The Week In Recommendations 10.23.2024

Twisty TV dramas, belated "Intermezzo" review and holiday PJs. Plus, an election reading list from Greg Krieg!

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Oct 23, 2024

This is the free edition of Rich Text, a newsletter about cultural obsessions from your Internet BFFs Emma and Claire. If you like what you see and hear, consider becoming a paid subscriber. Our latest podcast was about “Love Is Blind” S7, eps 10-11! An episode about the “LIB” DC finale is coming soon! Rich Text is a reader-supported project.

We’re getting down to the wire of the 2024 election! We want to encourage ourselves and this community to do what we can to protect our democracy. A great way to do that is in-person canvassing or phone banking events with Knock for Democracy!

Claire has been reading… 📖

“Intermezzo” by Sally Rooney (which I finally finished this week!) For me, this novel was Rooney at her strongest. “Intermezzo” follows two estranged brothers, 22-year-old chess champion Ivan and 32-year-old lawyer Peter, both struggling in the months following their beloved father’s death and both finding solace in taboo romantic relationships. Ivan falls for a beautiful and cultured 36-year-old divorcée who leads a quiet life working for a village arts center. Peter is still hopelessly in love with his first girlfriend, Sylvia, although their relationship ended years ago due to an accident that rendered sex too painful for her; he’s also falling for a broke university student and sometimes OnlyFans-style sex worker, Naomi, with whom he had only meant to have mind-blowing sexcapades. Rooney has a bias toward elegant, sensitive, and essentially noble people — there’s somehow nothing squalid about a Rooney novel, even when squalid things are happening to her characters — and sometimes it all feels implausibly clean. But Ivan and Peter are richly developed characters, and their brotherly bond, and rivalry, felt painfully real. And in their love stories, as in Jane Austen’s or any of the great marriage plot novelists, you see how much one can explore within a love story: how love frees us and how it binds us, the power of sex and of money to shape our relationships, the influence of social class and social stigma. Rooney’s prose is more ambitious and less spare than in previous works, and I appreciated how often she leaves us to piece together fragments or puzzle over an ambiguity. All in all, I really enjoyed it.

Emma has been reading… 📖

Jazmine Hughes’ deep dive for the New Yorker into “The Tight-Knit World Of Kamala Harris’ Sorority,” Alpha Kappa Alpha (A.K.A.). Hughes looks at the power this historically Black sorority wields, and the quiet ways that it does so. Hughes approaches Black Greek life with an appropriate level of skepticism and critique — there’s a history of hazing and colorism within A.K.A. — but also an openness to the impact that organizations like A.K.A. might have on electoral politics. As Aisha Mills told Hughes: “It’s the marshalling of bodies that makes it such a powerful organizing and mobilizing bloc…Democratic victory is predicated on Black communities.”

Claire has been watching… 📺

“Industry” (which I finally finished this week!) and “Tell Me Lies” (which I finally started this week!)

The “Industry” finale was as dramatic as I expected it to be, given all the hubbub after it aired. I relished the business antics — double, triple, and quadruple crosses that happened so fast they made my head spin — and Eric Tao’s bittersweet last calls on the Pierpoint trading floor brought up some painful memories of packing up my newsroom desk during the Covid lockdown, marking the end of an era. But the sudden turn of Yasmin’s storyline toward a passionate romance with Robert (I’d almost forgotten they had a flirtation in seasons past), and a choice between love and security, was perplexing to me. The “Uncut Gems” moment (you know the one) seemed absurd, shocking purely for the sake of being shocking. Many of the finale’s recaps and reviews make reference to how this episode seemed to upend the show, scattering its characters and writing their stories into corners. It seemed to me to be leaning a bit too far into its soapy melodrama, and I’m not sure where they’ll go from here with many of the characters.

So, naturally, I’ve finally made some time to get into an even soapier drama: season two of “Tell Me Lies,” which brings us back to Baird College for Lucy’s sophomore year. Her toxic ex, Stephen, is now back with his previous girlfriend Diana. (Note from Emma: Diana and Pippa are basically the only people worth rooting for on this series.) Unlike Lucy, she’s not only Stephen’s equal in age and intellect, she can offer Stephen an entrée into elite social and professional circles. But Stephen and Lucy are still bound together by shared secrets that could blow up their circle and ruin his future. Their entire friend group, this being a soap, have all been sleeping together or cheating on each other with each other, and so the lies build on each other in a tangled mess. I love a good old-fashioned new adult melodrama!

Emma has been watching… 📺

Two period pieces! The first is “Woman of the Hour,” the new Netflix movie based on the real-life story of serial killer Rodney Alcala, who appeared as a contestant on “The Dating Game” in 1978. I listened to “The Dating Game Killer” podcast back in 2020, so when I read that Anna Kendrick would be starring in and directing a movie about this story, I was very excited. Although I think “Woman of the Hour” would have been better suited as a mini-series than a film — I would have liked to see more room for the stories of Alcala’s victims to breathe — the performances by Kendrick, Nicolette Robinson, and Autumn Best were strong enough to make it a very worthy watch.

I also started Hulu’s “Rivals,” the campy, ‘80s-set British dramedy based on Jilly Cooper’s novel of the same name. It’s completely unhinged, extremely sexy and extremely fun. (I mean, worth watching for the costumes alone!) And it’s my favorite genre of entertainment: rich people behaving badly!

