Bonjour! If you don’t follow me on Instagram, then you may not know I just got back from London and Paris. If you do follow me, then I hope you enjoyed the most pictures you’ve ever seen someone share of the Eiffel Tower.
* At the bottom of this post I have a question about what, if any, London and Paris stuff to write about, so keep your eyes peeled for Comment Corner.
Just to situate ourselves in time and space, I got back from Europe on a Tuesday night. Woke up Wednesday and it was my birthday. I am a 50 year old woman now, which feels both insane and correct. Thursday I went back to work and felt off. Woke up sick on Friday. Went to the doctor and tested positive for the flu. Was sick for a week and now here we are.
🐎 Everyone at Parnassus had the opportunity to staff rec Whistler. Here’s what I wrote:
“Every time Ann writes a book, I think, This is the one. This is the masterpiece. Then she goes away for two years and writes the best thing I’ve ever read. Ann’s gift is how well she writes families, and Whistler is no different. You’re going to get a different family than you’re used to, but you’re going to get a close up look at two people who love each other very much, and it is going to break your heart wide open.”
Role Model by Rachel Reid
This was really cute. I loved the ending and how much Ilya was in the book. Reid made Harris kind of a doofus in the beginning and it made he and Troy unbelievable at first, but once they started hooking up, I bought in. I just think in her trying to make Harris a sweet guy, she accidentally made him goofy.
Famesick by Lena Dunham
One of the gifts of being Gen X is that I’m ambivalent on Lena Dunham. Neither she nor Girls had an impact on my life. But I’ve always been fascinated with the reaction to her, especially in more recent years as her body has changed. This is a good celebrity memoir. It’s well written, shares secrets and names names. But it’s mostly about being incredibly sick in a health care system that wasn’t designed for women. This is a great audiobook. Lena reads it.
P.S. If you haven’t already, make sure and read Emma Copley Eisenberg’s essay “What happened to her?” about people’s reaction to Lena’s body. 🤌🏼
Common Goal by Rachel Reid
I liked it! My minor complaint is that I wish the two love interests didn’t both have four letter first names. I was constantly forgetting which name was which character.
It’s always interesting to hear a celebrity I’ve interviewed be a guest on a popular podcast. This happened twice recently. First, John Waters was on Las Culturistas. I didn’t love how much he brought up how he can’t say the word “fat” anymore, but he’s 80 and an icon, so I’m going to ignore it for now. I got to interview John Waters for the Nashville Scene and the craziest thing was, his office phones were down, so his assistant gave me his personal cell phone number and said, “Just call him. He’s expecting you.” Very insane that I just called John Waters. You can read my interview with him here.
The second person is Margaret Cho, who I loooooove. She was on The Sam Sanders Show last week. It’s an incredible interview, especially the last half. Turns out, she’s been in rehab for the past two years, which explains something I’ve been wondering about. I interviewed her a few years ago because she was on tour, but right as my piece came out, she cancelled all of her shows. If I’m doing the time math correctly, it’s because that’s when her friends held an intervention and she went into treatment. You can read my interview with her here.
I’m watching the new season of RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars and Nashville queen, Aura Mayari is on this season. I really like Aura. I interviewed her for the Nashville Scene’s Pride issue in 2023 and we ended up putting her on the cover, so I got to meet her at the photoshoot. She is such a sweet and sincere person. I hope she makes it to the end this season. You can read my interview (and see the photos) here.
My friend and Burnt Toast co-worker Corinne Fay wrote an essay called “GLP-1s Are Not the Enemy.” It’s a piece that adds nuance and a much needed reset to the GLP-1 conversation. They worked really hard on it and I hope you’ll read it.
The companion piece to Corinne’s essay is this week’s episode of Burnt Toast. Virginia and Corinne break all of this down and again, it’s a new expansion of the GLP-1 conversation that I haven’t seen happening anywhere else. It’s Episode 248 “What We’re Getting Wrong About Ozempic.” You can listen to it on Apple, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Niko Stratis wrote a great piece on AI for her newsletter Anxiety Shark. The piece is called “Any hammer you can hold,” and it’s about a hammer, which is a tool, and AI, which is not. She writes:
“A tool never does the work for you, as a tool is incapable of doing anything unless the hand on its grip can make it happen. A hammer will never build you a home, even if it has done so before. It will betray you if you try to let it do the work for you. There are those that call AI a tool because they want to pretend that there is labour in what they have claimed, that they can wave at the results spat out at them from the ravenous beasts hidden behind innocuous app icons on their control docks. Their justifications of it only doing what they ask it to do, as if there is choice in the matter, ring hollow. If it were a tool, this would be true, but AI is an erratic and changing thing. Mercurial and always feeding. It is growing, and changing, and absorbing with each new keystroke. Feeding off our waterways and our towns just so it can deposit books that no one will read, and music that will never sing.”
Michael Schulman’s morning after piece for The New Yorker about the series finale of Hacks is so good. One of my favorite things is reading someone who loves what they’re writing about.
What did TikTok diagnose me with this week? OCD.
How many live lizards did my cat drop at my feet while I was recording a podcast? One.
Did I send John a text that said, “Found the tail!”? Yes.
Am I still watching The Wire? Yes.
Have I seen the snakes since I got back from Europe? Yes.
I’m so sorry, but he did. Private Parts is playing in 35mm at the Belcourt on June 9, and I wrote about it for the Nashville Scene. You can read my Critic’s Pick here.
I’m debating whether or not to write a newsletter about my vacation. Maybe where I went, what I saw, did I pack correctly (no), did I see the King of England (yes) and then some general notes on what people were wearing. Would that be interesting to you? Sound off in the comments.
ICYMI: I wrote about taurus season and some thoughts about turning 50.
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Note: All of the books I reference can be found in my bookshop.org storefront. Many of my posts contain affiliate links to Bookshop.org and Libro.fm. If you make a purchase through these links, I earn a small commission at no additional cost to you.
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