No. 32
Clutter; 'Data-Free Disney'; teeth (again); public toilets; 'a chilling American emptiness'; drama in Palm Beach; on hoarding; Tom Sainsbury's books
Kia ora, hello,
Time marches on, it’s 2024, and here we all are.
I was just re-reading the newsletter, checking the links worked, and it all seemed a bit earnest/serious. So if you’re in the mood for ‘a very well written horror story filled with a chilling American emptiness’ or ‘a history of hoarding’, you’re in the right place. There is, though, an analysis of Timothée Chalamet and Kylie Jenner’s kiss at the Golden Globes if you’re against the serious.
Hope you find something to enjoy,
~Ellie
Obsessed with this story. As a low-energy person, I find the thought of having the fire and verve displayed in this piece fascinating. Thank god for the energizers of this world, standing up for their rights re data-theft etc. Data-Free Disney: ‘I called Disneyland’s 1-800 hotline from a burner number, sitting patiently through 28 minutes of soft hits from Beauty and the Beast and The Lion King before I reached a concierge named Allison. I patiently but firmly explained my resistance to giving my kids’ names and birthdates to an entertainment company. […] Untraceable tickets in hand, alter egos prepared, computer-confusing makeup applied, burner phone and credit card ready, and untraceable cash in hand, we headed to the park.’
Cereal, a history: ‘anti-sex campaigns, mind control’, and other strange stuff.
‘Shit Outta Luck: In the burgeoning genre of writing about public toilet access, most essays begin with an anecdote establishing the writer’s authority on the subject, usually linked to a medical condition like Crohn’s disease or irritable bowel syndrome or—less seriously—some traumatic near-miss that almost involved the business getting done in the writer’s pants. Mine begins with a routine piss that landed me in jail. In the summer of 2018, I was walking home after a long night of drinking when I felt the sudden, though in no way surprising, urge to empty my bladder. This was in the lower stretches of Crown Heights, down by Atlantic Avenue—not a part of the city blessed with an abundance of toilet-bearing late-night commerce.
Had I always been a public urinator? No.’
Absolutely live for this kind of nonsense [from The Fence substack]: ‘Back to haunt the pop culture zeitgeist like the ghost of a Victorian chimney sweep comes Timothée Chalamet. Variety posted a video of his kiss with Kylie Jenner at the Golden Globes, where many of us discovered the horror of his side profile for the first time [poor Timothy - I don’t see a problem?]. It’s a surprisingly unenthusiastic snog from a man that was once papped with his tongue down Lily Rose Depp’s throat on a yacht. Is it possible that Chalamet was simply mewling his way towards being considered a sex symbol for all these years? The weirdos of Reddit do seem to think so; they speculate that mewling is the only answer, because he is a ‘nose breather’ and his face is ‘too feminine to be just testosterone’. All very normal stuff.’
On ‘Curated versus confessional clutter.’ And a tiny bit related: Joan Acocella on the history of hoarding, from Grey Gardens to the DSM-V.
A new essay from David Sedaris: ‘She makes all her own clothes, Dawn, save for some socks and underwear, though she could likely turn those out as well. Of everyone I know, she’d fare best if forced to live in a secluded cabin or fifteenth-century Europe. She just has that look about her—wiry and no-nonsense. Doesn’t own any makeup. Smells like a cardboard box. Dawn grows her hair out, then chops it off to donate it to cancer patients. What remains is naturally straw-colored—not a touch of gray—and easy to imagine beneath a bonnet or a snood. She hasn’t used an A.T.M. since 1990, when the machine ate her card, and as for a phone, forget it. Can’t make calls but can make yarn, paper, ink, and some kind of non-dairy ice cream that tastes like fallen leaves: Walking and talking with my friend Dawn.’
Against the throw cushion. [Just discovered Americans call cushions pillows?! You live and learn.]
Anyone who gives attention to the lives and inner worlds of children gets 100 points from me! A children’s art show: ‘“Isn’t this crazy?” Belott said as he went from work to work. “Aren’t they amazing?” A bright green and yellow octopus-like figure against a purple background caught his eye, and a fox-like animal made with a circle divided into blue and orange segments, hovering in a vortex of stripes.’
