First Word #16
Should we let the girlies live?
On January 20th, the day of Donald Trump's second presidential inauguration, I fell in the yard. It all happened, as the cliché goes, so fast. The dog had to piss.
Tbh Kate’s writing in this essay about brain damage is so powerful that when I felt down in the streets of Barcelona last week and felt mildly concussed I spun out thinking about this essay. Congrats, Kate!
I’m meeting someone at a bar and she says she’s the one in the booth reading Anna Karenina. Indie-lit darling Shy Watson is tackling Infinite Jest for the first time, as is my boyfriend. For her book club, Dua Lipa posed with the blue-and-white Fitzcarraldo edition of Olga Tokarczuk’s Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead. Welcome to the renaissance of the Serious Book.
Marketing difficulty: The fantasy of the serious novel // Greta Rainbow // Dirt
Similarly Greta’s writing is so powerful here that the internet is having a fight about whether its kosher for girls to take pinterest-esqe photos of what they are reading splayed across their coquette bedspreads. To me, that shit makes life worth living AND powers the economy.
There is little the internet loves more than lumping young people into neat little boxes with a natty little label.
The hairdressers keeping their profession alive // Jade Wickes // The Face
I’ve always thought that if I can’t be an editor I would want to be a hairdresser — this essay and the wonderful photos that accompany it brought me into that reality. Also begs the question, are haircuts recession proof?
When we first started visited the Siebert & Rice factory, we found one of these spheres tucked away in a far off corner and knew we had to have it.
Advertisement for Hand Thrown Frost Proof Italian Terra Cotta Spheres
Maybe I’m still jet-lagged but these spheres made me laugh for like 3 mins.
Alison Roman’s Sweet Enough is such a stupid book. I say it with love. I say it as someone who happily went out and purchased a signed copy.
“Even the dead will not be safe from the enemy if he wins,” wrote Walter Benjamin, the German-Jewish philosopher, deep in the winter of 1939 as the Nazis advanced towards him in Paris.
The last days of Walter Benjamin // Dan Hancox // FT Magazine
Consider, for a moment, that this AI-generated video of a bizarre creature turning into a spider, turning into a nightmare giraffe inside of a busy mall has been viewed 362 million times.
AI Slop Is a Brute Force Attack on the Algorithms That Control Reality // Jason Koebler // 404 Media
In many ways, Vivian Jenna Wilson is a lot like any other 20-year-old girl. The Los Angeles native spends hours a day on Discord with her friends; loves reading, RuPaul’s Drag Race, and Chappell Roan; and she runs late — two full hours late, to be specific, for our scheduled Zoom meeting.
Vivian Jenna Wilson on Being Elon Musk’s Estranged Daughter, Protecting Trans Youth and Taking on the Right Online // Ella Yurman // Teen Vogue
I first heard Tavi Gevinson’s name at a breakfast I attended on the Upper West Side in 2010. A group of mothers were talking about her, seemingly with some envy. I was confused; UWS moms aren’t supposed to be jealous of 14-year-old girls.
I Finally Befriended My Idol Tavi Gevinson. Would It Fall Apart Over Taylor Swift? // Annie Hamilton // GQ
Bonus reads : What’s the Matter with Abundance? and Every Watch on The White Lotus Has a Hidden Significance
** 🎀 𝓉𝒽𝑒 𝓁𝑜𝓃𝑔 𝓌𝑒𝑒𝓀𝑒𝓃𝒹 𝒶𝒽𝑒𝒶𝒹 🎀 **
Thursday
Do an equinox tradition of your own making.
On the Rag launch party 8pm (Ace Hotel)
Paradise Logic launch party 8pm (Funny Bar)
which way Western man… (these seem like they would be same crowd lol)
Friday
Sit alone and read at a restaurant … I’m reading “Berlin Atomized” and “Good Girl”
Saturday
Sketch Comedy showcase “We Need a Win” 7pm (BCC)
Sunday
Honey Drop Its Sketch Show 7pm (Under St. Marks)
Brooklyn Book Club begins reading “Dead Cities” by Mike Davis 7pm (Singer’s Bar)