Claire has been listening to… 🎧

Our former colleague and brilliant writer Talia Lavin on one of my favorite podcasts, “Know Your Enemy,” discussing her new book “Wild Faith: How the Christian Right Is Taking Over America.” Lavin’s focus in reporting on the Christian right has been how its adherents and, especially, their children often suffer from the violent and authoritarian worldview its leaders put forth, and it’s appalling to hear the physical and emotional abuse people who grew up in these faiths experienced, often at the hands of parents who were told it was the only way to save their children’s immortal souls.

I’ve also been listening to a lot of “Know Your Enemy” in general, along with “5-4,” as they’ve been putting out some good episodes and bonuses on the upcoming election and what to expect from a possible Trump or Harris administration, as well as the current Supreme Court, in the coming years.

Emma has been listening to… 🎧

Comfort music from my sick-with-a-cold bed! I finally got into Gracie Abrams’ “The Secret of Us” album, and have had “That’s So True” on repeat. (So catchy!) I’ve also been absolutely mesmerized by Griff’s live cover of Charli XCX’s “Apple.”

On the podcast front, I’ve been depending on Ezra Klein’s cool-headed commentary to keep me at least somewhat stable in the lead-up to the election.

While I have been neck-deep in simultaneous “Golden Bachelorette” and “Love Is Blind” seasons, my husband has been up to his eyeballs in election coverage as a political reporter at CNN. With decision day looming, I asked him to contribute One Great Reading List about this campaign season and its defining issues. And he did! Thanks Greg. -Claire

“Mistrust, fights and blood sport: How COVID-19 trauma is shaping the 2024 election,” LA Times

The most devastating national (and international) trauma in a generation, ongoing still, and the COVID pandemic rarely gets a shout from candidates – for any office, in any party or faction – who are either still coming to grips with what happened or, in many cases, choosing not to.

“Fear and Hope in Springfield, Ohio,” Slate

Like a chemical plant fire spewing chlorine into the sky, except the initial spark was lit online. An in-depth look here at life in Springfield, Ohio, as Trump and Vance continue to spread false rumors that Haitian migrants – in the US legally – are terrorizing a Midwestern community.

“Obama’s reemergence on the campaign trail for Harris comes as he recognizes his own legacy is at stake,” CNN

My colleague Isaac Dovere, who has been reporting on former President Obama for years, sees a change in him during these last few weeks campaigning for Harris. It’s a shift that reflects something broader and deeper that’s happening in the liberal mainstream as the election nears.

“Arab American leaders urge Harris to ‘show distance’ from Biden’s Israel policy during private Michigan meeting,” CNN

A short story about a meeting – one of so, so many -- that illustrates how pro-Palestinian activist leaders in the US are trying to connect with the Harris campaign, which has generally kept them at arm’s length. And how they are weighing righteous indignation with election year politics. (Disclaimer: I shared this byline with colleagues.)

“Inside the 'broletariat revolution,'" Business Insider

They are inescapable and, increasingly, legitimately influential on the right. This takes a deeper, studied look at how Trump-aligned Silicon Valley industrialists got to where they are – and what it could mean going forward.

Claire has been buying… 🛍️

The Cypress pajama set in midnight tartan, from the Hill House fall drop. The tartan is just so soft and vibrant, and I love the eyelet collar detail. Most winter nights I wear sweatpants to bed, but why not get fancy once in a while?

Emma has been buying… 🛍️

The heat has turned on in my building, which means that my lips are officially starting to dry out. I still love our fave Laneige Lip Mask for overnight, but for daytime use, I’ve been reaching for my Tower28 SOS LipSoftie. It goes on so smoothly and I really feel the difference in my lips. (The LipSoftie also comes in tinted colors — I love the Sheer Baby Pink shade!)

I have also been living in my new Modern Citizen Lynda Tailored Pants. They have the look of professional trousers and the comfort of sweatpants. And the best part to me is that you can cinch the ankles to create a bit of a balloon effect, or wear them trouser-style. And they come in petites!

Claire has been making… 🧶

Jenn Eats Goood’s baked feta, chicken and quinoa recipe, slightly modified to use orzo instead of quinoa. It’s a twist on the viral tomato feta pasta that Greg and I can inhale by the bowlful, with more veggies and lean protein in the mix. It’s delicious and honestly not quite enough food, even if both of your children barely eat any; next time I’ll double everything except the chicken.

A huge advantage of this style of dish is that it’s extremely quick and easy to put together, which is what I need at this point in my life. One would think that another benefit is that it’s kid-friendly — it’s basically cheese and carbs, with easily removed vegetables. My preschooler does not agree. I’m coming to accept that no method of putting cheese on food will convince him to eat it. He did eat the plain chicken, and the baby eventually ate some feta orzo after smearing a lot of it in his hair. Greg and I had three bowls apiece. A mixed success.

Emma has been making… 🧶

I’ve been battling a nasty cold for the last few days, so I’ve mostly been ordering bone broth from Springbone, and drinking a lot of Trader Joe’s Organic Blood Orange Herbal Tea with spicy honey and lemon juice in it. Sad! :(