15 things I consumed this week

Hey,

It’s my birthday! Was laughing again this morning while remembering one of Avi’s gifts to me last year: to get rid of 10 items of my choosing from his closet ❤️ Beautiful, heartfelt gift…boyfriends/husbands of Maybe Baby, feel free to steal.

• Sunday’s essay, “The Trick of Revealed Values,” explored the idea that some of our values exist below our awareness, only to be discovered through self-observation.

• Wednesday’s podcast was an episode of Dear Danny, featuring many canonical DD topics such as where to live, roommate drama, alcoholism, poop, and bad bfs.

• Below, lots of good reading/listening, a genuinely transcendent pancake recipe, my latest investment purchase, and more. The rec of the week is best day trips outside of NYC.

• This Sunday I’ll be observing MB summer hours—no essay! Will catch you on Weds.

1. “Why We Like Things,” by Celine Nguyen for Asterisk Mag. I love how seriously she takes taste in this essay (employing Hannah Arendt!). Made me want to revel in/expand/challenge/explore my own taste(s).

2. “Joy is the fruit of well-lived grief” (and other sentiments I found moving), care of a 70-year-old farmer standing sweatily in a field. This one’s all in the delivery.

3. This podcast on the Jungian concept of “coniunctio,” which I’d never heard of. Addicted to this episode…gave me so much to think about. Might think about it forever.

4. “A Dying Art,” by John Semley for Harpers, a wonderful piece on the slow disappearance of “restorative art” (aka making dead people look nice for open casket funerals). Thrilling the whole way through.

5. One hundred variations of a “toddler reading chair,” a market that is surprisingly saturated and thus impossible to navigate. Became obsessed with this sold-out Zara Home one for like 10 minutes before I saw it on a resale site and it looked like this. Always humbling when that happens.