Weekender 03: Caked up

Happy Friday! I’m writing this in Central Park, on what might be the most perfect July afternoon (windy, sunny with a light cloud cover, low humidity). If you’re in New York right now, go outside. Other recommendations for the weekend: a Mary Gaitskill essay and story collection, Showgirls’ controversial sequel, a Brooklyn-based clothing rental platform, my favorite summer sandals, and more!

PS: I wrote this on my phone, so apologies for any fucked up formatting!

• Because I am a Leo (sun, moon, rising), I am very into my birthday. This present-day enthusiasm, I think, is an attempt to make up for my enduring childhood disappointment of having a summer birthday; I rarely spent the day with friends. Everyone was on vacation or simply away somewhere. For my 15th birthday, I went to SAT prep. This year, I snagged two dinner reservations at Eel Bar (from the restauranteurs behind Cervo’s and Hart’s) and San Sabino (the seafood sister of Don Angie). Both have gorgeous interiors: Eel Bar has cozy wood-paneled walls lined with neon, and I was utterly charmed by San Sabino’s buttercream-yellow color scheme. My favorite dishes: EB’s potato salad with trout roe, its cantaloupe with green coriander, and the San Marcos cake (seen above). For SS, I inhaled the lemon-y, cheesy frittelle and halo halo-inspired coconut panna cotta.

• Lately, I’ve been feeling like a character in a Mary Gaitskill story — a little confused and intensely porous. Her latest essay in Granta, “The Pneuma Illusion,” kind of gets at this state of feeling.

  • “I felt strongly alive and was actively searching for what I still believed in: love and my version of goodness. I’m sure that sometimes my demeanor or behavior did not appear that of a person looking for love and goodness, that outwardly I might’ve seemed angry or just weird. Truthfully, I sometimes was those things. This would give me a great deal in common with thousands if not millions of bewildered and unraveled people who are not entirely sure why they hurt quite so much and whose hurt reads to others as anger or weirdness.”

• Earlier this month, I picked up Gaitskill’s collection Because They Wanted To at the library, and I’m continually astounded by her prosaic perceptiveness. It’s equally delightful when she turns this gentle, yet incriminating gaze upon herself.

  

• On Sunday, I saw Showgirls 2 at Spectacle, a micro-theater in Williamsburg. I think Showgirls is a masterpiece, and I truthfully didn’t have high hopes for its unofficial sequel, which was written, directed, and edited by Rena Riffel, the actress who plays Penny in Showgirls. But I was proven wrong! I get why the film is controversial; some mean commenters on YouTube have pointed out that there are higher-quality pornos. True, but for a 2 ½ hour movie about a minor character, I was thoroughly and deliriously entertained, and the writing, to Riffel’s credit, is quite self-aware. There are some Lynchian elements in the plot, and Riffel (above) said she was inspired by The Valley of the Dolls while writing it. I find low budget flicks so refreshing and surprising, especially when Hollywood is producing and profiting off boring franchises that have little reason to exist, except to rake in box office records. I’d much rather spend my time watching a self-funded project that seeks to emulate the campy, ridiculous risks of its source material.

• I love this essay from the charming novelist-adventuress Marlowe Granados, particularly this conclusive passage:

  • “To pursue as a woman is to instigate. The word “agency” gets thrown around, but it feels wrung of any glamour or excitement. The woman is chasing. She asks, “What do I want?” Sometimes the answer doesn’t come right away or maybe the destination is far off—like scenes of dinners al fresco, or a life of leisure filled with curb-to-car shoes. The seeking can be exercised even without a clear object of desire. A quiet edging towards anything will do as long as it’s definitely more.”

• I rented two pieces from Hauteline for my birthday week. I’ve tried (I mean, wasted money on) Rent the Runway, but its offerings erred on the side of being too formal. Last summer, I gave the rental platform Pickle a go but the pricing felt really random and the process of going to an influencer’s apartment to pick up and return an item is… a lot? Hauteline is the perfect confluence of edgy style and reasonable price-point, and you can schedule appointments in their showroom in Brooklyn Heights before making a rental. Its founder Kristie Chow is so accommodating and stylish! I left with dresses from Shushu Tong and Fanci Club (pictured below in the San Sabino bathroom, lol).

• I’m usually a big flip-flop girl during the summer, but these beaded Chinese slippers I picked up on a whim have changed my mind. I got mine off Amazon for, like, $12 but Mango and Free People are selling similar models for $79.99 and $25?!

• I finally finished The Curse. I’m not watching The Bear but I’m eagerly anticipating season 3 of Industry 👀

• Other reads I’m too lazy to annotate:

  • Miriam Gordis’s essay on party girls, “eat the rich” art, Lily Bart, and upper-class striving in the Cleveland Review.

  • Kate Braverman’s poems in The Paris Review. I am currently reading her underrated 1979 novel Lithium for Medea.

  • I’ve yet to see Kinds of Kindness, but this scathing review actually convinced me to watch it?

  • Alexandra Tanner’s short story about a co-dependent couple in Granta: “Danna’s great dream was to commit double suicide with Hal at sixty-five so that neither of them would ever have to endure the humiliations of old age.”

That’s all. Have a good weekend!