Hello, dear readers. I hope your respective summers have been going well. You may have noticed that this newsletter stopped coming for a while! I’d like to say that that is because I was on a whirlwind tour of Europe or somesuch, but it was actually because my cat got very sick, and it was not possible for me to think about much besides that. He’s not fully out of the woods yet, but he is doing better, which I know because I finally feel able to write this newsletter.

I don’t want to go into too much detail about the whole thing, since hearing about people’s sick pets is hard, and also the various people who have been getting daily updates from me about the whole saga deserve to hear something else for once. Suffice to say, neither of us have been having the time of our lives recently, but I have hopes that life will regain some balance in the days to come, and he has seemed more like himself in recent days. He is both very old and more resilient than I knew.

In the midst of all of this, I saw my old fave Jenny Lewis in concert. I’ve been seeing her live since about 2005 or 2006, and I almost didn’t go this time due to ~everything~, but it was literally my birthday, and so I went. And I had this moment when she came out where I felt this warm wave of nostalgia and good feeling for her. There she was! Again! I could not have needed a flush of endorphins more than at that very moment, so I’m very glad I went. She has this one song, called “Head Underwater,” and in it she sings, “There’s a little bit of magic/everybody has it/There’s a little bit of sand left in the hourglass.” I really needed to hear that there could be a little bit of sand left in the hourglass that night.

OK, that’s all I’ll say about it. We’re soldiering on over here. If you also have been having some tough times this summer, I hope you’re finding your moments of the exact right Jenny Lewis song (or the equivalent) to get you through it.

What I’m Filling My Hours With

I have seen a lot of movies in the last couple of weeks, for obvious reasons. Here’s why you should see all of them:

Joy Ride: This could not possibly have been better suited to my mood the day I saw it. It’s crass and hilarious and the perfect distraction. It’s about a group of four friends who end up on a misbegotten road trip in China due to the protagonist, a Chinese adoptee, needing some native Chinese speakers to help her close a business deal. Nothing goes as planned, friendships are tested, and it’s one of the most sex-positive movies I’ve ever seen. Everyone in it is great and I hope they get to make five sequels.

Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning Part One: I have seen a random assortment of these movies, and the plot of this one is extremely silly, but it also has some of the best and tensest action sequences I’ve seen in a movie recently. It’s also way funnier than I thought it would be, although it’s no Joy Ride. I hope Hayley Atwell has personally thanked the hair/makeup/costuming crew on this one, because she looks phenomenal throughout.

Asteroid City: I’ll always see a Wes Anderson movie. This one is about a play, and the action is both a filmed history of the creation of the play, as well as a technicolor version of the play. Did I understand everything that was going on in this one? I absolutely did not, and will be looking for interesting film criticism about it, since I did like it.

Barbie: Somehow the trailers for this movie didn’t give very much away, and yet the final product is exactly what was promised in them. It made me laugh, it had a lot of very talented people in it, and this is just about the only version of a movie about Barbie that I would have willingly seen in a movie theater. I’m not allowed to say more about the plot because a loyal reader of this newsletter hasn’t seen it yet.

And I have read quite a few books, too! Here are some reading recommendations:

Sam, by Allegra Goodman: This is a good one for my Massachusetts pals; it’s set in and around Beverly, and is a coming of age story about a young woman who is obsessed with rock climbing, and has an overburdened mother and a charming but oft-absent father. A lot about her formative years is sad and hard, but the book is really well-written, and even as it was sad, Sam is so compelling to follow along that you just want to stick with her and the hope for a better future for her.

Lone Women, by Victor LaValle: This one sort of straddles the line between fantasy and horror. It’s about a Black woman, Adelaide Henry, who moves to Montana after the mysterious death of her parents at the turn of the twentieth century. She’s there to take advantage of a policy that allows people to have land for free if they can make it livable, but the townspeople, and Adelaide herself, are more sinister than they seem at first. If you’re a wimp like me, I would say this was pretty unnerving at times, but never more than I could handle, and on a lighter note, it’s also about the wonders of found family.

