Sick Week, New Look

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The week after I wrote about needing more slack in my life in order to do the things that actually mattered, I got absolutely clobbered by some vague non-Covid cold situation after spending a wonderful weekend with friends and their kids. (It will surprise no one that the kids had a very mild version of whatever this thing is, and I, of course, got the MONSTER LAY IN BED FOR THREE DAYS version). My voice is still very much gone but my mind is half back, so what I can offer you this Sunday is a cornucopia of things that felt compelling while prone and zonked on DayQuil….while I also play around with some of my new fun design graphics.

To Watch:

Is AppleTV the new HBO, is HBOMax the new Netflix, is Netflix the new cable? I’ve been pleasantly impressed by pretty much everything I’ve watched on AppleTV. Severance, of course, and now-trusty Ted Lasso, but also the exquisite adaptation of Pachinko, the deeply addictive Bad Sisters, and even the bonkers melodrama of The Morning Show, which I keep watching because MOVIE STARS (plus the amusement of a show that can’t figure out what it wants to be).

And then there’s Shrinking, a show about three therapists (Jason Segel, Harrison Ford, Jessica Williams) and their families working out their shit, most prominently the death of Segel’s wife in a car crash and the effect on him, his practice, and his teen daughter. Listening to the description, it should be much more maudlin and much less funny than it is, but the performances are just stellar — particularly on the part of Ford, Williams, and Lukita Maxwell (playing Segel’s daughter). Segal is just perfectly cast — his absolute star image role.

It’s also a half hour show, which I don’t have enough of in my life. Perfect if you like: quips, Jason Segal and/or Jessica Williams’ particularly brand of humor, curmudgeon-but-lovable old guys, people slowly processing their baggage, lightly dreaming about living in Pasadena, older people getting high, the messiness of adult friendship.

To Read (Not on the Internet):

Barbara Kingsolver wrote some of the first “adult” books that I grabbed from my mom’s bookshelf: The Bean Trees, Animal Dreams, Pigs in Heaven, books whose plots I can barely remember, but the outline of adult, deeply felt love (familial, romantic, platonic) was etched in my mind. I know from this week’s Tuesday Subscriber Thread (the triumphant return of WHAT ARE YOU READING) that this was true for others as well, but apart from Prodigal Summer (a deeply evocative book whose protagonist is, honestly, Woman of a Certain Age goals) I hadn’t been drawn to her work for years. Then I read about Demon Copperhead.

It’s David Copperfield told in contemporary Appalachia, but it doesn’t matter if you’ve read or remember Copperfield — I certainly didn’t. The rendering of Appalachia charges straight at stereotype, teases you a bit with it, and explodes a lot of readers’ simplest expectations (Kingsolver, for what it’s worth, both grew up there and lives there now). I zoomed through the first two thirds, and then took a lot longer to get through the last third….because, BIG SURPRISE FOR A BOOK ABOUT APPALACHIA SET IN THE 2000s, people are on a lot of drugs and I always find descriptions of people on drugs to be somewhat of a slog. (See also: the middle of Goldfinch, every other chapter of A Brief History of Seven Killings). Perfect if you like: a fully fledged uniquely voiced protagonist, the picaresque, Kingsolver (naturally), but I’d also recommend to fans of Louise Erdrich.

Others’ reactions from the Tuesday Thread:

“I also just finished it and tore through it. One of those books that breaks your heart and you keep reading anyhow”

“I can't put it down because the writing is so all-encompassing and beautiful. It's the rare book I bought at the bookstore, in print, because I knew I'd want to savor it (I love everything Kingsolver) but this is even a step up from her last few winners. Talk about creating a world, all the good and all the evil.”

“The voice is what made me pick it up. I read the first chapter standing in the store. Then his voice was just kind of circling in my head the rest of the day.”

You can find it here.

