june links
Things I’m reading:
Mating, by Norman Rush. Yes ugh that NYT piece got to me, and I LOVED it the entire time except maybe the very end. The girlies just want personal intimate comedy and also detailed descriptions of experimental matriarchal societies! (How obsessed am I, you ask? After reading the Victoria Falls scene, I went and booked a solo weekend trip to the nearest waterfall (Niagara lol) for August and am PREPARED to have an emotional éxpériénce or else.)
Ted Chiang’s “The Tower of Babylon,” that iconic short story I finally devoured on the couch before falling asleep and having these insane, very detailed dreams about biblical stone-cutting. Highly recommend.
Discussed this Evan Osnos joint about pop stars’ private gigs with the group chats, and we all agreed that we now have a healthy lifelong respect for Flo Rida.
Things I’m thinking about:
Back in May, I went to the second annual Cartier Met Gala pre-party for VF, which sounds like the kind of glam situation my teen self would have committed arson to be able to say, but (as you will find out in reading) turned out to be a rather hilariously bald content-gathering opp, as is……maybe everything lately? We’re just all trying not to get in each others’ shots, I guess.
Hence this little essay based around that sensation as experienced at the new Infinity Mirrors Room: It’s Yayoi Kusama’s World, and We’re Just ’Gramming From It, but also this one where I tried to really deconstruct the reality of all of us looking at each other from/through our phones: The Way We Watch Each Other Now. (In that piece, I end by saying that I’m glad Google Glasses/its ilk never took off because once filming/photographing each other becomes something you can do invisibly, it’s probably game over. Apple’s Vision Pro, released this past week, offered both a reassuring and sinister reminder that the hardware is still relatively clunky, but we are probably going to get there!)
I also took a spun on Bluesky, and it mostly made me think about how the internet has shaped us into thinking about maintaining “brand consistency” across new platforms/our digital lives, and perchance how one might resist that. (And then afterward I locked myself out of Bluesky by accident, which was probably divine intervention): My Plea to You: Let’s Get Weird on Social Media
Plus I reviewed Disney’s American Born Chinese, which I thought was cute and also kind of astounding that Disney can put an entire episode of Mandarin dialogue out into the world, and no one bats an eye. Interesting times.
TikToks I’m snarfing dow:
Maaaaan honestly, this is rather revealing of how normie/just for wholesome lolz my FYP has gotten, but I strongly feel that you cannot argue with these:
I sent this to someone who is one of the 3 degrees removed btwn me and Anderson….I hope he sees it or this eventually……..love u AP
guys who sk8 »»
Your Let’s Get Weird Again article was shared here! https://open.substack.com/pub/nishachittal/p/links-recipes-and-recommendations
Ted Chiang has provided many a detailed dreamworld trip. When I spent 27 hours in an immigration detention facility in Spain earlier this year, his audiobook comforted me like nothing else.