The Week In Recommendations 6.5.24

A new cult doc, Camera Obscura's latest album, sparkly mesh flats and a spring eyelet tank!

Photo Credit: Netflix, The Great, Anthropologie, Amazon

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 “Anyone But You.” An episode about the finales of “Summer House” and “The Valley” is coming later this week! Rich Text is a completely reader-supported project — no ads or sponsors!

Claire has been reading… 📖

“Big Swiss” by Jen Beagin, a dark comedy about bucolic hipsters and therapy culture set in Hudson, a thoroughly gentrified town in upstate New York. Big Swiss is the nickname our protagonist, 45-year-old transcriptionist Greta, has given to her nameless crush, a tall Swiss woman with a voice like a steel blade and an unusually unsentimental attitude toward trauma. Greta transcribes the anonymized sessions of a popular local sex therapist, Om, for a living, and she has become obsessed with this particular patient, who recounts a brutal beating she suffered without self-pity and who seems rather suspicious of the crunchy therapist and the whole concept of therapy. Then she recognizes Big Swiss’s voice at a dog park. They become friends, then fall into a heady affair.

Of late, much of the literary fiction I read seems to fall into two categories: character vapor novels and novels packed with effortfully weird, often gross details, à la Ottessa Moshfegh. “Big Swiss” tends toward the latter, and at times I felt a bit fatigued with some of the quirky excesses — the giant beehive in the old Dutch farmhouse where Greta lives, the shag haircuts given by a trendy stylist who uses multiple razors strapped to her fingers — but while some of these details are simply cute stabs at satire, others, like that terrifying beehive, are more deeply woven into the book’s examination of trauma obsession and actual trauma responses, how people relate to each other or fail to, and the risks and rewards of trust and openness. I’m late to this one (our old friend Maddie Crum reviewed it for WaPo over a year ago), but I’m glad I circled back to it.

Emma has been reading… 📖

This week I’m recommending two fabulous pieces of online writing! First up: Lauren Bans’ absolutely delightful essay interrogating the fantasy of being carried by a man for The Cut. Its sharp analysis (“I could never give up my sense of self-worth for the trade-off of being a large adult dependent, but maybe that’s what the fantasy is really about — having a brief moment where someone else is responsible for me again”) paired with a light-hearted tone (“I have always wanted to be carried by a man. Not emotionally. (Though: Sure, nice!)”) is reminiscent of the best of old-school blogging, and I fucking loved everything about it. The way that I related to Bans made me think about the overwhelming feeling of exhaustion that dominates my sense of being these days. Is this just the beginning of middle age? Is it the state of our country-slash-the world? What Bans ultimately gets at is that being swept up physically is tied to the fantasy of ease, of mutual care, of rest and of connectedness.

My second reading rec is Anna Russell’s New Yorker piece, “‘Matrescence,’ and the Transformations of Motherhood.” Russell dives into Lucy Jones’ book, “Matrescence: On Pregnancy, Childbirth, and Motherhood,” which explores the “hardcore, edgy, gnarly” reality of early motherhood, and reframes it as both an under-recognized scientific marvel and a deeply political experience, “rife with conflict, domination, drama, struggle and power.” When your friends become parents, you quickly realize that motherhood is far more metal than you were led to believe by its cultural marketing. Plumbing the science behind this transformation not only illuminates the real ways that parents are changed on a biological level by this newly-adopted identity, but also makes clear why it is cruel and unusual to inflict such an experience on someone who isn’t sure they want it.

Claire has been watching… 📺

Season 3 of “Hacks”! The latest season finds our venerable comedienne Deborah Vance (Jean Smart) at a new career apex, while her snarky Zillennial writer Ava (Hannah Einbinder) has found a job writing for a “Last Week Tonight”-esque political comedy show and domestic bliss with her formerly ex-girlfriend Ruby. Deborah is riding the wave of the unprecedentedly personal new set she wrote with Ava, which became a hit Netflix special, and Ava, while hurt to have been cut loose following this project, is nonetheless thriving out on her own. Still, the show has to bring them back together. When Deborah finds out that there will soon be an opening in the hosting slot of a late-night show, she hires Ava to spend her hiatus helping her mount a stealth campaign to get the gig and fulfill her lifelong dream.

Photo Credit: MAX

In her eagerness to be pulled into Deborah’s glamorous orbit again, Ava blows up her life to join her. This season has been a bit up-and-down for me — some episodes, like the one they spend at a charity golf tournament, drag here and there, and the banter between them plays on their generational divide (the woke but naive 20-something vs. the wise but crusty senior) with a heavy and predictable hand at times. But Smart and Einbinder are still electric together, and I can’t resist the opportunity to watch them go toe to toe.

Emma has been watching… 📺

“Dancing for the Devil: The 7M TikTok Cult,” the new Netflix documentary series about the Shekinah Church cult, its production arm, 7M, and its predatory founder, Robert Shinn. The three-part doc uses the Wilking family — the sister (Melanie) and parents (Kelly and Dean) of TikTok-famous dancer Miranda Derrick, who have been public about their anguish over Miranda’s involvement with Shekinah/7M— as a way into the story, and then zoom out, showing just how far the tentacles of Shekinah reach. (I was particularly moved by the stories of non-dancer former members Melanie and Pryscilla Lee.) I had been reading about Shekinah/7M for the last few years, but there was still so much I didn’t know. This is a story about religious exploitation, labor exploitation, and sexual exploitation — and a documentary that doesn’t shy away from the dark realities of what it means to leave a high-control group after years of being in. There isn’t a pat, easy ending to this story. Shekinah still very much exists, Miranda Derrick is still a member, and Shinn has decidedly not been brought to justice. I appreciate that this series demands that we not dismiss this story as just more viral true crime fodder, but instead asks us to look at the ongoing damage Shekinah is causing.

