Hello hello! I’m back! Did you miss me last week? Did you even notice I was gone? I went on a trip, and I sat down to write this last week and just really had nothing to talk about, so I didn’t write anything. I am now back and have been trying to pull my life together (with minimal success) before classes start next week. Here’s a recap of the last two weeks:
Things I Read
Books
Shit, Actually by Lindy West: Lindy is a feminist writer (she wrote Shrill, and then produced the show), and I’ve read all of her books. Before she became a well-known columnist, she wrote film reviews for a local news outlet. So this, her latest book, is a collection of movie reviews. I thought it was fine…I really only enjoyed the ones about movies I have seen, which was probably about two-thirds of them. Lindy is very sarcastic and has a very specific writing style in this that I think some people would maybe find annoying. This essay she wrote on Love, Actually (this is actually a bad movie everyone) is in the book and a good example of what this book is like. If you think this essay is funny, you may like the book.
Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents by Isabel Wilkerson: I finally got to this one after months on my library’s waitlist. It is as good as everyone says. I learned so much from this book. I listened to the audio book, which I really enjoyed, and I think is a great way to read this one if you struggle to read a long nonfiction book (if you’ve never done this before, your library probably has an app you can check out audio books on). The main thesis here is that race in America is a caste system, like that of India or Nazi Germany. This was just so good, incredibly written and very well argued. I particularly liked the last section of the book, where Wilkerson writes about the election of Barack Obama and the aftermath of that. This is just such a good book. Must read.
An Offer from a Gentleman (Bridgerton #3) by Julia Quinn: Quite the tone shift here. I thought this was fine. I didn’t like it as much as the second one. This one is about Benedict, the second oldest Bridgerton brother. It’s sort of a play on a Cinderella plot line, but the story went in circles in ways that were kind of annoying. I still flew through this, and it set up the next book at the end in a way that has me very excited to keep going. Mostly, I want season 2 of the show!
Articles
Why Do American Grocery Stores Still Have an Ethnic Aisle?: This was a very interesting read from Priya Krishna, who I have followed on Instagram since her days in the Bon Appetit test kitchen. She left last summer after everything that happened there, and now she contributes to the NYT a lot and I always love everything she writes. Here she talks about the struggle between acknowledging the cultural background of different foods while also getting them in front of as many consumers as possible.
The Parameters of Peloton Celebrity: This was a great read from Anne Helen Peterson’s substack, the second in a series she is writing about Peloton instructors/influencers. This one is about Ally Love’s wedding, one of the most absurd events I have ever seen play out on social media (I mean, this Vogue write up feels like a fever dream). Peloton’s cult following, and in turn the following of all the instructors, is a fascinating part of influencer culture. I think it will be interesting to see which ones are able to leverage this into a full-on personal brand.
TV’s White Guys are in Crisis: This article asks the question: now that we have stopped making white guys the main characters of every single thing that ever gets made, what….do we do with them? It talks about how shows like The White Lotus, The Chair, and Rutherford Falls have approached this, and then also uses Ted Lasso as an example of a show that has just leaned in and fully embraced a nice white guy protagonist. TV is so much more interesting when it is not all about the same type of person.
Things I Watched
TV
Grace and Frankie: I love this show so much and was very excited when they surprise dropped the first four episodes of the final season. Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin are so funny, on the show and in real life. June Diane Raphael, who plays Grace’s daughter Brianna, is giving a hilarious performance and I have never related to a television character more. The addition of Peter Gallagher in the later seasons has been very good. I liked these first four episodes, and the rest of the season comes out next year. I do sort of think this show has run its course, but I will be sad to see it end. On Netflix.
Modern Love: This is an anthology series (so every episode is a different story) based on the Modern Love column in the New York Times where real people submit their love stories. I loved the first season of this, so was excited to watch the second one this week. It was a bit of a let down! More than one episode ended so abruptly with basically no resolution, to the point where I was convinced some of them would be revisited later. They never were, and that was annoying. There are some good episodes in this season—I would recommend episodes 1, 2, 7, and 8. As a whole, season 1 was much better. On Amazon Prime.
The Chair: We should all feel lucky to be alive while Sandra Oh’s career is in it’s prime!!! I love her. In this show, she plays Ji-Yoon, the first woman of color to become chair of the English Department at a university called Pembroke. It starts with her becoming the chair, and things *immediately* go off the rails. The men in this show are all terrible! The only good one is Ji-Yoon’s dad. This is a quick 6 episodes, and I think worth a watch. It is funny, I think it’s self-aware, and it felt pretty realistic to me. I do think the way the students are portrayed is fairly one dimensional and a little annoying, but I understand why these choices were made in service of the plot. Sandra and Holland Taylor, who plays an older woman who has been an English professor at Pembroke for decades, are the highlights. I also loved this conversation between Sandra and Amanda Peet, the showrunner. On Netflix.
Movies
CODA: Whew, this made me cry a lot! I had been wanting to see this since it won basically every drama award at Sundance earlier this year. CODA stands for Child of Deaf Adults, which is what this movie is about—a 17-year-old girl named Ruby who is the only hearing member of her family. Ruby helps with the family fishing business and at the beginning of the movie she joins her school choir. I really liked this movie, and it’s unlike any I’ve ever seen before in its representation of people who are deaf. Probably half the movie is in ASL, and it’s a very endearing (borderline corny) story. Just a great coming of age high school movie, which, as we all know, is my favorite genre. Big recommend from me. This is in some movie theaters and streaming on AppleTV+.
We Broke Up: I was drawn to this because it stars Aya Cash (Gretchen in You’re the Worst, a great show that I loved) and William Jackson Harper (Chidi from The Good Place). This is an indie rom com about a couple that breaks up after 10 years together, and then still has to go on a weekend trip to go to her sister’s wedding. To me, an indie rom com has a much different vibe from a big budget one—they are much more subdued, with simple, slower plot lines, and they feel incredibly realistic. Sometimes this works really well for me and I LOVE them (one of my favorites from the past couple years is Plus One, on Hulu) and sometimes there is not enough going on and they are just boring. I think this one falls in the middle. I would probably only recommend this to people who really like rom coms. On Hulu.
Things I Bought
Sephora Favorites Vacay All Day set: Every once and a while there is a Sephora favorites kit that is such a good deal I simply cannot resist. This is one of those times! The highlight of this one is obviously the *full size* Dr. Brandt SPF, which costs $65 if you buy it on its own. This entire bag of products only costs $44 and comes with a bunch of other stuff, too! What was I supposed to do? Not buy this? I have also already used up the travel sized Sol de Janeiro body cream (a favorite of mine) and I really love the Milk cream blush that came with this as well. This is such a good deal, I have no regrets.
One Last Thing…
This is good!
That’s it for me! I hope you all have a good week.
TTYL,
Emily