?)
1 teaspoon soy sauce
1 teaspoon sesame oil
Red pepper flakes
1 tablespoon water
2 (ish) tablespoons rice vinegar
3 tablespoons olive oil
salt to taste
Whisk it all together or shake it up in a mason jar — adjust as necessary.
Assemble Bowls
Put everything together and add blue cheese crumbles, dried cherries, and toasted pine-nuts if you’re feelin’ it! Dig in
🧑🏻🍳 Hamburger Buns (NYTimes Cooking) ★★★★★
Scallops Boy made these this week and completely out-did himself. Did he search high and low for the perfect recipe just so that he could hear me say “yes, Zach, your buns are amazing”? Probably. But that’s a win-win situation. These are super moist and fluffy and don’t at all taste like someone you know made them. Sure to impress!
🧑🏻🍳 Pumpkin Spice Syrup ★★★★☆
This recipe comes from a TikTok I watched, and I love it because it isn’t too sweet. I have a massive sweet tooth tough.
Ingredients:
1/3 cup pumpkin
1 cup water
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup white sugar
1 tablespoon pumpkin pie spice
1 tablespoon cinnamon
1 tablespoon vanilla (don’t add until after mixture is cooled)
Directions:
On medium heat, whisk / simmer for 15 mins. Add vanilla once cooled.
📚Bookworm (book tracking app) ★★★☆☆
If you’re annoyed with Goodreads because of Jeff Bezos or the pestilence of advertisements and you’ve finally admitted that Storygraph feels like working on your day off, you might enjoy Bookworm. It sort of feels like Storygraph if Lisa Frank threw up all over it. It’s very colorful, organizes reading challenges, provides recommendations, and has pretty stats for you to analyze (though this is only available on the paid version).
Personal updates no one asked for:
I moved into a new apartment and now my friend Pareesa is my landlord (she collects the rent in an old robe, hair rollers, and a cigarette on the first of every month).
I survived a family reunion in the Texas heat of mid-September (I swear I am still itching phantom mosquito bites, however)
I procured my first fishing license from a convenience store in Shasta County (it’s never too late to follow your dreams)
Shout outs to:
My grandmother, who finds new ways for me to remember and honor her long past the day she left this earthly plane
Devon, for inviting me to such a fun concert this week. Why there was a life-size white tiger catapulted into the audience, I will never know.
Alicia and Rob — congrats on getting hitched!
Lydia and Cole — congrats on getting hitched!
Gem for giving me advice on how to wash my hair without getting my body wet. (It didn’t work, but I appreciate you nonetheless)
Zach for making it to slow pitch softball playoffs! And making it to the podium in your second disc golf tournament! Also for rocket launching a product! You’re so good at stuff.
Pareesa for being my neighbor and making our street feel like college — walking in unannounced, late-night movie marathons, rotting and reading and laughing.
Alan for your attentive landlordly duties and delicious pastas
My grandpa for telling me stories I hadn’t heard before, about my grandmother and life in the 50s
My dad for coming to visit and picking out a Christmas tree with me for the third year in a row
Tessa for checking in on me and sending me Joni love
My mother for recovering from her second hip replacement! Hell yeah!
Kara, Leo, and Arina for visiting and making Halloween in Oakland and fabulous tradition. Our Secret Santa in October was a dream come true.
Lana for making everything less scary and more beautiful.
Ending Note:
Turn to your poets. Lean on one another. Be safe and love hard. <3
XO,
M