💌 Stuff You Should #19
Sellouts, fresh breath, Rubik's cubes, and more.
Hi! You're reading a monthly newsletter in which I, copywriter and perpetual opinion-haver Laura Reineke, share with you some Stuff that I endorse. Your mileage may vary.
👋 Know About Me
I’m in Ohio for the longest stretch of time since I moved to New York nine years ago, but pandemic life is the same mix of work Zoom meetings, masked-up coffee shop runs, and TV series binges that it was in the city, just with considerably wider grocery store aisles in which to socially distance while I shop for fiber-rich cereals. Next verse, same as the first. Here’s some stuff u should.
🔗 Read Online
The Unbreakable Laura Hillenbrand [2014] - I had no idea that the author of Seabiscuit and Unbroken was housebound with a chronic illness through the writing of both books. The methods she devised to adapt her research methods to her disability are fascinating. (Wil S. Hylton/NYT)
Don’t Fall for the ‘Cancel Culture’ Scam - Are Orwellian restrictions on free speech as big a threat as media elites want you to think? Take a guess! (Michael Hobbes/HuffPo)
Insane after coronavirus? - COVID-19 destroys and remakes a writer from the inside out. I was under the impression that I had taken detailed notes throughout the experience, but when I opened the file called ‘quarantine’ I found it to be 158 words long and full of cryptic particles: ‘Masque of the Red Death. Statue of Pericles. Tigers.’ (Patricia Lockwood/London Review of Books)
How Babe Snuck Radicalism into a Family Favorite - On the forthright leftism of a sweet little pig’s quest to do the work of a sheepdog. (Roxana Hidadi/Crooked Marquee)
Anatomy Of A Sellout - If you felt like punching SNL head writer Colin Jost in the face even before he acknowledged the appeal himself by titling his memoir A Very Punchable Face, you’re gonna love this utterly decimating essay about Jost’s career, humor, privilege, and abusive workplaces. (Seth Simons/Humorism)
The Poison of Male Incivility - Florida representative Ted Yoho called Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez a fucking bitch on the steps of the Capitol. She responded thoughtfully and rationally in a measured speech on the House floor. Why is she seen as the disruptive one? (Rebecca Traister/NYMag)
In situ of “Oranges on Fire,” Larry Sultan and Mike Mandel, 1975.
📖 Read Elsewhere
“The Less People Know About Us” by Axton Betz-Hamilton - The ~big twist~ is telegraphed from the jump, but I still found this memoir about identity theft and family secrets in a midwestern town to be a real page-turner - like, the “Downloaded the sample to my Kindle on a whim before bed; wound up buying the full book and reading into the wee hours of the morning” kind.
💰 Buy
Covatar - Wanna jazz up yr social media accounts? Commission a custom portrait to use as your profile photo from this group of professional artists. There’s a range of styles to choose from, and they donate $5 from each purchase to the charity of your choice. Here’s the one I just got done. Look how cute!
TheraBreath Healthy Smile Oral Rinse - I only tried this poorly named mouthwash brand because my best friend Danielle recommended it after the TikTok teens recommended it to her, but I found to my delight that it totally eliminated the grubby morning breath I associated with my previous brand. A win.
🎧 Listen To
The Dream - An investigative podcast that’s not about true crime! For once! Host Jane Marie instead explores the feminine-coded worlds of multi-level marketing schemes (season one) and the wellness industry (season two) to figure out what’s real, what’s a scam, and why we’re so desperate to believe the lies we’re sold.
The Scaredy Cats Horror Show - Can a big ol’ wuss learn to love horror movies? Reply All co-hosts Alex Goldman and PJ Vogt aim to find out as Alex curates a program of increasingly scary movies for fear-averse PJ to watch all the way through. I do NOT care for the genre but I found that this limited podcast series made me reconsider my position.
🗣️ Quote
“We inhabit a culture that privileges novelty and growth over the cyclical and regenerative. Our very idea of productivity is premised on the idea of producing something new, whereas we do not tend to see maintenance and care as productive in the same way.” -Jenny Odell,How to Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy
📺 Watch
Search Party - A narcissistic millennial grows obsessed with tracking down a missing college classmate in this super dark comedy that doesn’t shy away from raising the stakes on its cast of entitled Brooklynites and watching while they flail desperately. Funny, creepy, compelling.
The Speed Cubers - What do I love? Niche interests!! What is this documentary about? Two sweetheart youths who are world-record Rubik’s cube solvers and also friendly rivals!! When should you watch it? Now!!!!
The Mentalist - Do not misunderstand me: This long-running CBS crime procedural about a former carnival “psychic” (mhmm) who helps the California Bureau of Investigation solve crimes (okay) after his wife and daughter are murdered by a serial killer (sure) is Not A Good Show. The plots are dumb. The dialogue is dumb. The fact that in its last two seasons it drops half its cast and becomes an entirely different show is SUPER dumb. But at the height of NYC quarantine this spring, the mediocrity of The Mentalist was a balm for my weary soul. At the end of every remote-work day I’d curl up on the couch with my cat and let beautiful blue-eyed Simon Baker and his admittedly-not-actually-psychic observational tricks distract us from the ambulance sirens outside and it was…again, not good, per se, but a comforting sort of adequate that made a tough time a little easier. Perhaps it’ll make your tough time easier, too.
☀️ Forecast
More of the same. (That works for me, though, tbh.)
Be well,
xo Laura
Got some stuff you think *I* should? Reply to this email or holler on Twitter @ohonestly. Thx for reading. Love u.