Weekly updates are usually for paid subscribers only and they don’t typically include an “updates” section, but I am making an exception on both accounts this week 💋
Updates (Question…?):
Megalopolis will have a wide release on September 27, thanks to Lionsgate. Come August this will make me very insane, but right now I have more urgent fish to fry (seeing Bikeriders—what if I started saying I’m seeing The Bikeriders “for” “Jodie Comer” [funny lie]).
I am considering holding book clubs in the Famous and Beloved Newsletter that are distinctly strange and stupid. This summer, I would like to read one of those books that I associate with girls putting whipped cream on coffee they make at home: the ones with cartoon people on the covers which I understand to be protestant pornography thinly veiled as “enchanting and heartwarming tale[s] that will leave you longing for sandy shores.”1
Smoking is back:
Between packing my apartment pre-move and working all hours of the day and night on my many under-compensated tasks (🚨🚨🚨GRAD SCHOOL🚨🚨🚨), I had little free time this week to do anything but meditatively stare at reels of raccoons and then rewatch them because I wasn’t paying attention the first time. I did start Ferrante’s The Lying Life of Adults (yay) and finished Go, Went, Gone by Jenny Erpenbeck which took up a lot of my intellectual capacity, mostly, with regards to the latter, in the form of wondering why I was reading it. I have basically nothing else to say about GWG except, to whichever of my friends–don’t remember–recommended this to me at some point in the last 2 years which caused me to, I guess–don’t remember–buy Go, Went, Gone for $2.99 (there’s a sticker on the book): I read it! Germans have a lot going on in their minds and the machinations of European ideology, particularly from 2012-2015, never fails to entertain me.
I also went back on my commitment to long-form content this week and spent a lot of time with Alice Payne on TikTok, who goes to Disney World almost every day in, honest to god, the craziest makeup and outfits I have ever seen in my whole life. I say none of this with even a hint of derogation; as someone well-versed in the aesthetic developments of Disney influencers, I think she is doing something truly original and captivating and she has harrowing lore. I did NOT watch the Tonys, but I am well aware that they produced the funniest thing I have seen in 2-6 months:
Here are some other things that happened to me this week:
I tried Jeni’s “Hot Summer Spins”
The only “ice cream” I have ever been loyal to is Culver’s, which I think has better custard than many iconic places across the dessert’s homeland (Wisconsin), and I love deriding daily flavors like “Chocolate Volcano,” and “OREO Cookie Overload” in the same way I like to tell people that the Rainforest Cafe has a dessert called “Tribal Cheesecake” and the similarly aestheticized T-Rex Cafe has one called “Chocolate Extinction.”2
Generally, I love all gimmicks involving seasonal and limited-time flavors.3 In terms of ice cream chains centered around fonts, I especially like the monthly flavors at Salt & Straw because they are weird (June’s pints are beer-themed and last month the Limited Edition board included “Spinach Cake w/ Chocolate Tahini Fudge”), but Salt & Straw is only on the West Coast and in Disney World so I can only go 1-2 times a year.4 A while ago I got sad about that and decided I would “get into” Jeni’s because it is nearby and has a font. This hasn’t gone well, though, because the seasonal flavors at Jeni’s put me to sleep. Right now they include “Double Dough” which is, frankly, unacceptable (“Chocolate Volcano” vibes), and the only weirdness is coming from “Sparkling Cherry Pie,” i.e. “sour cherry and tingling Sichuan peppercorn ice creams with tart cherry jam and buttery shortbread crust.” The other flavors aren’t even worth expounding upon, but SCP tasted neither sour nor tingling, but, instead, like chunks of cardboard soaked in medicine. Ice creams need to have things like tomato leaves and corn in them, NOT little chunks of cookies. Likewise, “Spicy pie” is not a weird ice cream: it is a half-baked (ice cream pun) facsimile of weird ice cream that is stupid and makes me mad. Only 5 months until election pints, Jeni!5
I utilized Netflix’s 2x speed feature
