Hello lovely friends, the GF cake recipe I promised will come with the next installment. Instead, here are some quick hits, mostly things I read or saw this month so far. It’s art heavy because my artist’s way group has convened on NYC for a two-week residency involving a strict schedule of museum shows. Pro tip: the Brooklyn Public Library offers culture pass access to museums for free. Your library probably participates in something similar.

I will be OOO from August 24-September 8. Please send playlists and recs for books you can’t put down for beach and travel.

Things I read:

Great essay, stupid diet

Make coffee shops social again! (truly bleak stats here)

Down Time, Andrew Martin. The Covid novel I didn’t know I was ready for. Enjoyed it, but not as much as Early Work.

Stay True, Hua Hsu. Haven’t thought so deeply about zines or grief in a long time. Beautiful view on 90s youth in the east bay, and an important look at the recent Asian-American generation. A special book, thank you for the rec, E.

Upon finding out my go-to Ikea down pillow model has been discontinued and people are NOT happy with the replacement, I engaged on the most mundane, elusive quest only to find…everything is worse on purpose now.

The great choreographer, dancer, and movement artist Simone Forti left us two weeks ago at age 91. She lived quite the life and leaves an impressive body of work—she had connections to Fluxus, Judson Dance Theater, lived in the northeast kingdom of Vermont for a decade, etc. I highly recommend the beautiful book Radical Bodies, the companion to the UCSB show about her, Yvonne Rainer, and Anna Halprin. My copy is in storage; it’s funny, I miss being surrounded by my books more than anything else I own (I kept my favorite abstract floral mug with me).

Hello? Is anyone paying attention? A SpaceX rocket crashed into the moon last week and nobody in my orbit seemed to notice. This actually happened before (2022) and got me thinking again about space trash. Almost as disturbing as the fallacy of recycling…

All my group chats are talking about this piece. I personally loved seeing an interrobang in the paper of record. Reading reminded me of the first time I noticed someone decades younger mixing references from the 90s/00s: the Mac DeMarco Celebrate Brooklyn show in August 2019 in Prospect Park.

Art I saw:

I recently spent an afternoon wandering through Bard’s Hessel Museum of Art and was deeply moved by the Betty Parsons show. I knew her as art dealer to Mark Rothko et al and had no idea about her own paintings and sculpture work. Her use of color felt exciting and discovering her oeuvre over 40 years after her death felt akin to seeing Hilma af Klint’s work for the first time. But what really struck me was her remarks about creativity and inspiration: Parsons distinguished between the world (messed up, even back in the late 70s/early 80s when she was nearing the end of her life) and the beauty of life and living. Absolutely worth a trip upstate and don’t miss the Navajo weaving show. I was surprised to see the connection to microchip manufacturing in a handcraft show. Very cool. Both shows are open until the fall. Thanks to Ryan, Ander, and Ezra for the invite.

Giacometti at the Temple of Dendur at the Met: transcendent. One of my favorite quiet spaces in New York. The current Costume show is a chaotic algorithmic mess, sponsored by Bezos/Sanchez, with high production value and low coherent narrative. Some incredible costume detailing and utterly unexpected art (a casual Picasso Blue Period painting next to a knit strapless blue dress, ok? A Luchita Hurtado tryptic shoved behind corsets from the 1880s, sure?) but kind of disappointing curation overall.

Duchamp at MoMA. Liked the chess paintings and seeing his line drawings. Interesting context for what his work evolved into and painted a loose picture of his social circle in Paris. But what I really enjoyed was the photography in the African architecture show.

Noguchi’s New York at the eponymous museum. Robert Moses hated his proposals, interesting to see what the city could have been with his free-thinking imaginings for public art in office buildings and with playgrounds and parks. Cool to see the symmetry between this and the Duchamp; the show included the chess set Noguchi designed for the same gallery show featuring the Duchamp chess paintings. For my California friends, the Noguchi Garden by the Orange County Museum of Art is really lovely and makes a nice companion to seeing the art across the street. NB: The Noguchi staff is trying to unionize and the museum refuses to meet with them. More info here.

Misc.

I watched Barbara Kopple’s The Hamptons on Le Cinema Club, originally a limited series made for TV, over several nights. (You probably know her groundbreaking coal strike doc Harlan County U.S.A.) Seeing the excess and consumption of the 2001 Hamptons scene and how unabashedly people lived and partied before smartphones is kind of wild, in stark contrast to the locals and the peaceful nature that proceeded summer shares and bottle service. Kopple’s doc features interviews with locals and notables (the Robert Wilson interview alone!). A spectacular human snapshot of the before times.

Last week I ran into my old pal James Sanders at the Odeon, funnily enough where we first met 18 years ago. He’s the downtown architect who wrote the eight-episode series about New York, produced by Ken Burns. James informed me that there are two new episodes, coming out September 21 on PBS, that catch us up from 1999 when the original episodes aired. History/architecture/urban planning wonks take note.

