Excuse the hiatus; I have barely been a person lately. Thank you to the many1 Torontonians last weekend who asked me about this newsletter. You shamed me into coming back, congratulations 💋
Watching
If you live according to the weather forecast in Montreal (see above), tonight was the last night of summer. If you are me, this is worthy of celebration, because this summer has been the longest and also the worst. Everything has felt sludgy and sticky and sickly lately so tonight I cancelled my plans and stayed home and watched A BIGGER SPLASH. If it’s still summer where you are: watch A BIGGER SPLASH! It’s the movie equivalent of chain-smoking on a terrace in too-hot mid-September, of green Jell-o laced with Chartreuse2, of hate-scrolling through other people’s summer vacations on Instagram—it’s the perfect alchemy of of desire and dread. Dakota Johnson and Mattias Schoenaerts are obscenely sexy. Tilda Swinton is in peak goddess form.3 It is the best (and slimiest) Ralph Fiennes has ever been—he is incredible at being despicable.
Also, the soundtrack absolutely rips.
It would be a good double-feature with ROTTING IN THE SUN4, and not just because of all the penises. Both movies have a deep, twisted darkness at the centre of them, underneath all that oppressive sunshine, that feels just right for right now.
Reading
Naomi Klein’s latest book Doppelganger, which simultaneous makes me feel calmer and more furious about the world’s many deep, twisted darknesses. It got me out of a terrible reading slump, which was only otherwise briefly cured this summer with books like Hua Hsu’s Stay True, Shirley Hazzard’s The Transit of Venus (finally!) and the first half of All-Night Pharmacy by Ruth Madievsky. And not to be earnest on main, but Ann Patchett’s Tom Lake found me exactly when I needed it most—I think it’s a perfect novel.
Drinking
Someone told me that the old-fashioned I made them was better than any they’ve had in a bar, and I almost cried! Lambrusco. Matcha lattes made with the mix from Muji. The random Playboy-branded vodka seltzers that Alex got through work.
Listening to
The aforementioned A BIGGER SPLASH soundtrack. Beck, specifically E-Pro, no idea why. And Stop Making Sense, the live Talking Heads album, because I went to see the documentary in IMAX and it was genuinely one of the best nights of my life. Go see STOP MAKING SENSE on the biggest screen possible! Take a very mild dose of something! You won’t regret it!
Speaking of the Big Suit:
Four
I made this for Alex’s birthday party and it was awesome.
I love how David Ehrlich puts it: “she does more with silence than most actors could with Shakespeare.”
A subscription to Mubi is worth it.
MUBI fuckin rules. are you worried it's gonna fall off now that they're not doing a new movie each day?