hot girl summer
Stupid bikini pics! And a dose of short films, articles and my new favorite author
I’m in love with the idea that I might meet other people where they are, through an expression of words/film/music/dog pics/you get the gist. But on this particular Saturday, the idea of living perpetually through social media until maybe death scared me to pieces. What’s happening to my brain?
Maybe I’ll miss seeing what other people are up to and go back on or something but I’m tired of living like a digital cyborg. The world is returning to tangible as we used to know and I like the sudden discomfort of change and enduring something to adapt to. As embarrassing as it is to admit that enduring a loss of social media is in fact, a loss— what more in fact, ya gain when ya do lose— so uh, farewell to fingers scrolling for now.
Short films
a. This is John
Sorry I missed your call. For anyone who struggles with hearing the sound of your own voice— here’a a film made for $3 that launched Jay & Mark Duplass careers. This recording of a voicemail recording made it into the very not-meta Sundance. Bravo!
Oh my. An NYU student made this! A black-and-white dystopian short about a young couple, trapped in separation by a deadly and mysterious plague. The cinematography is breathtaking and I was confused and enthralled for all of it.
The husband and wife use humanoid drones to spread the ashes of their child in a meaningful place before their own worsening illnesses consume them alive. The grief of their baby and their physicality is more like a slow drip of sadness than any big devastating moment— the creeping passage of isolation (was?) an unfortunate relatable phenomenon for most of us. Neither the husband or wife can leave their beds so they use human-body shaped drones with iPad-like faces to enter ze dangerous world. Cough cough.
“…pulsing with fireflies and on the screen she sees a hand come to catch one and when it does, she gasps, just like I did. As if she can feel it.”
Articles
c. The Long Night of the Soul, Jonathan Tjarks
d. Julie Platner: “Third Alternate Executor”
Perfect interview. For anyone interested in storytelling ethics, this Q&A touches on the struggles of journalists vs. documentarians. Platner documents her Uncle Kenny in his mobile home—all his eccentricities—and explores the gentle, slow unraveling of a close familial subject. Are you hurting their feelings?
“…That I would put something in there or look at him in a way that he doesn’t want to be looked at, or he doesn’t want to show other people. I’m holding up a mirror to him for other people and for him. It matters what he sees in that reflection.”
**If you like Bojack Horseman, think of the scene with him and Diane. Remember when Bojack admits his biography “One Trick Pony” made him upset, even though she only dished out consensual truth?**
Wanna know what happened here? Bumping this article.
f. We Need to Stop Telling Runners “You Look Fit,” Kate Raphael
Fit is British slang for looking hot, I get that—it’s also Runner slang for looking thin—and I get that too. How about we replace hot and skinny compliments to let people know how they make you feel or some strength you notice about ‘em?
“…runners can be "highly resistant to advice that feels general," describing a common mentality among competitive runners: "I can only listen to someone that really knows me and my sport at my level and what it takes."
So, while the advice to “stop telling runners they look fit” is general advice, take it and listen.
g. Question Mark, Jenny Zhang
*disclaimer you gotta be a n+1 subscriber, but Zhang’s first 500 words of fiction reel you in to issues of emotional labor. How do you commodify human connection when you’re really good at it?
Books
Hardly any plot here. Lahiri writes simply and succinctly to dive into an impersonal narrator’s mind. Lahiri gives space for the reader to feel clever and creative and make their own interpretations. Beautiful and stoic.
The novel was originally published in 2018 in Italian. She low key translated this by hand from Italian to English. Born to Indian parents in London and raised in Rhode Island, she’s basically my new literary hero.
h. Interpreter of Maladies, Jhumpa Lahiri
For anyone who’s felt like a foreigner. Earlier Pulitzer Prize award winning work by her that’s wonderful. When Mr. Pirzada Came to Dine and Sexy are maybe my favorite. Nine short stories about the lives of Indians and Indian Americans caught between their roots and the “New World.”
Cheers friends, that’s all for now!
Sheridan