Did we all know this is how “Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants” canonically ended
Also, I caved and bought a (Daniel Mendelsohn) copy of “The Odyssey”
I caught Train to Busan director Yeon Sang-ho’s new zombie movie, Colony, over the weekend (it’ll be in theatrical release in the U.S. at the end of August), and it’s a very good time with actually solid ideas, though it’s in no danger of inducing a flood of hysterical tears, Busan-style (a good thing, imo). This is the trailer, though I think it’s much better to go into it no context!
Odysseymania marches onward over here in Deez land: On Sunday, I stopped by my go-to bookstore to pick up a copy of Vivian Gornick’s 2015 memoir, which had come enthusiastically recommended to me the night before while at a bachelorette party at Gosh (thanks for the great table, Sasha!). Once there, I found myself unable to resist the tower of The Odysseys stacked so enticingly by the cash register. The translation I went with was Daniel Mendelsohn’s, which as I learned from J. Susanne Wilson’s blog, is best for “literary readers” on the strength of its “oral texture”; I can report that so far, it indeed makes for some very dreamy bedtime reading. I’m hoping to cram as much as I can before hosting an impromptu Zoom session this week with my former classics 101 professor and a few of his fellow former students to talk about the film — which is just to say: If you are lucky enough to have a classics prof in your life, now is the time to email them! It’s summer; they’re dying to chat.
The big Odyssey link making the rounds this week is the 17-minute interview that Christopher Nolan did in Beijing with the Chinese podcaster and political philosophy doctoral student Zhong Shu; it went viral over the weekend for its relatively high-density subject matter. You don’t need me to tell you why the Chinese media landscape may or may not incentivize certain kinds of content (and conversely, why the American one resolutely insists on “the Jimmy Fallon-ization of it all,” which my boyfriend would like credit for coining so that he is no longer strictly known to this newsletter audience as the “did you know Troy isn’t a guy” guy), but it is amazing to wonder on what terms an American grad student would get to talk about the concept of greatness with the world’s biggest director for 20 minutes, no commercial breaks. The interview itself is worth a watch; I didn’t find it like holyshitcrazzyyyy but I did enjoy how Nolan talked about the use of tropes as a common language that you’re supposed to notice (and also how much Nolan just generally seemed to enjoy the interview itself.) It’s relevant to note here that China is home to nearly 800 IMAX theaters, those lucky comrades! And if you don’t want to watch the video, The Hollywood Reporter sort of shamelessly transcribed most of it here.
Other additional links worth your time: Andrew Keh’s story for the NYT on baby-friendly screenings of the movie is cute and is such a great angle; Jamie Brew’s Homeric parody about a modern trip to Greece for McSweeney’s is the whole point of still having McSweeney’s around. For next week, I snagged my kind and generous and AMC-savvy friend Kazumi’s 10 a.m. ticket for a 70mm IMAX screening, at which time I will issue my official pronouncement of Is it worth it??? Stay tuned.
While we’re on the topic of epic stories, a press release in my inbox brought it to my attention that The Sisterhood of Traveling Pants — yes, that bestselling early 2000s YA series by Ann Brashares, of which the film adaptation gave unto the mainstream culture Blake Lively and also the concept of Santorini — is celebrating its (take a deep, elderly breath) 25th anniversary this fall. I’m not personally too keyed into what the state of YA is at the moment, but if the teens are still reading about fellow teens tackling illness, divorce, sex, and depression with the same courage that Brashares’ quartet did, I’m happy for us all.
This news led me down a rabbithole wherein I found out that the fourth book in the series, devoured by yours truly in 8th grade, was not the final in the installment: Brashares apparently wrote a spin-off in 2009 and then in 2011 published Sisterhood Everlasting, set right as the original four girls turn 30 (but published without maintaining the iconic cover design scheme of the first four books, sadly). Not sure if you want your day ruined, but the plot according to Wikipedia is quite sad! I did always think Tibby got the short end of the stick. But on the plus side, it seems Lena and Kostos finally worked it all out???
Notable Quotables:
“I’d go so far as to say that without social media — or, rather, the need to compulsively post on social media, to be digitally productive — there’d be almost no reason for generative AI to exist at all.” —Garbage Day’s Ryan Broderick on the driving motivations behind Hank Green’s anti-AI AI psychosis
“If the dream was more equal partnerships—born from love rather than necessity, freedom rather than convention—what many of us got was no partnership at all, and a feeling that it was eternally out of reach.” —Faith Hill (the writer), in “The Great Romance Slump” — something of a magnum opus of her already impressive commitment to doggedly chronicling the state of Gen Z dating for The Atlantic readership
“What is left is an unsavory choice for the audience: the complicity of silence or the complicity of judgment … Grande is thin in a way that merits concern, though concern is not really the place of her audience” —Scaachi Koul, nailing the awkward implications for the fandom re: the Ariana Grande situation for Slate
“The art of the viral-but-still-brand-safe rage-bait is a delicate balance between provoking viewers into commenting and sharing the post while still maintaining a wink-wink posture that nods, at least to your core audience, that you’re in on the joke.” —Rebecca Jennings on the current state of influencer posting strategies for Vulture, which one could technically read as a bit of a handbook if one were so moved…
Can you share the name of the bookstore? None of my locals have the Mendelsohn in stock...