Artificial sweat: ‘Some time ago I purchased a tiny bottle of synthetic sweat from a reputable chemical company for $141. The bottle of “Artificial Eccrine Perspiration – Stabilized” contained a teaspoon (5ml) of a fluid that mimics something many of us produce in vast quantities to cool down, or at least I do. During a recent 45-minute spin class, I collected nine teaspoons of my own sweat by catching it in a mason jar as it poured down my skin.’
‘Electric Bodies: Apple has positioned its wearables as essential accessories for the technophile and the casual hypochondriac alike. In another video called “Dear Apple,” users read letters addressed directly to Tim Cook, crediting their Apple Watches with saving their lives in various emergencies. Several are cardiac in nature, but others involve adventure-related injuries — falling through river ice, slipping on the job, confronting a bear. In some cases, the Watch’s specific health functions alert the user to medical issues, though the device also comes to the rescue simply by virtue of its function as an unlosable phone — a wrist-bound conduit to 911. By conflating crises looming inside the body with external menaces lying in wait, Apple pitches its Watch as the ultimate asset in a hazardous and uncertain world.’
A reflection on a lethal combination of isolation, vulnerability (economic, psychological) and the internet’s ever-disturbing capacity to indoctrinate minds and ruin lives: ‘A very well written horror story filled with a chilling American emptiness.’
On teeth (again): ‘I was still lying on my back, the white nylon bib around my neck, the sour taste lingering in my mouth, when the hygienist said, “Oh honey, you’re beautiful. You should take care of your smile.” The dentist had just given me a twenty-five-thousand-dollar estimate to get all of the problems with my teeth fixed. “It’s like buying a car,” he said. And I wondered what kind of car he thought I owned.’ (This is from the ‘Best American Essays‘ series, 2023 edition - it’s a good one. Editor is Vivian Gornick, literary goddess. Highly recommend hunting it down.)
Memoir: ‘We Are All Animals at Night: Sometimes I think I have nothing to show for those years spent tending to people’s needs after hours, a period of my life as brief and transient as the red glow of that receding taillight. But I know the stories of the city after dark[.]’ And ‘The trials of trucking school.’
Brilliant little piece on never truly knowing another’s intentions: ‘Along the Borders - remembering a singular teacher.’
A prison escape: ‘How To Catch a Ghost.’
Dramzz in Palm Beach: ‘You can imagine the founding fathers—and Logan Roy—all watching the Palm Beach boomlet and collectively shaking their heads, declaring, “You are not serious people.”’
‘Welcome, fellow haters, to another bilious edition of the Most Scathing Book Reviews of the Year.’
‘Why Prisons Ban Fantasy and Science Fiction: Moira Marquis on the importance of magical thinking for the incarcerated.’
Examining ‘how our childhood reading shapes our memories and the way we see the world: Rereading My Childhood.’
‘W. H. Auden declared that if a children’s book isn’t good for adults as well, it just isn’t a good book. More recently, S. F. Said, author of the wonderful new Blakean fantasy Tyger, said on Twitter, “We call them children’s books, but really, they’re written for an audience that includes children, but excludes no-one. Children’s books are books for everyone.”’ Rachael King ‘surveys the childhood reads that satisfy her as much now as they did then.’
Is it too late for this? Have we moved on from 2023’s ‘Best Of’ lists? Maybe.
Steve Braunias, eternally naughty/funny man, and very gifted writer/editor ‘celebrates the best things in New Zealand writing [last] year.
An example: ‘BEST PERSONAL ESSAY - “Empire Ants” by Joanna Cho. I have come to loathe the personal essay, so often an indulgent, boring, dried-flower-arrangement of various sensitivities and self-entitlements, but I must acknowledge there are masters of the form (Talia Marshall, Ashleigh Young, Danyl McLauchlan) and I was plain knocked-out by Joanna Cho’s memoir of teenage life on the roads of Auckland, as a passenger in her boyfriend’s 1994 Mazda Familia GT-X. Every sentence was alive, you could hear the beating of blood beneath the skin, see the dreams of romance on the isthmus.’
Late entry! - just read this today, and love him even more now. ‘“Dystopia all the way baby”: Tom Sainsbury’s life in books.’