i am still obsessed with ariella elovic. not scary obsessed (although you’d have to ask her, i suppose, to be 100% sure) but 1 or 2 or 7 of 239 tabs i have open on my computer at any given time are usually dedicated to something she’s written. bonkers, right? but when i love, i loOoOOooOve. she is a gem, a light in the darkness, and a balm for the weary soul, and on. she has a newsletter called snack time (don’t you love it already) and it’s basically an extension of her brilliant book, cheeky. deeply resonating and relatable comics about things like the horrors of dating and getting a cat and food that’s worth the diarrhea it will inevitably cause and she is just such a genius to me.
i read her letter just to be chosen about people pleasing (a bad habit i am desperately trying in vain to break, has anyone figured out how to do so without the constant worry that someone who probably doesn’t matter is mad at you) three times in a row, nodding in painful recognition. but also laughing! because she is extremely funny and charming!! PEOPLE WHO CAN PAINT OR DRAW ARE LIKE GODS TO ME.
i’m throwing a party with my brothers the hood internet aug 8 at the hideout in chicago, a literal dream come true. a year ago steve texted me “sam what are we doing for the twenty year anniversary of the dave matthews riverboat disaster?” and i was like “idk should we throw down” and he was like “hell yeah bitch” so we decided to put together a function to celebrate a bunch of people getting shit on their shirts. tim is my guy and when i asked him if we could use his famed venue for the dumbest party in history, without hesitation he yelled SAMANTHA YOU CAN DO WHATEVER YOU WANT directly into my face so i immediately bought some bus-shaped piñatas off etsy to fill with tootsie rolls (i am insane) and maybe i’ll find confetti that looks like toilet paper? do they make favors for a poop party?? i also thought it would be funny to get porta potties and/or an ice cream truck for outside the bar??? we’ll see what magic i can make happen. MAYBE DAVE WILL COME!!
the tickets will be cheap and we’ll have event posters (designed by bird machine!!!!) and shirts (???) available for purchase and all the proceeds will go to the crohns and colitis foundation of america. it’s gonna be a dance party but please feel free to stand awkwardly in one place. steve and aaron are the dopest DJs and their shit is incredible. to get pumped up (or if you wanna pretend you’re there) here are some of my fave mashups (do people still call them that) they’ve done:
amerie x daft punk
dr dre x fujiya and miyagi
lauryn hill x deadmau5
the beastie boys x matt and kim
big tymers x yeah yeah yeahs
chamillionaire x passion pit
trillville x the knife
drake x miike snow
juvenile x portishead
st vincent x digital underground
lil wayne x röyksopp
britney spears x department of eagles
whitney houston x chromeo
and duh yes there will obviously be some dave matthews band tunes. come cry with me to “crash” mixed with, oh i dunno, “212” by azealia banks??? it’s gonna be a time!
you know we fuck it and stay fat i.e. try to practice body neutrality over here, and my babe emma copley eisenberg just wrote an article for the new republic called the american novel has a major problem with fat people and it’s illuminating as shit, in the bad way! a quote: “when i do find depictions of people with larger bodies in fiction, from commercial bestselling detective or romance fiction to debut collections of literary short stories, the portrayals are nearly always pejorative, jeering, or demeaning.” and another: “thinness is routinely associated with morality and fatness with immorality. characters are often made fat as a shorthand to tell the reader that they are gross, weak, evil, cruel, stupid, unimportant, or mentally ill.” and i know, i fucking know, nobody wants to read a thing that feels like homework but if i have a cause celebre this is it, and this passage in particular gave me emotional whiplash: “or as long as i can remember, the sensation that my body is fat and thus disgusting and wrong has run in the back of my mind like the whir of an air conditioning unit.” i feel like that! every minute of every day!! and i share that not to engender your pity (look at me, already explaining away talking about my most overwhelming feeling) but maybe as a reminder that we’re surrounded by pervasive fatphobia and we just deal with it because who cares so if you’re about to give a big bitch a hard time maybe don’t!!! she’s already had to fistfight her doctor this morning to get antibiotics for an ear infection (“have you considered………..weight loss?”) and instagram won’t stop spamming her with trailers for the whale!!!!!!!! (that is a link to lindy’s brilliant, hilarious review of that garbage movie and not a clip, i’m not a fucking sicko)
it’s the nba finals hallelujah and while i am deeply invested in the redemption arc of kyrie irving he just got beat down and that makes me nervous. i don’t really have a dog in this fight because the pistons’ record this season was 14-68 and i’m not allowed to care about the bulls anymore because i live too close to the 313. anyway go kyrie go luka go mark cuban go mavs!
