*The Week in 15 Selections*
scary labubus, ocean city, and a sally rooney banger
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After taking my time with the last third of it, I finally finished East of Eden last week. When a book is really good, and I really love it, I try to break it. Because it is my job, and because I love stories, I want to open them up like watches and see how they tick. This means I break apart the structure and the themes and the beats like some kind of over-powered AP Literature student. What did I learn from this? Lots, thank you!
East of Eden brought me infinite relief and joy because it is nice to be reminded that the novel is worth more as a form than to be a way for annoying people to stroke their own egos. A story told well is really worth something. I look forward to placing East of Eden into my rotation of palate cleansers that can save me from the evil of bad contemporary novels I’m forced to read because they’re popular, or I’m asked to blurb them, or my curiosity gets the better of me.
Anyway, I spent all of last week at the beach with my co-owners at Defector.com, so much of this week’s list is beach-focused and beach-inspired. Here are this week’s 15 things:
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I ate a metric ton of Maryland Blue Crab last week. They taste like summer and I love them.
The best crab we had in Ocean City, Maryland was at Hooper’s for sure. I ate at least 7 and each of them was better than the last.
The best thing I ate in Ocean City, though, was weirdly the burger at Surfin’ Betty’s Burger Bar, which ruled.
We went to Assateague Island National Seashore in Maryland, and saw several ponies on the side of the road! I loved the ponies, though I wish I could have seen more.
Unfortunately for the ponies, the best thing I saw was an Atlantic Needlefish. It was long and swam like an eel and was shiny like a car. I loved it’s long scary nose.
Some things are so beautiful and expensive that I will never own them, but this does not stop me from admiring them. Look at these beautiful lamps made by Delphine Dénéréaz:
During my gorgina beach week, I read a novel published this year. I’ve been avoiding recent fiction releases all year because so few of them have any heart, and sadly this one was no different.
My co-worker Lauren wrote a beautiful essay about how falling in love opened up Taylor Swift’s music for her and helped her understand the pleasure and the appeal of superstar pop. (gift link!)
I found a New Zealand website called Kitsch Kitchen that is threatening to ruin my life. Look at this adorable door mat:
My obsession with The Gilded Age continues, now featuring an obsession with Morgan Spector. Choo Choo, my railroad king!!
Sally Rooney wrote another banger about Palestine and having a backbone and being unafraid of power.
I love these tiny stamp paper pieces by Laura K. Sayers, and I especially love them in the color-washed frames. Very cute:
A meteor almost struck a man in Georgia! Hope one strikes me next!!!
Feeling 100 percent insane and affirmed by this:
Then, after a period of years or decades, it finally becomes permissible for centrists and liberals to admit what the leftists had concluded. They attempt to appropriate the left-wing position for themselves, with the serial numbers filed off and the content watered down. Today’s radical fringe becomes tomorrow’s common sense, just in time for the cycle to start up again.
Obsessed with these scary insane knock-off labubus someone in my city made for themselves.
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Last week, I wrote you a playlist to escape the Summer Blues. Mostly it’s Disco!