Photo Credit: Netflix

Claire has been listening to… 🎧

Camera Obscura’s “Look to the East, Look to the West,” a dreamy new album from one of the indie bands that has soundtracked my life since college. Like their earlier albums, “Look to the East” drifts along on a current of vibey, twinkly guitars and tambourine, lifted by simple but seductive melodies. It’s somehow both cheery and melancholy, which is Very Me, and exactly the kind of music I love to blast on a sunny day while I prep dinner in the kitchen or build block towers for the baby to knock down. Some favorites: “Big Love,” “We’re Going to Make It in a Man’s World,” “Denon,” and “Pop Goes Pop.”

I also finished “Beyond All Repair,” the true crime podcast I recommended last week. The end of the series complicates the framing put forward in the first few episodes, reintroducing significant doubt about the innocence of Sophia Johnson in the murder of her mother-in-law. Other crimes committed by Johnson emerge, as does a motive — and a detailed post-acquittal confession given initially to her partner, a trans man she met while they were in a women’s prison together, and then to an investigator. The way in which the podcast withholds these details before turning to them in the second half of the show is a reminder that police and prosecutors are not the only ones who shape our perceptions by editing and massaging the facts available. Amory Sivertson makes a persuasive case that Johnson may have been complicit in the murder without necessarily holding the weapon, as her years-old confession states. But also I have to agree with Johnson’s younger brother, Shane Correia, who maintains that the evidence simply wasn’t there to convict her, beyond a reasonable doubt, of the crime she was charged with.

Emma has been listening to… 🎧

As someone who came into the workforce during the rise and subsequent peak of the Girl Boss, I really enjoyed the Infamous podcast’s dive into the rise and fall of the hustle culture archetype. This story is told by looking at three companies that epitomize(d) different facets of the Girl Boss: Glossier, Nasty Gal and The Wing.

Also, I’ve been on a steady diet of Chappell Roan and Billie Eilish. I was just in San Francisco for a family wedding and my brother and sister-in-law had HOT TO GO! on repeat in our rental car. The perfect road trip soundtrack doesn’t exi—

Claire has been buying… 🛍️

An eyelet tank from The Great! Blame Dôen x GAP for this one (and my lack of self control). I was so disappointed that the collab’s eyelet tank only came in white that I searched out another eyelet sleeveless top in black. This one is technically a pajama top, and you can match it with eyelet tap shorts or pajama pants for an elevated sleep fit — or, like me, you can simply wear it as a daytime shirt. I already wear my Dôen Frances blouse constantly, so I’m glad to have another lacy but basic black top to add to my rotation.

I also exchanged my Everlane smocked gauze dress for a smaller size in the navy. Sadly the chocolate brown stripe was long gone, but the navy is a nice staple color, and it’s such a comfortable and easy-wearing dress for summer. Like the Hill House nap dresses, this one seems to run a full size down from street sizing, thanks to the smocking.

Emma has been buying… 🛍️

I’ve been seeing mesh flats everywhere for the last few months, but haven’t wanted to splurge on a designer pair that will surely go out of style within a few years. But when I stumbled upon these studded Jeffrey Campbell Gem Mesh Flats in Beige at Anthropologie in L.A., I couldn’t resist! (My bestie Laura and I both ended up buying them.) Not only are they a little weird in the best, fashion-y way, but they’re also SO FREAKING COMFORTABLE!!! Wearing these shoes feels like walking around in slippers, and they don’t give my narrow feet blisters like a lot of flats do. If you’re not into the beige, I also really love these seafoam Loeffler Randall ones which are on major sale right now (that cutie bow!), and these Sam Edelman Mary Janes in black.

Claire has been making… 🧶

Nothing new this week! My preschooler has been fighting dinner, and I’m starting to find it demoralizing. I know it’s not just the dinners themselves (often he even likes it once he agrees to taste the food) but the whole ordeal of washing hands and sitting down to eat when all he wants to do is smash toy cars into each other and make sound effects with his mouth. But it’s also true that I haven’t been going out of my way to make particularly kid-friendly meals. I want him to learn to eat everything! Sue me! Sometimes he surprises us with what he enjoys, like tofu tossed with chili peanut sauce. Often he surprises us with what he doesn’t enjoy, like chicken that has a slightly different sauce on it than usual. Still, I’m ready to give in and try to cook things optimized for his palate. But what? Most kid-friendly recipe ideas, I’ve noticed, depend heavily on cheese. I get it! I also love cheese. It’s just not a practical dinner ingredient right now, given that half of the family is dairy-free. Should we all just eat dino nuggets for the next six months? Please send help! My son will not countenance another chickpea!

Emma has been making… 🧶

I was traveling for most of the last week — the aforementioned L.A. and San Francisco jaunts — so I haven’t been cooking a ton. However, the warmer weather is making me crave summery snacks. I’m on the hunt for some amchur powder (dried green mango) so that I can properly make Malika Ameen/Tejal Rao’s Watermelon Chaat.

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