Emchap's Shit from the Internet 4/4/18 🍠
This week was the first I managed to go, I think, without any Tourist Activities. I lived my normal life—victory at Survivor viewing night as I guessed who'd be eliminated, three dates and a brunch with a friend over the weekend, a different friend over for dinner on Monday, a theater tech runthrough as I prepare to host a working brunch (please come if you live in LA), and ample time spent finally watching Ladybird and Wild Wild Country and Jesus Christ Superstar while I Slacked pictures of my various dinners to a friend who sent back photos of his adventures in kosher-for-Passover cooking. It was a busy-feeling week and weekend, but, well within the realm of Things I Expect I'll Be Doing for the next few years.
As part of the Densely Packed Weekend, I went to the Marciano Art Foundation, a free contemporary art museum housed in a former masonic temple. They're currently running an Eliasson installation which consists of a sliding spotlight going back and forth over lighting gels, throwing various spooky colors and shadows onto the wall in a warehouse room, while sound plays. It's otherwise entirely silent, and it is monumental feeling, and I am glad I got to experience it. For all that everyone says LA has no old buildings, the weird remnants of modern (and monumental) architecture I've seen here have been fascinating to me. Most of why I want a car here is to be able to drive out to Palm Springs and the other nearby cities and go look at their weird flat colorful buildings. (Also so I don't have to have my groceries delivered.)
I'm still not fully settled in—working from home and on east coast hours gives my days a sort of weird, dreamlike feeling that the architecture doesn't help, and my building has yet to add me to my building directory, and I still don't own a car. I am trying to remember when I first felt like I Lived In New York after I moved, and honestly I think it happened pretty quickly. I wonder when the same will happen here.
Shit to read
This article about dementia and dumplings and love is worth reading.
The "our one fight" series exists mostly to introduce Twitter to terrible people who do not know how they are terrible (never write about your marriage online; it will just make strangers think you need to get divorced, which you do), but this installment was gentle and kind.
I basically moved to California because I read too much Joan Didion, so of course I enjoyed this excerpt about her from an upcoming book.
Always read about church hats.
As mentioned above, I watched Wild Wild Country (on Netflix, solid cult TV) this week. The creators, in an attempt to make it less of a hit piece about the cult (I think?) don't actually do a great job of clarifying what the cult was doing that angered the residents, who do sort of come off just as xenophobes until pretty late in the game. I enjoyed this look at the other fucked-up cult goings-on as a supplement.
Molly is a great person and I loved this essay at Autostraddle about her 5 years of sobriety.
Shit to eat
Get an eggplant.
Be surprised that it isn't as large as the truly freakish ones that populated your vegetable market in New York City.
Realize this is probably the first time you've missed New York since you moved?
I mean like obviously the people and all but the place not so much.
Anyway, eggplant. Cut it into cubes (I'd provide a size but honestly it doesn't matter, and also, there's kind of one size eggplant cubes just turn out?).
Salt, set aside for a half hour.
Do you have carrots shuffling off the mortal coil in your fridge? Great! Peel two of them, and chop 'em up in the food processor.
(You could also do it by hand but life is short and your knives are dull.)
Scoop that out and stick it in a bowl.
Chop up an onion following the same process.
Rinse the salt off the eggplant and toss it in with a quarter cup oil over medium-high. (Dry it before doing so or you'll splatter oil to hell.)
Keep scraping it up and stirring around for eight minutes. Your house will small of eggplant and it will be good.
Pull the eggplant out and put it to drain on cookie sheets and paper towels. Add some more oil back to the pot if the eggplant ate all of it.
Cut the heat to medium, add the carrots in for three minutes, then the onion and some garlic for for five more minutes, and then a scoop of tomato paste and a cup of orzo for two minutes.
Take everything off the heat and stir in some chopped up oregano, the zest off a lemon, four ounces mozz that you've cubed and then eaten some of, half a cup of parm, and most of a can of diced tomatoes.
Stir it up and add a bunch of black pepper and a teaspoon of salt and a cup and a half of stock.
Poor the whole mix into a 2 quart casserole dish. If you're me, pop it into the fridge and wait until your dinner guest shows up 15 minutes early, startling you while you're drinking a paloma.
If you're not me, put it in the oven at 350 for 20 minutes covered in foil, and 20 minutes without.
I mean do that part regardless, you get it.
Pairs well with a baguette and being gently mocked for asking your Google Home to play Gillian Anderson instead of Gillian Welch because paloma.
Adapted from Smitten, obvi. (I cut the celery, doubled the carrots, used canned tomatoes, and used bullion cubes for the stock. A coworker suggested getting around the eggplant frying step by roasting it, because she is smart.)
Shit to listen to
I did not get Greg's sexual appeal on Crazy Ex-Girlfriend the first time I watched it, and on re-watch I very much do, and anyway you should watch the actor performing with Kristen Bell, and they're both charming, and it's great.
Speaking of Crazy Ex, Rachel Bloom performing "Poor Unfortunate Souls" as a middle school girl is a treat.
From the same event, "Won't Say I'm in Love."
To back back up to how into Santino Fontana I am, here he is singing one of Elsa's songs from Frozen. God, he's charming.
Shit to buy
Reformation is doing a small plus collection, and I liked this bodysuit in it.
I realize the point of last week's Nashville article was that there's a particular kind of trash southern femininity, but also, I like that aesthetic because I am still someone who went to a private college in the south and has a sorority paddle in the closet. Anyway, Draper James has an Eloquii collaboration.
That said why does fucking nothing have normal sleeves anymore, I am enraged by this.
I am fascinated by the truly weird pattern on this eShakti thing.
Same with this fruit dress.