The Week In Recommendations 2.15.23
Thoughts on the "Fleishman Effect," the most joyful tumbler, and a must-see cult doc.
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We’re trying something a little bit different this week! We are introducing a free preview of our paid subscriber podcasts, so that our free subscribers can get a taste of what we do over on the Rich Text podcast. And because we want to make sure that *everyone* gets our weekly recommendations, we are moving this part of our newsletter into its very own entry, dropping Wednesdays. Let us know what you think of this new format!
We’ve been reading…
I’m still between books, so let’s do a little article roundup!
Recently I read this outstanding review of Dave Eggers’s new book about Amazon, “The Every,” as well as his whole literary/nonprofit/business empire and its unexpected parallels to Amazon itself. Having never been a fan of his writing myself, I am certainly a receptive audience for a scathing review, but it’s also a thoughtful consideration of how to critique a corporate behemoth like Amazon without ultimately placing its customer base at the center of the critique.
I was also fascinated by this investigation into the no-longer-gleaming floor of the World Trade Center Oculus, which has quickly begun to chip and require heavy maintenance. The ultimate culprit was not at all what I expected!
Like everyone I follow on Twitter, I also read The Cut’s “The Fleishman Effect” article, which documented the self-pity and general malaise of merely very rich New York-area moms, who can’t understand why they aren’t incredibly rich New York-area moms. While I do relate to the parental exhaustion and the demoralizing struggle of having a family in an extremely high cost-of-living area, it mostly left me more convinced than ever that I don’t want to spend my life wishing I had as much money as the wealthiest people I see around me, and perhaps it would be better to focus on what kind of happy life I can make with what we have. (Public school, here we come!) -Claire
Thanks to Claire’s (deeply intelligent and thoughtful) rants, I too read “The Fleishman Effect” and am still processing it. In certain, unflattering ways, I understood the dynamics at play in this piece. In other ways, these social circles felt so very foreign to my own life. My biggest frustration — though I think the piece was very well written and spoke to some very real dynamics! — was that it took a show that I feel is about so much more than class anxiety and reduced it to those parts. The beauty of Rachel and Libby is that they are complicated women, looking for relief in so many of the wrong places, when the answer to their malaise is both bigger than them as individuals and requires an appreciation of what they do have in front of them. Libby’s problems aren’t *really* about not being rich enough to live uptown, but more about the fact that she gave up the thing she found purpose in (writing). She and Rachel have lost pieces of themselves, and no amount of money can recover them. -Emma
We’ve been watching…
“Aftersun,” the movie in which an actor I think of as the sweetest high schooler ever (Paul Mescal) plays a single father struggling with his mental health during a vacation with his 11-year-old daughter (Frankie Corio). In superficial terms, the movie (written and directed by Charlotte Wells) is uneventful; Calum is in Turkey on holiday with his daughter Sophie, who usually lives in Scotland with her mother. They help each other apply sunscreen, make quiet inside jokes, go snorkeling, and document the trip with a videocamera. We also flash forward to 20 years later, as Sophie — now a new mother herself — grapples with the memories of a father she loved but could not fully understand. It’s also a deceptively tense movie — in almost every scene, I was braced for full catastrophe, which never arrived, at least onscreen. The performances are flawless, and the movie sucked me into the pleasurable sort of riptide where I was able to let go of the craving for plot devices and clear answers, and simply let the moody beauty of it wash over me. -Claire
I watched “Stolen Youth: Inside The Cult At Sarah Lawrence,” the 3-part Hulu docu-series about — you guessed it! — a cult that a student’s father started at Sarah Lawrence College in 2010, in one sitting. It was so gripping, I couldn’t go to sleep without getting through that final episode. And of course now I’m down a rabbithole about Larry Ray, the aforementioned cult leader, and the victims whose lives he stole for nearly a decade. It’s an absolutely wild story that I somehow was surprised by most of the details of, even though I swear I read the April 2019 investigative New York Magazine piece that first brought this hidden story into the light. -Emma
We’ve been listening to…
I’ve been trying to get into boygenius, because I’m starting to feel weird about how long I’ve gone without sampling any of the hot newish female singer-songwriters and their various supergroups. Seems like they should be extremely my shit, but I’ll admit it: the thing happened to me that you think never will when you’re 18, and I stopped seeking out new artists once I became boring and old and started listening to talk radio (podcasts). How many times can you hear your cool friends talk about Phoebe Bridger and Lucy Dacus before you give them a spin? Apparently like four years, give or take. -Claire
The Sarah Lawrence cult podcast, “Devil In The Dorm,” on Wondery. (Can you tell I truly go deep on cults?) -Emma
We’ve been buying…
You know how periodically you think to yourself, “I’m going to become more hydrated and more environmentally friendly in one fell swoop!” and then you buy a beautiful new water bottle to symbolize your new life? So, that was me this week. I suddenly realized I had a huge amount of Shopify cash stored up (if you use Shopify for purchases, you can earn a little cash back to apply to purchases in the app) and used to to get the way-too-expensive but beautiful Hill House x W&P insulated tumbler at a steep discount. It’s shamelessly girly, ceramic-coated inside and out, and has a soft silicone sleeve, so it feels lovely to hold, and it works for hot or cold drinks. I am thinking of getting some reusable straws to maximize the sheer enjoyment I feel when drinking from it. -Claire
The absolute perfect textured hoop earrings. These Gorjana Crew Hoops have made my sensitive ear dreams come true! They are chic, not too big, lightweight and just showy enough that you still notice them. Obsessed is an understatement. -Emma
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