i love the grub street diet and i always forget about it until someone posts a good one and then i click on it before reading the dozens i’ve missed since the last time i logged on. it’s so stupid, i definitely pay new york magazine $8 a month for this privilege and yet? i can’t ever remember to take advantage of it.
i will read a list of anyone’s anything. why did you buy that? what made you eat there? who did you talk to on the phone today? what’s your favorite weather app? when do you like to eat dinner? which celebrity, alive or dead, would be your hall pass? how many sweatshirts do you own? if you could have any pet on earth what would you choose? I COULD GO ON LIKE THIS UNTIL MY FINGERS FALL OFF. anyway, these are some delicious grub streets i inhaled today:
jay smooth radio king/podcaster/my forever crush
vinson cunningham writer (read great expectations!)
flynn berry novelist
matt rogers actor
khushbu shah chef and editor
joanna goddard writer (read big salad!)
kashana cauley novelist (read the survivalists!)
amelia meath singer (of many bangers, including this one)
ruby redstone fashion writer (and total delight, wow what a list)
shoutout to decoder ring, my favorite kind of non-pop culture podcast: 45 minutes of a well-researched deep dive into an incredibly niche subject.
i’ve been listening to a lot of good shit lately! the new gossip album absolutely fucking rips. beth ditto’s voice cuts through your body like a scalpel.
baby rose has a new EP out with badbadnotgood called slow burn and i am wearing that shit OUT, it’s on constant rotation and it is fucking DOPE. it’s funk? soul?? soulful funky r&b??? her voice is absolutely fucking insane, there are zero skips, put it in your headphones late at night and lie in the dark and cry. i will, too.
this is an incense house and lately i’m in love with this brand high and lonely. the scents are pleasing and the sticks are short and the ash is compact and falls neatly onto the holder which i find very satisfying. don’t get me wrong, i love nag champa cone fogging up the bathroom so bad you can’t see your face in the mirror but during the day when i want just a whisper of smokiness as i’m working these are the jam.
i watched/am watching two kinda highbrow pieces of reality television: 1 the jerrod carmichael reality show, which is a horrifyingly intimate exploration of his life as a newly out, horny comedian. it’s gorgeously shot and super stylish but after the first episode i just wanted to give everyone this dude seemingly brought on camera to humiliate a hug. i don’t think jerrod is a bad person? but after awhile every interaction started to feel like “hey i’m rich now and can finally shift the power balance of this relationship brace yourself here comes some revenge.” and maybe these conversations were better had in private with a mediator. for instance, the episode with his father. i had a deeply disturbed, abusive, alcoholic dad and he froze to death in the street the day after i turned 18, so i will never get to confront him about his myriad failures and that’s fine. sometimes life be like that, BUT: if he were alive today, a feeble, soft-spoken, exhausted old man in a tracksuit, i’m not sure my attempt to rectify our ruined relationship would involve trapping him in an RV with me and a camera crew before demanding he explain his shortcomings during my childhood to me and a bunch of hbo editors and producers and executives that he will never, ever meet. in footage over which he has zero control. i kept wondering, as jerrod confronted various people in his life, if he truly wanted resolution or if it was just like, a lion tormenting his dinner before eating it. it’s not even that i felt particularly sorry for the dad, i just kept asking myself “what does jerrod want from this? what is he hoping to receive as a son by humiliating his parents on television? what is he offering to us as an audience?” it’s captivating and i was riveted by every episode and as soon as the last one ended i said a prayer that everyone involved got some counseling.
2 i am obsessed with doctor orna from couples therapy (one of my most exciting delusions is that i believe she could fix me) and, in general, the self-discipline a therapist has to possess while watching maddening interpersonal dynamics play out six feet away from her fucking face. these people are fearless. every person on here is the bravest person i have ever seen in my life. i do teletherapy with my psychiatrist and i won’t even let the cat be in the room with me, let alone all of america??? i am out of my mind a lot of the time and if i knew some idiot in michigan was rolling her eyes and armchair diagnosing me as i poured my broken heart out to the gossip doctor i would walk into the fucking sea.
every single couple has the most compelling relationship i have ever witnessed and not a single one of them does the one thing i would definitely do: put on a talent show to become the therapist’s and/or the entire viewership’s favorite. i would try to wear my coolest clothes and make sure my good tattoos were visible and i should go to jail because i would never stop joking. i know me, i am your dad: i would walk into the first session like “sorry i can’t sit down, the wife cut my nuts off and put em in her purse! wocka wocka!!” and a person who does that should be killed. OR i would get mean and defensive and go silent, then everybody on the subreddit would talk trash about how my lady deserves someone less shitty. and they’d be correct!! i cannot get enough of this damn show, fingers cross for eleven more seasons, minimum.