A few weeks ago, two masked activists/artists/climbers unfurled a banner from the tippy top of the Empire State Building quoting Jimi Hendrix:

WHEN THE POWER OF LOVE

BEATS THE LOVE OF POWER

THE WORLD KNOWS PEACE

I saw people rush to make fun of the spectacle, but it does make a striking image and honestly moved me to see people so invested in a spectacle. We need more guerrilla art and activism in these jaded, online times. Even the staff at the ESB seemed pretty chill about it.

This week’s links:

moods.computer suggests playlists based on set and setting. Peaceful.computer is another single-serving site that helps you pick music. I like “afternoon.” Also cool, you can toggle infinite play mode on/off. (Both by my pal Ben, stay tuned for news from us soon on a new thing.)

Catalhoyuk, a Neolithic society in Turkey (7000-6000 BC or so) was uncovered in 1958 but recently found to be matrilineal and matrilocal with no signs of organized violence. When I took anthropology at Skidmore one summer in the mid-90s, we did not learn about matrilocality: meaning a society in which women remain in their homes but males move away in adulthood and come and go between female-led homes. (No surprise—my Irish-American professor focused on the IRA and Sinn Féin and seemed mostly interested in masculine displays of power. He did, however, have a great story about being abducted while doing field research in Northern Ireland, only to end up in a room with Gerry Adams who wanted to know why he was poking around.) Catalhoyuk dwellings were connected, without pathways or roads. It seems the dwellers would walk on top of buildings, and bury their dead below. Based on genetic research, it’s likely females stayed in their family home and had more decorated graves than males, leading us to think women were considered important and revered.

If you’ve seen me lately, I’ve probably mentioned Leon Neyfakh’s latest podcast, Only Fantasy. The show digs into the rise of the Only Fans platform during the pandemic and what this online behavior says about our culture. With the rise of the loneliness epidemic, and online porn, men are looking to Only Fans for companionship where they’re able to chat with women offering personalized sexual content. Absolutely worth a listen if you’re in a relationship with a hetero man, trying to date straight men, or curious about the expanded digital porn economy. The show—which imho should have been called Lonely Fans—reframed my experience chatting on dating apps. Anecdotally, men seem lonelier, more likely to chat for extended periods of time, and less able to make a plan and motivate to meet than ever before. If you’re single, do me a favor and talk to a stranger in the world today. What ever happened to that? One note: I was surprised they didn’t mention Margo’s Got Money Troubles, recently adapted for Apple TV by David E. Kelley. The book is MUCH better than the show, and it digs into some of the topics discussed in the pod.

All that said, this beautiful essay gave me hope that some middle aged men are finding positive outlets and community.

Please read Jia Tolentino on the rise of plastic surgery and facial modification and AI. I’m glad someone finally went there. In my mind the rise of Botox, face lifts, GLP1 usage, and AI are all intertwined… We’re now online so much as a society that we’re losing our aptitude for critical thought, our attention span, and even becoming less verbal.

A recent study showed improved memory, social interaction, movement, and conversation for an advanced Alzheimer’s patient after a single dose of psilocybin. Incredible.

Niche but important: my favorite workout gear is now available in raw cotton. Highly recommend the leotard, leggings, and corset bra. Related: cotton swimwear! Hit me if you need other natural fiber or nontoxic product recs, I’ve tried them all.

I’m trying to submerge in as many lakes, ponds, rivers, oceans, and pools as possible this summer to make up for a winter without a bathtub. Please send summer book recs and let’s swim!

[Special thanks to Mercedes (I hear the workshops WORK!) and Emily (the bean enthusiast) for the virtual office and steadfast presence.]

I meant to show up in your inbox many, many weeks ago, before I got pulled into an all-consuming but fascinating book project (12-hour days, on repeat) so please note this is part time capsule from early April, part now-ish. The next installment will catch us up to the present day.

It took me a while to dig out from the depths of hibernation this winter—visits to LA in March and SF in May helped immensely—but spring is fully here in New York and the energy is high. The air is fragrant with blossoms, we’re getting fifteen hours of daylight, the farmer’s market and stoop sales are fully in action, the Knicks are up, and I’m back to 10,000 steps a day.

What I watched:

This is now two months of news cycles old, but worth a watch: A meta conversation between Claude and Bernie Sanders about economic and societal impacts of AI, which delves into motivations for accessing private data (“Money, Senator”). Follow it with his recent op-ed about AI as a public utility. Related: Stanford’s study on the algorithmic monoculture negatively impacting job seekers. Raise your hand if this rings true…

All I Wanna Do (1998) was recommended by a guest on HLG. It’s the 90s coming of age caper comedy you didn’t see because of Harvey Weinstein, still hard to find but I watched on YT. Written and directed by Sarah Kernichan (one of the writers of 9 1/2 Weeks) about her school days, produced by Nora Ephron, the name was changed several times and the release halted because Weinstein thought there weren’t enough male characters to make it a hit. It has a stacked cast: a pre-Virgin Suicides Kiersten Dunst, Gaby Hoffman, Heather Matarazzo, Mad Men’s Vincent Kartheiser, Lynn Redgrave, and other 90s teen stars you’ll recognize.

