No Regrets, Coyote

Volitional reconsumption

Via PostSecret

The Sunday Letter #21

Last week, I wrote about being in the midst of buying our first home, and the ensuing anxieties of such a whirlwind process. Today I can report back that we’ve officially signed the mortgage and will be moving into our new home next week! And because when it rains it pours, I’m also going through a hectic period at my day job, traveling, and committing to a ton of new projects. But: all good things!

I’d first seen our new house when it was listed for sale many months ago, before we were ready to move. I remember thinking it would be my dream to live in a house just like it, with huge windows, natural light, gorgeous crown moulding, and mature trees lining the backyard. I checked the listing constantly, imagining how I would decorate each room. But it was outside of our price range and I told myself it was time to move on—something great would come along one day, even if it wasn’t this one. Lo and behold, July rolled around, the house was still available, and within a month we’d already signed possession papers. Tomorrow we get the keys. