November 4, 2021

> 168: Thread of threads, re-thinking "flattering," a GIF you can hear

Suzi Zuzek

Hi. It's Thursday. Did we all know about polar bear jail?

Here's some art, ideas, and internet for you:

1. "Ultimately we are all going to die, so before we do, having a party is a wonderful thing." A lovely conversation between Andrew Scott and Ben Whishaw about art, death, being gay, and other vital things. Also: On the occasion of its 15th anniverary, an oral history of Sofia Coppola's "Marie Antoinette" production "as the ultimate party."

2. Recommendation thread of recommendation threads. I bookmarked several of these for future reference.

3. It's house cardigan season.

4. "When someone pointed out that saying I found a particular style of jeans 'unflattering' on me was, intentionally or not, inherently fatphobic, I recoiled. Some things look good on my body type, I remember thinking. That is not a value judgment. But friends: it is. 'Flattering' is the vernacular of body discipline. It is a way of convincing ourselves that an item of clothing is or is not for us, simply because of how someone else thinks a body should look in clothes." Anne Helen Petersen on re-thinking "flattering."

5. A GIF you can hear.

6. Here's what happens to statues of very good dogs.

7. The original New York Times review of Edith Wharton's The Age of Innocence starts out inauspiciously ("She has always been an expert in gardens and in furniture") but ultimately recognizes it as a masterpiece, which is lucky because otherwise I would have had to build a time machine to burn the building to the ground.

8. Let it be known: The dinosaur is trans.

9. Looking forward to: Emma Straub's new one; a new Paul Newman memoir; the A24 adaptation of a play I loved, "The Humans"; Lisa "Three Women" Taddeo's forthcoming collection of short stories; Newsletter Fave Deb Perelman on season two of Padma Lakshmi's Taste the Nation, which debuts tonight.

10. November like a train wreck—
    as if a locomotive made of cold
    had hurtled out of Canada
    and crashed into a million trees,
    flaming the leaves, setting the woods on fire.
    
    The sky is a thick, cold gauze—
    but there's a soup special at the Waffle House downtown,
    and the Jack Parsons show is up at the museum,
    full of luminous red barns.
    
    —Or maybe I'll visit beautiful Donna,
    the kickboxing queen from Santa Fe,
    and roll around in her foldout bed.
    
    I know there are some people out there
    who think I am supposed to end up
    in a room by myself
    
    with a gun and a bottle full of hate,
    a locked door and my slack mouth open
    like a disconnected phone.
    
    But I hate those people back
    from the core of my donkey soul
    and the hatred makes me strong
    and my survival is their failure,
    
    and my happiness would kill them
    so I shove joy like a knife
    into my own heart over and over
    
    and I force myself toward pleasure,
    and I love this November life
    where I run like a train
    deeper and deeper
    into the land of my enemies.
    
    —Tony Hoagland, "Reasons to Survive November" (via Helena Fitzgerald)

Bye,

Laura