Good Fortune (2025) Aziz Ansari wrote and directed this buddy comedy gnerally about how the gig economy (slash late-stage capitalism) is systemically abusive to workers. Keanu Reeves costars (with Seth Rogen and Ansari) as an angel with tiny wings whose sole purpose is to stop accidents due to texting while driving. Fun for a plane watch. See also: I Love Boosters (in theaters!), the new Boots Riley. The Tune-Yards soundtrack is a bit grating, but overall I found it refreshing to see a vivid, fantastical take on dialectical materialism on the big screen. The friend I saw it with (hi Monica) found it obvious, but I think that’s kind of the point. It shows us the absurdity of the system we’re living in and how horrific it all is. Good costume and set design.

In a recent bout of illness that primarily manifested as deep fatigue with a hint of a fever, I took to bed for five days and watched: Beef (season 2), Hacks (season 5), Ladies First (think: an updated What Women Want), and the first season of The Four Seasons (the original 1981 Alan Alda/Carol Burnett film is better). Honestly, nothing has really hit since I finished a Mad Men rewatch last month which really made me want to go back to Big Sur.

What I read:

When not talking about perimenopause, impending doom from rising fascism and over-indexing on AI, or the destruction of our planet and thus weather systems, a common theme among friends is the weight of parental health complications along with our own middle aged maladies. Amanda Peet wrote a beautiful piece on this reality hitting her in dramatic fashion.

Transference in the afternoon. Therapists are flawed humans, too. As are journalists who cannot hide their own judgment in their writing.

Old news but I am here for everything Jeremy O. Harris (the correction here!). After spending 23 days in a Japanese jail for accidentally traveling with an MDMA pill, he was quite prolific in his work and reading. His account here.

I’m on a bit of a memoir kick. I started Famesick (Lena Dunham) when let me borrow her copy, but temporarily put it aside to rip through Melissa Auf der Maur’s Even the Good Girls Will Cry: My 90s Rock Memoir. For anyone who was not a 90s grunge head, Auf der Maur was the bassist in Hole after Live Through This, then played in Smashing Pumpkins. She grew up in Bohemian Montreal with Rufus Wainwright as a close friend. It features juicy 90s music scene stories, a fun read in an escapist if nostalgic way. I then read Belle Burden’s Strangers in two days to attend a reading. So restrained and well-paced, quite well crafted (the recent “takedown” in the New Yorker is irrelevant and misses the point). I’m now reading Getting Lost, Annie Ernaux’s memoir of an affair with a Russian diplomat in the late 1980s. I’ve found that I can only read it when in a room alone with the door closed, it’s too intimate to read on the subway. The question is what to follow it with, please send recommendations.

More from me soon!

There was much talk about the back to the land movement that brought 100k city folks to the state from the late 60s to mid 70s, whose population at the time totaled 400k. While my parents were a few years late in demographics, the sentiment and motivation remained. Chiasson observed that Vermont is a kind of art project, which feels apt (yet largely out of reach at this point). There were unlimited quips from Kincaid about my exact slice of Southern Vermont, in the shadows of Bennington College, which she calls the “banana belt” for its tendency to get less snow than the areas around it because of the shape of our valley. I can’t quite describe what I felt in hearing this conversation around the community and character of Vermonters, but it’s something akin to the intersection of catharsis, understanding, being deeply seen, and nostalgia for what, despite its many flaws, was an idyllic and powerful place to shape my understanding of the world. I even got an explanation for the ubiquitousness of Reggae in Vermont in the 90s. I went home with the book.

Some attention-worthy spots of joy and consideration for you this week:

A satirical political puppet series from a geopolitical risk consultancy, ok... reporting by the ever-brilliant Kim Córdova.

Speaking of Russia, I dare you to watch this 2016 episode of States of Undress without drawing parallels to 2026 USA (dating realities and gender relations-wise at the very least).

The compact Alekos Fassianos residence-turned-museum is worth a visit the next time you’re in Athens (plan to bring home one of the colorful prints!). Although a bit of a random collab, I like the Fassianos/Aimé Leon Dore cycling jersey from the collection and it’s Mediterranean palette.

Thoroughly amused by this Bic pen lamp, discovered via Chris Wiley. He’s an art critic and fellow psychonaut and an excellent follow if you still happen to be on the hellscape site FKA Twitter.

Saturday, March 7 at Red Cat in LA: guest vocals from the ethereal Julia Holter.

Nancy Holt at MAK through May.