To Instagram Wormhole:

macken21e

A post shared by Mackenzie William (@macken21e)

I’m equal parts addicted to and befuddled by this very popular guy and his little videos of household/life maintenance. So soothing! So….inflexible to life lived in proximity to other humans! It’s like a person living inside a West Elm catalog, only he’s the only person in the entire catalog. Perfect for: ASMR aficionados, people who want to imagine what American Psycho would be like with no murder, people who want to empty their heads for three hours while sick in bed. (h/t Kathyrn Jezer-Morton’s IG stories)

To Ogle:

Have you been looking for a small coffee tumbler that actually keeps your drink hot, that has a top that doesn’t spill (no really), and that actually fits in the cup holder of your car?

I FOUND IT. Make sure and get the “Scope” top. Perfect for: People who are constantly spilling coffee on themselves and their center console in the car and muttering endlessly about it, people who like to have at least eight different travel coffee tumblers from four different companies at all times, people who actually like their coffee hot, people who convinced the right coffee tumbler will fix all of their problems.

To Read on the Internet:

The Tesla Cybertruck does indeed look like shit:

“It looks like a beard trimmer that plays Phil Collins songs. It looks like it should come free with a Sports Illustrated print subscription in 1987. Maybe it'll look better if you hit ctrl-alt-delete a few times or close WordPerfect in the background. Maybe it's just weird to see it outside of its natural environment, upright on the wall of a public restroom, dispensing paper towels.”

On the triumph of LaGuardia (I can’t wait to go!!!!):

“For a very long time, New York City’s LaGuardia Airport felt like the intricately dressed set of an apocalypse film. Spread across its terminals were abandoned check-in stands gone feral, floors damp with discharged moistures, low ceilings looming over dark corridors. Now, near the end of a nine-year, $8 billion rebuild of its main terminals and roadways, LaGuardia has become an unexpected hero for American infrastructural renewal. It is an incredible airport.”

The anti-ski-resort:

“Three years after it stunned the industry by leaving Vail’s vaunted Epic Pass—which delivered more than half of its customers—A-Basin recorded 40 percent fewer guests last season, yet profits were up 20 percent.”

On the allure of Dansk:

“The life style that Quistgaard’s design suggested—and that the Dansk founders Ted and Martha Nierenberg deftly promoted—so closely aligns with how we aspire to live now that the food-media juggernaut Food52, which acquired the Dansk brand in 2021, has begun a series of reissues and planned collaborations with contemporary designers."

Mass Moves Mass!

“As a fat person just trying to live my life, I spend a lot of time stressed and sad about the things that are really hard for me: Flying on airplanes, seating in general, clothes. It feels really nice to have a few hours a week where I get to think about what my body can do rather than what it can’t do and where having a lot of mass isn’t purely a burden.”

“Housekeeping is Part of the Wild World, Too”:

“We have to deliberately search out these books, because the environmental imagination we were trained in did not admit children, or the women who raise them, into the canon of work about the wild. Just as something in that same imagination had not admitted Black writers.”

Other Bits and Bobs: Paul Mescal! Even More Paul Mescal!!; Railroad workers explain the real cause of the East Palestine Derailment; Lily Kwong’s Mountainful of Orchids; I’ve thought about this screen shot of Mark Wahlberg on the Today Show all week; words that give shape to my current thinking about the possibility of a new pandemic….

And this week’s just trust me.

What You May Have Missed in the Culture Study Extended Universe This Week:

• Some really great advice on running for school board, having a bad attitude about cancer treatment, dealing with distribution of household labor and mental load when your partner has ADHD, parenting an infant when you have no family within driving distance, and what to do after quitting your dream job. (Subscribers only)

• An interview with Dr. Pooja Lakshmin on the tyranny of faux-self care

• The aforementioned WHAT YOU’RE READING thread (958 comments and counting) (Subscribers only)

• This week’s episode of WORK APPROPRIATE, featuring the very funny Josh Gondelman giving advice on how to be more confident in saying no to your manager’s Escape Room plans

Subscribers: Did you like this format for a Sunday recommendations post? Should I do this in lieu of the monthly mega-links post? Is it too much, what would you like more or less of, tell me in the comments below!

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