Witch King, by Martha Wells: This is a traditional fantasy novel, about a (mostly) unkillable demon named Kai, who awakens to realize someone has imprisoned his decaying corpse in a trap. He frees himself, and his best friend, and then the two of them have to figure out who put him in there. The book switches back and forth between the present day and his investigation of who trapped him, as well as his past, and how he ended up in a situation where someone would think he was worth imprisoning. Kai is a really sweet main character; I feel like it’s somewhat rare to find a male hero who violently overpowers his opponents to be this devoid of machismo or some tortured backstory that makes him treat people horribly. He’s just a nice person! Or demon.

The House in the Cerulean Sea, by TJ Klune: Linus Baker works for a moderately sinister government agency where he’s called upon to investigate orphanages where magical children live to make sure they’re being treated well. He ends up on a very mysterious assignment at an island orphanage run by a handsome man (foreshadowing), and slowly begins to question the work he’s been doing. It’s very sweet, and kind of cozy, and a very good comfort read.

The One, by Julia Argy: This takes place on the set of a Bachelor-esque reality dating show, where the main character is set up from the start as the top contender to win it, in part because she’s so good at becoming what other people want her to be, especially men. But she starts to question whether that is what she wants as she’s also drawn to another one of the contenders. I actually was very frustrated by the end of this book, but enjoyed it up to that point, so I hope more people read it and then discuss the whole thing with me.

I’m also going hard on rom coms right now, so if you are into those, I read People We Meet on Vacation by Emily Henry, about two college friends who take an annual vacation together but are they also falling in love?? (Try to guess). And I read That Summer Feeling, by Bridget Morrissey, about a woman who is shocked to find herself going through a divorce and then goes to an adult summer camp with her sister in an effort to find herself and then falls for another camper. And finally, I’m just finishing up Love at First Set, by Jennifer Dugan, which is about a woman who drunkenly talks a bride into walking out on her wedding, only to find out the bride is her boss’ daughter and best friend’s sister. Then they fall for each other. It’s all quite a mess, but also there’s a lot of interesting class stuff at play, because the family she’s entangled with is very wealthy, and she’s from a single parent home without much money. There are some rom com contrivances that stand in their way, but also some serious issues about how hard it is to date across class. I think often dating a much wealthier person is played as a cool fantasy, but in reality seems very complicated, and I appreciate this book’s willingness to wade into it.

What I’m Reading Online

If you’ve seen Barbie, here’s a nice piece about one of the songs used in it. I would also love to read a piece about the other pop song that appears in it (you know the one), but haven’t seen one yet, so if you find one, please send it to me. I’m being very opaque about what I mean right now, again thanks to the newsletter reader who hasn’t seen Barbie. Hello to that reader.

This really reveals how long ago I was first working on this newsletter, but if you’re still interested in some submersible coverage, I found this piece from a journalist who joined OceanGate for a press trip last year a good read.

I loved this piece about John Fetterman and his issues with depression. What a brave and important choice to talk this publicly about what happened.

A professor at Texas A&M said something about the lieutenant governor in a lecture, no one seems quite sure what, and then a politically connected student told him and she got suspended from her job temporarily.

I’m also reviewing The Afterparty for the newsletter Episodic Medium! I’ve found the season so far to be quite fun. You have to be a subscriber to read my reviews, but I’m a big fan of that newsletter generally and recommend it if you love really thoughtful TV coverage.

This is a fun love letter to Raiders of the Lost Ark, if that’s your kind of thing. I also saw the new Indiana Jones movie, but somehow that feels simply TOO LONG ago to include in my movie list even though it really wasn’t.

I’m not sure if this newsletter is going to go back to weekly right away. I will try to send it when I’m in the mood, but don’t read too much into it if it doesn’t come some weeks. You never know, I might be on a whirlwind tour of Europe.