See some color to brighten these gray days of almost-spring: David Novros at Paula Cooper, from March 7.

You’d likely don’t need to hear more about the new CBK/JFK Jr. Love Story series on Hulu, but I’m here to tell you it’s more fun than you’d think. The scenes in the Calvin Klein showroom are great and the soundtrack via music supervisor Jen Malone is excellent. I loved to see one of my dance teachers, Julia Crockett, credited as movement coach for Sarah Pidgeon, who truly transforms herself in this role. Above all, it’s an escapist (luddite?) dream to go back to a time when a relationship could unfold without the traps of technology: answering machines, handwritten letters, stopping by someone’s apartment.

Mark your diary for October 4, when a Lee Krasner/Jackson Pollock dual retrospective opens at the Met museum. I’ve had a soft spot for her since visiting the Pollock-Krasner house in Springs ~15 years ago, when I purchased a clipping of her spider plant in a tiny dixie cup for $3. (The plant lives on and has spawned several babies on both coasts.) Her show at the Barbican in 2019 was truly transcendent. I’m very curious to see how the Met handles the double billing in this exhibition.

Absolutely stop what you’re doing and tell me you don’t feel something from seeing this, which immediately prompted me to look for tickets for her tour. (and Bjork just came on as I wrote this?? See below.)

Sending this with love from the same cafe playing the same Ratatat album as the last time I dispatched to you (have been here since without hearing them once). I like to collect these little moments of serendipity/coincidence because why not. Tell me yours.

Kottke shared Noah Kalina’s trove of restaurant photos from the aughts (he was Eater’s first photographer). I clicked through until I found a shot of dearly departed Supercore. Along the way, seeing the inside of Larry Lawrence, Monkeytown, and DOC (site of my 27th birthday dinner), really transported me through time and space.

Seeing the cast and crew of Hamnet let loose after wrap is a truly joyful moment. Speaking of feeling something, Hamnet gave me so much hope in humanity and art. And, yes, you will cry. After a recent horrendous second date, Jessa reminded me that dancing to Robyn is always cathartic, even if alone in the kitchen. The same is true of Rihanna, obviously.

I went to a kind of wild book party at Judson Memorial Church put on by the Friends of Attention, the activist collective that also runs the Strother School of Radical Attention. This group of writers, artists, academics, et al is firmly opposed to the attention fracking wrought on us by Big Tech, who they say is coming after us by quantifying and commodifying our inner lives. The event was held in this space with deep radical history in the Village, where 250 people gathered together to fight against the war on our minds. I’ve long said that our attention is our greatest freedom, so being in a room with hundreds of people (many of whom were younger than me by a decade or two) participating in a ritual of attention to our own hands was uplifting in a way I can’t quite explain. They call the book their manifesto of the attention liberation movement. Also, a blurb from Jaron Lanier (!) and I’m listening.

Very cool to see the Arthurian cycle told through the POV of Guinevere. As a history major in college, one of my favorite classes was Women and Gender in Medieval Europe where I remember writing a 30 page term paper on Gwen and a female perspective of the legend. Somehow this was cutting edge in the late 90s at my small liberal arts school.

Haptic Lab’s quilted handcrafts are on super sale. Look at that Cape Cod quilt. Ending today! Can’t remember if I’ve mentioned this before but Emily Fischer, the founder, is a trained architect who learned to program large-scale quilting machines with to-scale models of cities after she was laid off in 2009. Their baby quilts are hand-stitched and make great gifts.

The Culture of Bathing is putting on a sauna festival along the Williamsburg waterfront.

To see:

Nochuchi’s New York

Play, a group show at Jaqueline Sullivan

Lucas Blalock & Julia Rommel at Bureau

Altered State: Religion & Psychedelics in California at GTU Berkeley

Paris, Texas at Metrograph

To save for a warm(er than 30 degrees) day: Larry Bell in Madison Square Park, through March 15

Planning ahead:

Democracy Now is celebrating 30 years with Angela Davis, Naomi Klein, Michael Stipe, et al. on February 23 (my birthday).

One last thing…I’m sitting in a cafe staffed by a couple of sullen 20-somethings who played old Ratatat into Homogenic. I definitely recommend putting on this track if you want to feel something.

Just some quickies this week…

Watching:

Atropia, Hailey Benton Gates’ first feature film. It won the Grand Jury prize at this year’s Sundance and is — sorry for the earnestness here — kinda brilliant. In the Q&A after our screening, Gates described her film as M*A*S*H (movie version!) for the 9/11 generation. I don’t want to give anything away but for such a dark, disturbing topic the movie is laugh-out-loud funny, absurd, humane, and has one of the most tender (and silly) love scenes I can remember. My one critique is that Tim Heidecker played it a bit too straight, but Chloe Sevigny in frame with him saved those scenes. Go see it if you want something weird, unexpected, thought-provoking. In theaters in LA/NY now, wider release soon.