When Netflix introduced the ability to toggle playback speeds, we were all justifiably offended by the state of media exhibition. That said, I love to play things fast when I am angry or they don’t matter: conditions that converged perfectly in my screening of Hit Man, which was already taking place on my 9th generation iPad because I have so little respect for anyone involved in Hit Man. I watched the first 20 minutes normally, but as it became more obvious that I have watched 5-10 Lifetime movies that are more conventionally assembled, logically paced, and sensuously casted, I started to flirt with the 2x button.6 It took me an entire 24 hours of pressing pause and play on my 9th generation iPad while I was bleaching my shower or making dinner before I put it on double speed to put us all (me, the movie, the iPad) out of our misery. I can’t decide if it was better or worse than just not finishing the movie, at all, but I think I’m going to try it again on Anyone But You.7
I ran a 5K with little to no bodily pain
In September 2022 I got COVID for the first time which coincided with the start of the school year (🚨🚨🚨GRAD SCHOOL🚨🚨🚨), and it all made me so lethargic I completely stopped running. For 3ish years prior I was running a 5k every other day, basically, unless I was busy or didn’t feel like it.8 The latter started happening more and more once COVID was “over,” though, because pre-Fauci Ouchies (this!!!) I was so addicted to running I gave myself new EDs I didn’t even know I could have on top of the other ones, and it did something bad to my hip and back. I would not describe what it did as an “injury” but as “something”: a nervy, annoying strain on the right side of my body that made it hard for me to finish the 5ks. When I stopped running it went away so I thought it would be healthy and European to start only walking as exercise, and it was, basically, but walking takes too long and I missed the structure that running gives my life.9
A few weeks ago, I woke up and impulsively went on a run. That lasted for maybe 2 blocks because my hip hurt very badly and my ankles (?) were so out of shape that I couldn’t stop laughing. It went on like this for a week and then I started running 5ks basically normally, only stopping sometimes to kind of stretch my hip out as not-25-year-olds do. I am slow and my shoes are uncomfortable, but at the time of publication I have easily completed a handful of 3 mile runs which bores me 50% of the time and makes me feel like God the other 50%. That is how I imagine Addison Rae felt recording “Nothing On (But the Radio)” / “It Could’ve Been U” and “I Got It Bad” / “2 Die 4” (featuring Charli XCX), respectively.
I followed a Joe Alwyn fan account
Watch this space.
This is an excerpt of a review by Medha B. of Beach Read by Emily Henry on Amazon: “Beach Read by Emily Henry is an enchanting and heartwarming tale that will leave you longing for sandy shores and a summer romance. In this delightful novel, January and Augustus find themselves as next-door neighbours [🇬🇧], both struggling with writer’s block and personal demons…Beach Read is not your typical fluffy romance; it tackles deeper themes of grief, forgiveness, and the complexities of love.” I want British AI to talk about me like this, e.g. “Clare is a normal and annoying adult who will leave you listening to Midnights and analysing Adam Driver’s birth chart.”
Once I start, it is hard for me to stop saying names of food at the Rainforest and T-Rex cafes. “Awesome Appetizer Adventure,” “Rainforest Quesadillas,” “Pastalaya”: “Supersaurus Sampler (For Four),” “Colosso Beef Nachos (For Two),” “Jurassic Salad,” “Paleozoic Chicken Sandwich,” “Abrictosaurus Apple Crisp.”
I tried the Van Leeuwen special flavor “Chocolatey Crisp Cereal & Milk” last night and it tasted like… vanilla ice cream! I will try the La Colombe cereal milk latte this week and will let you know if it’s more or less flavorless and stupid.
My theory about food-related fonts was invoked in Meals Meals Food last week. I will explain this more in a future post, probably (fonts, not Meals Meals Food, which is easy to understand).
Hunter’s Wild Berries?
In high school I would watch Lifetime movies about affairs and laugh so hard I would cry. Now I do this with vlogs, which is an admission akin to Charlotte York saying she needs to stare at her pores in a mirror to feel sane.
The mom from Furiosa who is named Charlee Fraser in real life is in Anyone But You!
I specifically think that, unless you are an Olympian, running more than a 5k with any regularity should be enough to have you sent to the ward. Stop!
By which I, of course, mean: a way to have obsessive tendencies regarding one’s body.
Can’t wait to hear what Joe Alwyn has to say about making Kinds of Kindness…
you are the only person I'd read Emily Henry for