Hello! It's Friday! Today I'm recommending the best superhero franchise film of all time, one of my favourite writers, a great essay on religion and drugs, and more architecture content. Superlatives only. 


Article: Losing Religion and Finding Ecstasy in Houston by Jia Tolentino, published by the New Yorker
Jia Tolentino grew up in a mega church in Houston, Texas; as a teenager, she started taking ecstasy and other stimulants. In this essay she compares religious and chemically induced ecstasy via her own biography, Houston local legends, and writers like Simone Weil. I am very interested in the former, scared of the latter, and a big fan of the parallels.
Note: This essay also appears in Tolentino’s collection Trick Mirror and is the reason why I bought the book. Shoutout to my lovely colleagues for discussing it the other day.

Film: Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014), directed by the Russo Brothers
I’ve shown some admirable restraint by not recommending any films so far where a person is pining for another person without properly realising it. Well, today’s the day. This superhero franchise action film is *it*. A very fit man encounters a new enemy only to find out that his identity is... not what it seems. Let’s just say that when I watched this film in the cinema, all by myself, the teenagers in my row where scream whispering, “It’s his friend!!” to each other, which has since then become my own personal, “Harold they’re lesbians”. If you don’t care about emotions, then don’t worry: this is a political conspiracy thriller with some of the best action sequences I’ve ever seen. But it did also launch a thousand fanfics.
Note: You can stream this film everywhere. Ideally, you’re familiar with the first instalment of the Captain America series to get the full emotional impact, but I showed my boyfriend youtube clips and that worked just as well. When I watched it this week, I got a message from a friend who did not know what I was doing that evening. She sent a video about Sebastian Stan... who co-stars in this film. Time has moved on since 2014, but some things never change.

Book: The Yogini by Sangeeta Bandyopadhyay, translated by Arunava Sinha (2019)
Homi, a young woman working for a media company in Kolkata, is on her way to a date with her husband when she encounters a yogi in the street. She becomes convinced that he is a manifestation of her fate. Her marriage, career and relationship with her family begin to unravel at an ever increasing pace as she tries to assert her own free will. Sangeeta Bandyopadhyay is one of my favourite writers, and Arunava Sinha is an incredible translator. Reading any of Sangeeta’s books is a joy, but I liked this one for its look at modern vs traditional concepts of reality and self-determination.
Note: I’m not going to lie to you, Tilted Axis published this book in English translation in the UK, so I have a vested interest in this title. But I’m recommending it because I’ve been thinking about it steadily ever since I read it, and have been wanting to reread it for just as long. Maybe now’s the time! You can buy a print or ebook copy from Tilted Axis or Penguin India, or if you’re based in the UK, check out this map of indie book shops that are still delivering and order through one of them. 

Other: Rebel architecture on Al Jazeera
Last year I went to an excellent exhibition about architecture for a world in crisis, focusing on projects that respond to the world as it is in a tangible, intelligent way. They featured Pakistani architect Yasmeen Lari who uses local building techniques to rebuild villages after floods and earthquakes. I then watched a short film on her as part of an interesting Al Jazeera programme on ‘rebel architecture’, "a six-part documentary series profiling architects who are using design as a form of activism and resistance to tackle the world's urban, environmental and social crises". It’s well worth your time. 

That's it for now. Tell me what you loved. Forward this email to a friend. And take care!