Otherwise, I’m numbing my brain with bad Christmas movies. Some that are not completely terrible: The Christmas Classic (Amy Smart, Malin Akerman, one of the guys from Party Down, now middle aged; actually funny), A Merry Little Ex-Mas (Alicia Silverstone is a small town handyperson and environmentalist; cute), Champagne Problems (Paris! Lyla Garrity, plus one of the guys from Call My Agent), Last Christmas (yes, you will hear the Wham song), A Very Murray Christmas (Bill Murray gets snowed in at the Carlyle, Sofia Coppola directs. Good with an edible). If you’re wondering about any others to inane to list here, drop a comment or text me. I’ve probably seen it and can give you an offline review.

And, always, the standbys: Whit Stillman’s Metropolitan, Eyes Wide Shut, the 1977 version of The Nutcracker (Baryshnikov and lots of satin), Elf, The Family Stone (if you want a good cry). My four-year-old nephew likes A Charlie Brown Christmas (worth it for the music and 60s low fi animation), and I’m hoping he’ll watch The Muppet Christmas Carol with me next week.

Listening:

A classic Chances with Wolves Holiday mix. They have a deep archive of annual holiday mixes on Soundcloud if you want to jump around. Arp on NTS. And Sufjan’s Christmas album on repeat for the 20th (!) December in a row.

Reading:

I’m currently trying to get to the bottom of my mysterious foot injury after MRI results showed inflammation, which has kept me off the tennis court and out of dance class since early May. Absolutely crushing since if you know me, you know I am typically super active. This article about the recent increase in NBA tendon injuries caught my eye, which led me to this Oxford study connecting Covid and tendon injuries. I’m obviously not a medical professional, but tend to be the canary in the coal mine with this sensitive bod. We have mass-scale long Covid and people don’t realize it or don’t want to hear it. (A reminder that “long Covid” does not just mean lung issues and lethargy, it’s commonly defined as any new, persistent chronic health condition after a Covid infection.)

AND FINALLY:

Some indoor stuff to keep you busy during the down weeks before Jan 5.

Something Else Entirely: The Illustration Art of Edward Gorey at The Society of Illustrators

Utopia: Three Centuries of Sexuality in American Cults and Communes at the Museum of Sex

John Kacere at Salon 94 (only open until Saturday, December 20)

Walter De Maria’s Earth Room and Broken Kilometer really hit different with real estate prices being what they are now, much more so than when I saw them while living in a rent stabilized apartment. Kind of wild how seeing the same work over decades can hit so differently each time.

Galerie Sardine has a gorgeous pop-up space in the East Village, showing Justin Bradshaw paintings and ceramics from Maria Robledo. Once you’re on East 10th St, go to the Russian Turkish baths for a shvitz, get the miso tahini ramen at Souen, and a treat at East Village Organics. An ideal afternoon.

Helene Schjerfbeck paintings at the Met

Calder Circus at the Whitney

Nicole Eisenman at 52 Walker

A few quick gift ideas: Custom monogrammed shirt from Chava Studios (women’s cotton-cashmere, men’s striped Italian cotton) Haptic Lab quilted stocking, Bernie Sanders Rage Against the Machine tee (lost mine in my move), chic salad tongs, Jungian dream interpretation, Peter Shire splatter mug. More ideas here.

IRL gift ideas: embroidery kit from a craft store, nice notebook and pen from an indie book shop, massage gift certificate, a seed catalog and new gloves from the garden supply store, and if anyone looking for a gift for me reads this, I am dying for some Blue Lotus (or other unsweetened, authentic) chai powder. I haven’t been able to find it since I left LA.

P.S. How to survive winter.

I’m inviting you, my inner circle of paid readers, to join me later this month at the

Read more

I do think this vintage Bennington Potters set is a perfect gift.

If you must gift a kid or baby, books from your local indie are great. For something a bit more special that will achieve hand-me-down status, I like baby quilts or other embroidered crafts from the ever-creative Haptic Lab. Their map quilts and constellation throws are all pretty special.

Why even try to be better at gifting than Kiosk? The quirky import shop, formerly upstairs on Spring Street in SoHo is online only now for a decade, save for when they did a popup at Union Square, but retains its charm and whimsy. They have real integrity and creativity and I love them. Theirs is one of the few shop newsletters I always open and read (the others being, of course, Blockshop, Chava Studio, and Everyday Oil).

A great gift to yourself or your favorite stressed out person (all of us?) is a mindfulness course at UMass, where the original MBSR (mindfulness based stress reduction) curriculum was designed in 1979 by Jon Kabat-Zinn to help patients deal with chronic illness, pain, and to reduce stress causing health complications. I took an 8-week MBCT course this summer in the midst of personal upheaval and it was live-saving and grounding. Highly recommend. Once you’ve done a program, they offer weekly drop-in meditations and you’re welcome back to their day-long retreat any time. During ours in July, an alum from 20 years ago joined!

