Since coming back from the wilderness, I’ve been on a manic tear through my house, deleting everything from my life that doesn’t seem absolutely essential. Some version of this always happens whenever I come back from living out of a suitcase for a few weeks. Usually, I will have forgotten what I own and, instead of coming back grateful and surprised, I recoil in horror and confusion at the sheer amount of stuff I have. I truly believe that keeping around under-utilized, un-beloved items weighs heavily on the psyche.
Similarly, I am a bit allergic to watching, reading, or listening to things that are bad. I’m not afraid to feel pretentious when I say this. I love reality television and cheesy movies, so that’s not what I mean if you were thinking of it that way. Those things are good in a way that I am ripe to defend. I mean that I cannot watch Peacock original slop or enjoy half-baked cultural criticism (even if I sometimes write it!). I try my absolute best to resist the endless churn of content in favor of weed whacking my own preferences out of the material I’m presented with.
If you’ve read my last essay, you know that I’m a bit obsessed with quality at the moment. This comes on the heels of a previous month of research about algorithms and streaming services, my main takeaway from which being that we need more mindful consumption, more curators. I don’t want the algorithm telling me what to pay attention to, I need some girl with no job to find me the best books, goddamnit!
I don’t really consider myself a curator. I wasn’t born with good taste. Living in New York makes you realize that children born to the creative class have a leg up in all the ways that matter, even if their parents are still struggling through the art world. My parents raised me on the Adult Alternative Pandora station and bananas with brown spots.
But I do care a lot about things that are good. And even more, I respect the audience that reads me. I’ve never participated in a sponsored post and I doubt I ever will. I don’t want to fill your feed with more slop. For a reason totally baffling to me, people regularly ask me for my book recommendations, about the shoes I’m wearing, about the recipes I make, and in the interest of quality, I thought I would be the change and start a general, monthly recommendation series of things that are actually good.
The things I recommend will of course depend on what struck me most that month, but you can expect a wide range — books, movies, albums, clothes, habits, recipes, mantras, objects… as usual, I’d hate to box myself in here. Recommendation roundups will be available monthly for paid subscribers.
This month, I’m talking about David Lynch’s transcendental meditation, eco-friendly habits, books that make men like reading, the shoes on my Instagram story that prompted 50 replies, an actually good vegan mac n cheese recipe, and so much more.
Welcome!