First Word #13
Rooftop meat, the guy who will live forever, the sun rises and, believe it or not, the sun sets.
It’s 9:30 am, and I am doing calisthenics on the lower level of the Javits Center.
Vampire Weekend // Maya Vinokour // The Nation
A cryptic message greeted me as I walked into RH (formerly Restoration Hardware) in the Meatpacking District: “We respect the hierarchy between architecture, furniture, and décor that creates harmony.”
Amuse Couch // Hayley J. Clark // NYRA
In an iconic episode of Girls, “One Man’s Trash,” Hannah spontaneously spends a weekend with a hot, respectful doctor in his expensive brownstone. After a couple of sublime days in his house she suffers a moment of shameful envy. “Please don’t tell anyone this,” she says, in tears, “but I want to be happy.”
Sandor Speck’s first art gallery in Paris was on the Right Bank near the Church of St. Elisabeth, on a street too narrow for cars.
Speck’s Idea // Mavis Gallant // The New Yorker
From Francess. A wonderful type of long read they don’t really make anymore. I love when a story begins by putting me on the road.
On my final night in Lebanon, I attend a party thrown in my honor at a big house in the mountains.
By the time guests trickle onto the rooftop patio, the lamb has been roasting for five hours and the sun is low over the Mediterranean, painting a crimson band above the darkening sea.
Last Summer In Lebanon // Albert Samaha // Switchboard Magazine
When Sam, a third-grade teacher in the greater Boston area, walked into her classroom January 30, about a third of her students were absent. “The sun was beating down so hard and it was reflecting off the desks in the room, and the desks were empty,” Sam remembers.
“Half My Students Were Gone”: How Trump’s Immigration Agenda Is Disrupting Education // Sophie Hurwitz & Isabela Dias // Mother Jones
Over the course of 2024, Aella cried on 71 different days, showered on 24, and took ketamine on 14.
Aella, the Internet’s Favorite Sex Researcher // Helen Lewis // The Atlantic
If you don’t know who she is you are lucky… but this piece is an alright introduction.
Whenever I put these together, themes obviously jump right out at me. This week the sun — harmony, happiness, satisfaction. In others, creatures or speck of matter moving through air. I’m tempted at like 20 newsletters to run some kind of analysis of the themes collected in the first sentences I enjoy. I’ve been really deep in algorithm research both my night classes and at work, I think this is mostly the type of thing that AI is actually pretty bad at (yay!). Often people will use AI to do sentiment analysis, which it utterly fails at: it’s bad at detecting sarcasm and the nuance of language. But it can be quite good at finding patterns which could allow me to interpret further. Would you be interested in something like this? Or should we keep computers out of prose?
This week catch me at…
Tuesday Books Are Magic for Sophie Lewis in conversation with Grace Byron about “Enemy Feminisms”
Wednesday pilates class (lawful neutral) and maybe in the office (chaotic neutral). There’s also this film showing at Woodbine about Filipino revolutionaries…
Thursday holed up in my house talking to sources about milk. There’s a good BCC comedy show (if I was out of class in time, this looks really fun!). Otherwise catching up on Severance. (When is the Marxist piece about this show dropping!)
Friday Dan English is good music at Cassette.
Saturday riding my new bike and getting into character for a murder mystery.
Sunday seed exchange! And the last hurrah for the dirtbag left at a new venue Nightclub 101 for Zohran.
It’s almost Mardi Gras / next Tuesday will also be Pączki Day. More of a Chicago holiday but go get the lovely polish donut in Ridgewood or Greenpoint or something!
Pączki Day 2023
As always please send me your fav first sentences of week and you’ll get a mention in the newsletter (if you desire).
-PG