And here’s my evergreen gift list (holiday, birthday, hostess, etc) in case you’re looking for other inspiration.

Listening: Rick Rubin, Liz Feldman, and Elizabeth Gilbert talking about the consciousness of ideas was a great listen while driving through tiny flakes of snow in Connecticut this weekend.

Reading: Nature as medicine.

Deep dive of the week: the Sharawadji effect. At this sonic lecture/performance about the geography of sound, one of the musicians brought up the concept of the Sharawadji effect. First coined in landscaping and gardening to describe an organic design that although not symmetrical retains a sense of beauty, it was then adopted by musicians to describe a multilayered, complex composition that is somehow perfect and beautiful but without being able to describe how — “a sensation of plenitude.” This, of course, reminded me of the 40 Part Motet by Janet Cardiff which I first heard at the Cloisters over ten years ago. I’ve seen it at least once since then but cannot remember where. It transports you to another place. Please share your sonic moments of awe, I’m always looking for more.

A parting thought via a hot take from a very astute friend: people are terrible at small talk because nobody has hobbies anymore. I think she’s onto something. Everyone is just doom scrolling and reading the same three articles and reposting the same reels. Call me if you want to go to a ceramics class or make a collage.

Also nearby: the sublime Joan Mitchell Mediterranean paintings at Zwirner. You’ll walk by Steven Alan which is small but well merchandized (vintage jewelry and watches, cozy hats, and of course the reverse seam shirts, etc.) Milton Avery figure paintings at Karma (looking forward to seeing the Avery/Gottlieb/Rothko show inspired by their summers together in Gloucester at Phillips next year).

Further downtown, Mendes Wood DM has Japanese painter Hiroshi Sugito.

Casssavetes/Rowlands masterpiece A Woman Under the Influence is playing as part of the American Woman: Reframing 70s Cinema series at Museum of the Moving Image.

Pioneer Works’ Scientific Controversies series is always excellent and mind-blowing on many levels (I saw several Nobel laureates debating the existence of black holes with Ray and Charles Eames’ Power of Ten playing behind them). This Sunday, the topic is the possibility of AI consciousness in Deep Thoughts of Artificial Minds. The conversations are high-level yet accessible when I’ve gone, if that makes sense. Janna Lavin is an expert moderator, a skill that not all brilliant people possess! Free with RSVP, seating first come first served.

Reading:

On Meaning

Colored Television

The Trickster

Looking ahead:

Helen Frankenthaler at MoMA opens on the 18th! Have been waiting for this for months.

Vermont’s radical puppet Bread & Puppet Theater is going on tour in December to NYC, Troy, and Boston. Absolutely magical for kids, I need to go see how it plays in the now. They have two shows now: a circus and their retelling of the Christmas story. Related: their wood-block calendars, vintage posters, and kid’s books all make great gifts. The ever-creative Kiosk still stocks the calendars, also a fun resource for gifty type things for yourself or whomever.

If you’ll be anywhere near Cape Cod on December 7, go to the Yarmouth Port Christmas Stroll at the Edward Gorey House for “trolley rides, petting zoo, and various festive diversions.”

One more thing: Issey Miyake x Apple.

Watching the new Kelly Reichardt heist film, The Mastermind, slowed down my brain and dropped me into another place. Mesmerizing but effective slow cinema.

I rewatched Punch Drunk Love for the first time since seeing it in the theater. The colors! Yes, I will see One Battle after Another but not until I see the new Yorgos Lanthimos and I suppose the new Springsteen biopic (why Nebraska though??).

One of the best applications of the podcast medium, Song Exploder, kind of blew my mind this week by interviewing both Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham (not in the same room at the same time, though according to Stevie they are speaking again). Their all-but-lost Buckingham Nicks album from 1973 was rereleased last month, so is finally available to stream. Sound City was able to track down the original master tape for the song Frozen Love, the track that prompted Mick Fleetwood to invite Lindsey to join Fleetwood Mac. The episode digging into how they made the song, and listening to the album, transported me. Recommend both.

This song gave me chills the first time I heard it, and I have not stopped listening all week. A Rosalía/Bjork collab was just what I needed to really feel something this week. Can’t wait for the full album to drop - Rosalía has the energy we need now. And the video is art:“I feel this needs to replace whatever was stolen from that museum in France,” says the top YT comment.

I’m reading Vita Sackville West’s All Passion Spent (1931) for Kaitlin Phillips’ book club. It’s a nice change of pace from contemporary literary fiction read, disgustingly, on the kindle app on my phone. Vowing to go back to reading in print only. I even bought the November Harper’s so I could read Joy Williams on Gene Hackman and that g**ning longread.

