Wading Into Oscars Season
RECS #31: The businesses fighting loneliness, a Spanish feast at MyMoon, and a very short ode to clean sheets.
Dear friends,
As I alluded to last week, there are few redeeming parts of January, but the beginning of awards season and the announcement of the Oscar nominations make this long, onerous month more bearable. My parents were great hosts growing up—and their annual Oscars party was one I looked forward to every year. Throughout the afternoon and into the evening—we were on west coast hours—everyone snacked on cheese and charcuterie, sipped on beer (real and fake), and groaned over snubs. It was, to me, sophistication and joy embodied.
I love thinking and talking about this silly and mostly arbitrary list of movies, and I will be doing so until the ceremonies on March 2nd. By then, I will hopefully have seen all of the Best Picture nominees; so far, I’ve seen seven of the ten. Here are a few of the other things that I’ve been talking about this week.
READING: After lots of talking about it, I’ve begun John le Carré’s “The Spy Who Came in From the Cold.” I’m only twenty pages in, so I have very little to say except that le Carré’s introduction is critical and poignant when read today. He asks, “how far can we go in the rightful defense of our Western values without abandoning them along the way?” Whether our “Western values” are defensible at this point feels less important than the more existential question of how quickly are we willing to forget our morals within our efforts to uphold them. We exist in a chaotic and rapidly changing news cycle, so I’ve been keen on writing that makes me laugh or doesn’t involve anything related to the state of the U.S. government. In the former category exists Naomi Fry’s critical analysis of Lauren Sanchez’s Inauguration outfit. “At long last, we were back: women once again equalled boobs, men once again equalled hard-ons, order was being restored, decline was being averted,” Fry sarcastically observes. “God Bless America.” Otherwise, this piece about the attention economy is fun in the sense that it posits that maybe, just maybe, we’re all overdoing it with the freak outs over our dwindling attention spans. And, this New York Mag story about the businesses that are trying to sell a solution to the loneliness epidemic is snarky and fabulous.
EATING: Last Friday night, I bundled up and met Dani for dinner at MyMoon, a Spanish restaurant in Williamsburg. We started with a Brussels sprouts salad and patatas bravas. The savory crunch of the former was complemented by cranberries and a bright, punchy vinaigrette. As our appetizers were taken away, a piping hot skillet arrived at the table filled with juicy thigh meat and garlicky rice. We devoured the whole tray before paying the bill and waltzing over to Williamsburg Cinemas for a 9:15 p.m. showing of “Babygirl.” Most of my other standout meals were eaten at home last week, and I have photos of not a single one of them. Andrea joined me at one point for a dinner of Molly Baz’s tomato soup (from her first cookbook “Cook This Book”), quesadillas, and salad. And on Saturday, the trivia crew came to Conor’s for an evening of Thai food from Sala Thai and a viewing of “Nickel Boys.” The following day, I continued our new Sunday morning tradition of post-run-club bagels and picked up Kossar’s. I’ve been enjoying pumpernickel recently and this one was just the right amount of sweet, chewy, and earthy. Mine had scallion-bacon cream cheese, onions, and tomatoes—the ideal balance of crunchy and creamy.
CONSUMING: Since watching “Babygirl,” I’ve been telling everyone that its plot is thin as a single layer of chiffon and that it is also so much fun. The combination of pop music, horny rich people, and beautiful country homes reminded me a lot of “Saltburn,” which I did not like, but was similarly heavy on vibes and promiscuity. On the other hand, “Nickel Boys,” which we watched on Saturday, demands a lot of patience from its audience as it flips silently between orange trees, a suit hanging from a car door, a tractor driving through the campus of Nickel Academy, or wherever else our main characters decide to rest their gaze. The film is shot entirely in first person, and it swaps between the perspectives of two boys at a segregated reform school in Florida that abuses and uses its students for profit. It’s a cruel film in the sense that it hardly lingers on the cruelty at all. Like last year’s “Zone of Interest,” we don’t bear witness to most of the evil that underscores the film—though we know it’s always there, suffocating every single choice these characters make.
SAVORING: Simply, clean sheets on my bed. I’ll admit that sometimes, during the cold months, I don’t get around to changing my bedding as often as I should. I tell myself it’s because I’m only home half the time and I don’t sweat as much in the winter, but I still try to wash them every Monday when I do my laundry. It is without a doubt the best way to start the week—putting on freshly washed pajamas and slipping under the covers. It’s like stepping out of the shower on a sweaty day in the middle of summer or entering a bakery just after it’s opened. In soft, enveloping cotton there is quiet and safety and comfort. Over the past few weeks, I’ve been savoring it more than ever.
Happy weekend,
Erin
As always, love this but especially the clean sheets thing. Even better after you’ve just shaved your legs :)