Emchap’s Shit from the Internet 7/4/18 🍠
Last Thursday, I saw Janelle Monáe at the Greek, at a concert that it seemed like almost everyone in LA that I know was attending. I had expected it to be a good show, of course, because I have seen her live one other time (as part of a Wondaland showcase at the Tabernacle in Atlanta, where she's based) and that was a good show.
I was not expecting it to be quite so overwhelmingly excellent as it was. And it was! It was a joyfully, defiantly queer show during Pride month, during a horrifying political season, outside in beautiful weather in a beautiful city.
The dancers were great. The light was great. The costumes were great. The Prince tribute was sweet (and great). Monáe was five feet tall and great and she sang a version of "Yoga" where she just rapped Jidenna's parts and it was, as you might imagine, great.
It was an amazing show and I am so happy that I came back for it. I'm so happy for all of my internet friends who are attending it as she continues along the tour, all of whom appear to have also had an amazing experience. It was—it feels like—the first space I've been in in 2018 where there was not a pall of horrified dread sort of coloring everything with a background-noise whisper of "can you believe this."
I don't have plans for the 4th; I like grilled things but am quite happy to be planning to spend the night at home after a morning out eating migas. I'm happy to have the concert as a stand-in celebration.
Monáe ended the show with Americans, which 100% made me cry because I am a sap. It seems like a good song for today.
Shit to read
I am always here for explorations of the life trajectories of Mormon mommy bloggers.
A poem for 2018.
I am very much here for every time Alana Massey writes about the breakup where her boyfriend of multiple years ghosted her.
Also here for content about parents and money and guilt and the American dream.
When I was in middle school I wrote a play that was a retelling of Romeo and Juliette but it was set in a post-apocalyptic scenario where only clowns and goths had survived; there was some sort of subclass of mimes, as well. Anyway, I think about that every time I read about how the Juggalos are the heroes of the dystopia again.
A sweet essay by Anthony Bourdain on how he became who he was.
I am fascinated by cruises.
I didn't definitely move to California because I read a shitload of Joan Didion when I was depressed, but I didn't not, and I very much enjoyed this Sara Benincasa essay about reading Didion in California. (I am going to a pinup photographer this weekend with a friend based 99% on Benincasa's years-ago recommendation of them; it is always interesting to be reminded that she physically exists quite near me, given how much of that essay takes place in and around my neighborhood.)
I loved this exploration of celebrity relationship conspiracy theories.
This is like a year late, but I finally finished Little Fires Everywhere and everyone should go read it and talk to me about it.
Shit to eat
During the approximately 800 hours a day you spend on Twitter, find this tweet-length recipe for gazpacho.
Remember that you have some tomatoes to use up and—due to a previous adventure making this cake—you are somewhat loathe to turn on the oven in your tiny sweatbox kitchen. (It's not that tiny. It is very hot, though.)
When dinner comes, soak up some leftover stale baguette from when you made these sandwiches.
Add the three chopped up tomatoes you need to kill, and half a can of diced tomatoes that have been sitting in your freezer using up a very conveniently-sized glass tupperware that you wish to free.
Add some red wine vinegar and sugar (no sherry vinegar in the house; keeping vinegar around has never been a strong suit).
Toss some olive oil in, and some salt, and some more salt, and some more after that.
While immersion blending the soup in a big enamel pot, think about your mother and how much she loved salt.
Ladle the soup into a bowl. Add a chopped-up hardboiled egg and some anchovies and olive oil, also left over from the sandwich experiment.
Realize that anchovies, though tasty, smell very strongly and were probably a mistake.
Eat the soup on your porch, and post a smug photo to instagram even though gazpacho is not really a very photogenic food, looking as it does a bit like an organ.
Decide that you like it, which is good, because there are approximately 6 servings left in the fridge.
Shit to listen to
I like this song about being crushed out (shocking), and only today did I realize that the singer apparently looks like every art girl I had a weird envy/anger thing with in high school. This is very funny to me.
Shit to buy
Warp + Weft has a sale going on and I bought these shorts because my old ones don't really fit and life is too short for shorts that don't fit.
eShakti has a kaftan/kimono section, see you later.
Buy and grill some peaches. Buy and don't-grill some watermelon. You're welcome.