Looking ahead: MoMA is playing Sofia Coppola films through November 16. They’re screening Marie Antionette and Virgin Suicides this weekend. Joan Mitchell’s Mediterranean series (1960-65) opens at Zwirner on Thursday. In LA, Mezzanine is showing the German New Wave film Red Sun (1970) with a talk by Stephanie LaCava on Wednesday.

Off-topic, or very on topic…this week, in the wake of news about impending withholding of SNAP benefits as a cruel political tactic, I learned that SNAP theft and hacking are quite common. As of December 2024, there is no legal recourse locally or federally for these thefts. While a federal judge today ordered SNAP benefits must be paid out during the shutdown, who knows what will happen. A reminder that 1 in 8 Americans uses SNAP benefits. One third of those people have jobs (typically wage jobs with companies like Walmart and McDonalds that keep workers below the poverty level. Please read Nickel and Dimed if you’re not familiar with the discrepancies of workers and corporate gains in our country). Even if you don’t realize it, these are your neighbors and friends and those who make your community run. If you are in a position to help, I have a few suggested actions for you:

• donate to your local food pantry or community fridge

• post in a buy nothing group offering to grocery shop for someone for a week/month/whatever you can afford

• look in a mutual aid group and send funds to someone

Many of these groups exist on FB, Nextdoor, and you can also find links and local resources on Reddit. Message me if you want to help but aren’t sure how.

I loved this carousel of cinematic wallpaper from Blockshop (including some of my favorite films). Their weekly newsletter is one of the best around.

Clinton Hill’s own Betty Gilpin wrote a letter to Tilly Norwood.

My acupuncturist Paul is taking new patients. He came to me via Cristiana so you know he’s good. He looks like Jude Law, has a twisted sense of humor, and is an excellent practitioner. He books in Soho or will do house calls. Text him to schedule and tell him I sent you. 917-657-7246

If you too cannot get enough of the Louvre jewel heist, might I suggest this docuseries on the Isabella Stewart Gardner robbery? The FBI still has no clue what happened. I recommend visiting the museum the next time you’re in Boston, it’s beautiful any time of year. The courtyard florals are refreshed every few weeks (this is probably chrysanthemum season), and you’ll see blank spaces where the stolen artworks previously hung. It was stipulated by Isabella that nothing be changed in the display of her art…similar to the Barnes Foundation in Philadelphia.

Eckhaus Latta is 20% off this weekend with the code ONLYFANS20. Credo (clean beauty) is 20% off through Sunday at 11:59pm.

I anticipate we’ll be seeing wool head kerchiefs everywhere within a few weeks based on this, this, and this.

It’s cold season and who has time to be sick…I swear by these salty packets of vitamin C and this spray plus Wellness Formula daily (tablets not capsules!) to keep up immunity.

Due to the government shutdown and other cruelty, SNAP benefits are suspended for November. Please donate to your local food pantry or community fridge if you can.

I found this framing from the real estate section so off the mark, I won’t even link it:

An architecture-adjacent friend told me years ago about running into Diane Keaton in the elevator on the way to the LA Conservancy, where she was a board member. Her legacy as a preservationist and activist for historic properties remains, despite this faulty header from the Times. Read this, this, and this instead. I’ve heard that she toured my old building, Manola Court, when it was previously on the market. Too bad she didn’t buy it, not because I imagine her to be a benevolent landlord, but because it has since undergone some controversial renovations under the current owner (not the architectural scandal but offensive to me: he tore out original tubs and put in stall showers! My unit had the original tub, luckily.).

Diane Keaton-related: when sick in bed last weekend, I had a bit of a DK marathon. Baby Boom is set 30 minutes from my Vermont hometown, so a cozy rewatch for me. Excellent performance, but truly damaging fantasy plot for this country gal in the city.

Per Rebecca Bengal (buy her book!), I watched the Southern Gothic tale Crimes of the Heart. Dark, but with a young Sam Shepard.

First Wives Club - funny, clever, iconic. Maggie Smith and SJP have memorable appearances.

I tried to watch Interiors (BEAUTIFUL) but only lasted about 30 minutes. Insufferable.

Book Club - a movie to watch on a plane, silly premise: a decades-long book club reads 50 Shades of Gray

Next up: Reds, Hanging Up, Looking for Mr. Goodbar, and my annual holiday rewatch of The Family Stone.

Gossamer alerted me to a mellow new Pure Beauty collab, with The Cactus Shop’s nonprofit Nonhuman Teachers (an aside - a couple winters ago they held a bookclub in their design studio and secret cactus cache. We read excerpts from Critical Zones, highly recommend.) The new babies are CBD-forward plus rose, calendula, and mugwort, among other soothing herbs.

This is not where to come for fashion month news but I did love to see Maggie Rizer showing us what a woman in her 40s actually looks like. She was apparently a realtor for a while and is now back to modeling, proving the late 90s are truly back.

