Is it summer?
An early Q2 review featuring being good, being bad, bluebells, and night beaches
I’m back from New England last weekend, where I felt firsthand that famous Mark Twain quote: “the coldest summer I ever spent was June in Maine.”1 Summer has felt incredibly remote, but it’s Pride, the Knicks are playing, and my apartment is perpetually weirdly stuffy, so I think we must be getting there.
With some stories planned for the rest of Pride, I’m dropping in early with my Q2 review, covering books, movies, the state of slop, and why I’m finding that what feels to be the dissolution of publishing is actually creating more space for me to write what I want.
1. Books
I’ve been back in a reading slump but am currently reading a few bangers. I’m loving Party Line by Kyle Carrero Lopez. This debut collection of poems is vibrant and taut, kickstarting my own writing routine very morning.
It’s pairing well with Good Girl by Aria Aber. I picked this one up from Greenlight Books on what I was envisioning as an artist’s date weekend after reading Lisa Hiton’s recommendation in The Portland Press Herald. This künstlerroman is set in Berlin, often in the depths of a club called, “The Bunker.” The ship for me to ever have a remote chance at going to Berghain sailed long ago. During a study abroad trip to Berlin with some friends, we tried to go to some random other Berlin nightclub and got turned away because not all of us were 21 and that seemed too young. We ate currywurst and got home at 5am, which ended up being unceremoniously one of the latest nights of my life, and one I still recount to this day apparently.
Swerving left, I’m reading Barons by Austin Frerick. This book confronts the failings of American agriculture policy by telling the story of several corporate barons. I distinctly remember listening to the audiobook for The Omnivore’s Dilemma when I worked in college admissions. I was repping Minnesota and drove an hour out of the city to visit a high school in Rochester. Cornfields stretched to the horizon while the audiobook discussed how corn was artificially propped up by subsidies and creating problems for what felt like every aspect of life. Back in the Twin Cities, I went to Starbucks for a quick breakfast and with a profound sense of doom could only see corn syrup in the display case. All this to say, I had the same experience today when the only raspberries at my grocery store were Driscoll’s. The writing is quick, and Frerick is a friendly reader’s guide.
Other recent favorites include Megan Pinto’s Saints of Little Faith and Megan Fernandes’s I Do Everything I’m Told, both of which reawakened me to what language can do on the line level.
2. Movies
Obsession: The part of me in high school that thought 500 Days of Summer was groundbreaking for its genre would have been similarly captivated by this. I thought it was fun and fresh, but the lighting in the beginning really bothered me—it looked very AI?
Fatal Attraction: I finally came to this a few weeks ago and enjoyed it.
Hamnet: I was also very late to watching Hamnet but absolutely loved it. I was very compelled by how the film managed to hold the differing shapes of the couple’s grief, and the ending had me in a space of deep reflection the next day.
3. Local intrigue
NY: It’s finally starting to feel like summer, and there’s nowhere I’d rather be than Habana Outpost after going to the Fort Greene Farmers Market on a Saturday morning. I walked by on Monday night when the Knicks were playing, and the city felt so alive. The Botanic Gardens have been beautiful, both for the cherry blossoms and after, when the bluebells were particularly stunning.
ME: A media visit brought me to Ogunquit for the town’s Pride last weekend. I’d written a little about Ogunquit for Decor Maine last year, and I loved getting to visit for this new story I’m working on. Maine Street is a classic, Nikanos lived up to the hype, and I got to see Jay Stern’s work in person at the Ogunquit Museum of American Art—I’d recently profiled him for a package for Down East. My favorite part, though, was walking on the beach at night. It was too cold all weekend to swim, but after dark the beach had this haunted yet peaceful, overwhelming and foreboding sense that I feel I’m chasing in the novel I’m currently revising.
4. Ephemera
The Tonys: I watched for the first time, and P!nk was honestly great. Made me want to go see a play.
Oh Mary!: I did finally see Oh Mary! with Maya Rudolph. I loved it and found the fact that a show like this has made such waves to be affirming—do your art and let everything else follow.
The state of publishing: I’ve reached an all-time low in my attitude on the publishing industry. AI scandals, contemporary books that feel like they’re not saying anything, all of it has pushed me to care less about seeking conventional success. If the writing itself isn’t fun, what’s the point? I’ve found that to be incredibly liberating, so at the same moment when I’m having all this agita about publishing, I’m actually finding writing to be the most fun that it has in a while.
Reference Section
I’ve had some work publish in the last few weeks. I wrote this essay for Dossier about Saba, bush medicine, and chronic illness. I also wrote about Larry Clifford’s BiblioQuilts for Rhode Island Monthly.
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(The actual quote about summer in San Francisco is misattributed to him).
Tonys for the first time??? Also, 500 days of summer was groundbreaking