the first time a person complained to me about a book they’d seen me reading and decided to read for themselves i grabbed the nearest sharp object and cut open my own throat, and now i’m dead and my ghost is writing this. i’d made a passive recommendation, at most. why was their hatred of a perfectly adequate book my problem? if you see me jumping off a bridge, etc etc. i like making people aware of cool shit but i honestly don’t form super strong negative opinions on something as subjective as a book someone else wrote. i don’t even have super strong opinions about my own fucking books. they are fine. everything is fine. and if it’s not for you? THAT’S FINE.
i made a few bookshop lists that theoretically will help me organize my brain but we’ll see about that. it’s hard to figure out an easy way (read: with pictures and/or clickable links) to find out what books people are reading, especially if you don’t want to know anyone’s actual dumb thoughts, but this seems like a good place to park stuff because i think i have great taste and if you like shit i like it’ll all be right there in one place. (i didn’t set myself up as an affiliate because i don’t need to make three cents of a stranger’s book that could otherwise go to an indie bookstore, so if that’s the kind of thing that bugs you, relax!!!!!!!!!!!!!)
i’m blasting a lot of gaga in the subaru to get hype for streaming the chromatica ball and this week it’s these absolute fucking bangers on repeat:
-the fame glam as you remix
-fashion!
-911 sofi tukker remix
-diamond heart
-babylon
-babylon bree runway remix
-lovegame space cowboy remix
-heavy metal lover
-teeth
-diamond heart
blurbing books is weird because i have a hard time believing that my endorsement on the back of someone’s book will be what sways a stranger in a bookstore to purchase it but i am thrilled to be asked and say yes as often as feels correct and not TOO MUCH. although, the people pleasing will never release me from its death grip, so i’m definitely gonna say yes many more times and feel stressed about it.
the problem with blurbs is i do not know how to describe things in a smart way and most editors won’t let me get away with “this book fucking rips, plus it’s cheap” and then i feel like a loser when they send the blurb back to me asking me to say something else and here’s the thing……………..i absolutely cannot. the times asked me to review a book once and in response a sent them a copy of my incomplete community college transcript and a note that read “lol.” i know how to read and i know how to pick books i will enjoy but i can’t write hundreds of words about them??
all that to say that when my best pal jenn romolini told me she was writing another book and asked if i would blurb it i immediately said yes (because i wanted to!) and almost as immediately regretted that offer (because i don’t know how to make words good!) but you know what? i read ambition monster and loved it as much as i knew i would and when i emailed her editor “jenn romolini is a big-hearted, hilarious genius who has generously ripped her life open to let us pick at her scars, and we are luckier for it” i meant it. the book just came out and it fucking rips (also i’m sure you could find it for cheap, get a library card) and you should get it.
recently: i read this book penance by eliza clark a few weeks ago and i’m still thinking about the little bullying bitches in it because it was so good and the twist at the end really made me think. i also read midnight on beacon street by emily ruth verona and the best way to describe it is it’s like reading a 90s horror movie. my most recent can’t-sleep-midnight-diarrhea book was the last word by taylor adams. i read his book no exit and liked that one well enough to watch the movie they made it into, and this one was good and scary and gave me a dread pit in my stomach until it didn’t in the end when the truth was revealed. stephen king’s holly was reliably good and also disgusting but not gory. and i’m currently reading all fours by miranda july and baby this is PORN. it’s so funny and i love the way she puts together a sentence and her observations are so great, i often find myself gasping like “i think that, too!” as a nearly 45-year-old person it’s ringing a lot of my bells.
a bunch of shit i didn’t buy because i’m trying to learn restraint:
-these giant underpants
-this ridiculous and fancy lemon squeezer
-these dill pickle rice cakes that are probably disgusting
-these handy at-home earwax removing drops (i’ve been watching a lot of intense wax removals on youtube)
-this merit “complexion stick” i already know i will never use
-this nars color corrector (i would still wouldn’t mind it if, you know, it happened to fall out of the sky and onto my purple undereye circles and upper lip)
-a “new notebook” for “my writing” (i have never, and will never, make regular use of a journal, why do i try to trick myself into believing i could somehow become a totally different kind of person with the purchase of yet another hardcover unlined book that’s difficult and uncomfortable to write in and will surely be abandoned to the bottom of a drawer with all the others in a matter of days??? sigh)
i’m gonna try to do this on the regular. i love you very much.
sam