The sun is shining again, thank goodness, but it’s gotten CHILLY. I’ve already made one batch of my favorite braised chicken and vegetable soup*. My wool coats are somewhere in storage, so I’m on the hunt for a perfect sweater. Can’t stop thinking about this pullover but not sure I can do beige.

Weekend highlights:

Agnes Denes: The Future is Fragile opens Saturday at the MAK Center in LA.

Beloved yoga teacher and masterful bodyworker Kumi Sawyers has opened her own space for treatments in Echo Park! Email her to book and tell her I say hi.

OHNY is here.

Great Community Bakesale is Saturday in NYC. Get your vouchers in advance! Proceeds go to four great local causes!

The new Kelly Reichardt film The Mastermind (Josh O’Connor, art heist) is still playing at NYFF.

If you happen to be at Woodstock Film Festival, please report back on the new Yorgos Lanthimos.

The Ruth Asawa retrospective is in member previews and opens Sunday at MoMA. As Indira reminded me, this is the same show that was at SFMOMA earlier this year. A nice follow on to the Whitney drawing show last year. See more on Ruth Asawa’s work and story at the Black Mountain College site.

*Soup “recipe” for those interested, adapted from a cozy dinner by over 10 years ago. It’s more like a framework. Use what you have or what you like.

Use a dutch oven or otherwise sturdy pot with a good lid. Heat a few T olive oil, sear pieces of bone-in chicken (I prefer thighs with skin) five minutes each side. Remove with tongs and set aside.

Sautee onion until translucent and they stick to the pan a bit (this time I also threw in slices of the green stems of a fennel bulb and lots of fresh thyme sprigs)

Deglaze the pan with 1/2c dry french red wine (ideally you have been sipping while chopping)

Let that go for a few minutes and then add back chicken and chopped root vegetables. I like a mix of white sweet potato, carrot, turnip, parsnips, and this time I added fennel as well.

Cover with broth of your choice and a bit of water and let simmer for 45 minutes or so until veggies are soft. Reheats well, just add more liquid. Highly comforting, the kind of thing to put on the stove when a storm is coming.

That’s all for now. Have a lovely weekend!

Here are a few quick things that have come across my desk this week:

I’m absolutely charmed by this petite houseboat for sale in Sausalito ($700k). Having spent two weeks living on a sailboat in a windstorm earlier this year (rocky but cozy), and with everything…as it is right now…I get the appeal of a compact floating domicile. Stewart Brand, of Whole Earth Catalog fame, is also selling his houseboat: a 64-foot tugboat docked next door, where he and his wife have lived for 43 years. I’m into the floating bed and raspberry-colored soaking tub.

More from the west coast:

Dearly departed bag designer Building Block is back after shutting down two years ago, now called Building Block Etc. Beyond their sculptural bags, they’re sourcing other design objets: stainless steel bottle openers, low-profile candlesticks. Building Block Etc. joins Marta (now showing Doug McCullough) and Mister Green (low-key best men’s shopping on the east side) in the Silverlake complex in front of Plant Material. Stop by their launch party this Friday, 10/10 from 5-8pm and tell them I sent you.

Back on the east coast…

Natasha Pickowicz’s Great Community Bake Sale returns next weekend, October 18, in partnership with Care of Chan and Project Gather. Proceeds go to One Love Community Fridge and other local orgs.

Might I recommend you stop by Rhodora wine bar in Fort Greene after the bake sale for what should be a solid group closet sale? @ShopFeelsGood and my thrifting pal Monica K. from Sight Unseen will be there with racks. I’ve seen Monica’s shopping scores so I trust this will be good. Saturday, 10/18, 9am-1pm at 197 Adelphi Street.

Will I see you at the Triple Canopy Symposium or at MoMA for the Chantal Akerman screenings this weekend? I’m overcome with the riches of fall cultural happenings in NYC after so long in Los Angeles. Please send any recs my way if there’s something I shouldn’t miss!

That’s all for now,

Chrysanthe

Renee & Chaim Gross Foundation: A warehouse in the Village converted into a live/work space in the 60s with an incredible skylight, enviable real estate.

Alice Austen House on Staten Island: Rent a Polaroid to snap a pic with one of NYC’s “Great Trees” and tour the Queer Ecologies Project Garden.

Exodus and Dance at Kingsborough Houses: See the frieze by Richmond Barthe and get more context into the Harlem Renaissance sculptor and WPA public art.

New York Marble Cemetery: If you miss the OHNY tour, they’re open with limited hours once a month spring through fall.

Horological Society of New York: Wearing a watch is v. cool, looking at old ones even cooler.

Hindu Temple Society of North America: A weekend of festivities for Diwali, including Indian dance.

My one regret - I missed the sign up window for the Rauschenberg Foundation tour with my travels last week. Let me know if you go!! Where else are you going during OHNY?

Ok that’s all for today. Thanks to everyone who signed up! You’re my day ones even though this is just an experimental space at this point and I love you for it.