Emchap’s Shit from the Internet 7/18/18 🍠
I have the incredible good fortune to live very close to Skylight Books, a magnificent bookstore built around a tree and host to a truly excellent series of book readings. Every author I've been interested in in the last six months has come through there, and every reading has been a delight.
This weekend, I attended a reading of No One Tells You This, drawn by the fact that I'd enjoyed an excerpt of the book I'd read the week before and the fact that Ann Friedman was hosting the conversation with the author, Glynnis MacNicol. (And it turned out Samantha Irby, whose reading at a different book store I missed a few months ago, was attending and I stared at her 100% too long.)
The book is about the author's 40th year, and about her life as someone without a partner or children, and what building a good life looks like as a woman when both of those things are true and there are no rituals to acknowledge that. It is also (though this is not in the marketing pitch) about caring for a dying parent, and about New York, and about how to live a life in alignment with one's values. It does not end with a husband or children. It (and the conversation at the reading) was tremendous, and I read the whole thing in two days, and I sent many of my friends photos of it the whole way through. There is no documentation of Life Change and Finding Oneself so much as a peek into what one sort of life that one might lead could be.
Book reading audiences tend to be heavily female, because men don't go to things as far as I can tell, and the subject matter of this one meant that it was almost entirely women. Most of them had the same sort of anxious, booky vibe that I give off, and it was hard to shake the idea that this was a whole room of women who wanted the author to reassure us that things would work out, one way or the other. (Which, as someone who rolled up in a caftan with magnificent hair and a compelling book, she did.) So much of the book is about ritual, and about how the rituals we have are poor fits for a life without partner or children, and it felt a little bit like an attempt to carve some sort of ritual out of a Sunday night. It was churchy, in a good way.
The book is magnificent, and made me cry, and was a soothing balm of a thing. I recommend it entirely.
Shit to read
If you want to read more about No One Tells You This, check out this interview with the author.
This essay on the Rumpus by Sam Irby is a big part of why she's one of my favorite authors, and I was reminded of it by seeing her at the reading and by the reading itself including a discussion of dying parents. It is my favorite single thing I've read in the last decade.
I don't know anything about Anne of Green Gables, and I enjoyed this look at one of the characters (and at depictions of burdens of care) very much.
Go take an expensive nap.
Joss Whedon is a super-creep.
I love any and all Magic Mike XXL content.
Consumer DNA tests seem bad, actually.
Who here thinks Gwen Stefani's probably a Republican?
Please go read this interview with Daniel Ortberg.
This interview with Issa Rae is definitely just #sponcon for CoverGirl but it's Issa Rae and I don't care. I want her show to come back.
I want to see Eighth Grade with every fiber of my being, and appreciated this analysis of the Hollister shirts that I guess kids still wear.
I loved this essay on the weird and gentle charm of Drunk History.
If you would like to be sad then ho boy you should read this essay on Twitch streamers without audiences.
The View from Saturday is a wonderful book and you should read it.
Shit to eat
Decide you want to eat the sesame pancake sandwich that you used to eat at Vanessa's in New York.
Yelp "sesame pancake".
Realize that a) English calls a lot of Chinese food "pancake", and b) this is maybe not a food served in LA?
Find the Vanessa's menu online.
Copy the Chinese word for the sandwiches.
Google that.
Get a transliteration.
Yelp that.
Still no go.
Google the translation, toss in "sesame", and discover something that looks like the bread recipe.
Before making the bread, make some pickles. Toss shredded carrots and shredded cukes in a bowl with 1/4 tsp salt, a tablespoon white vinegar, and a tablespoon sugar. Stir it up. Use rice vinegar if you have it but also, eh. Leave them out to sit while making the bread.
Make the bread. (Go with lower stove heat than the author says; her instructions caused my bread to burn. Don't overflour the surface when working the dough or the sesame seeds won't stick.)
Cut the bread into sixths.
(Yes you'll burn your fingers, it's fine).
Split the piece of bread you have in two, to make a sandwich.
Stick a substantial layer of pickles, half a can of tuna, and some cilantro on that sucker.
Enjoy a truly excellent dinner.
Shit to listen to
My summer throwback playlist from Spotify, because it is a hilarious breakdown of every song I listened to during an awful breakup + several bouts of seasonal depression + some stuff from shortly after my mom died. It is the most amazingly bummer playlist in the world, mixed in with summer bop commute music, and it's hilarious.
"Strip Away My Conscience" from Crazy Ex is great, go watch the live version. Also "Horny Angry Tango" because it's funny to watch the actors navigate the mics on the floor.
Shit to buy
I am super enamored of this umbrella print dress from Zuri. (I have a parrot print one and wear it constantly.)
The book go buy the book go read the book.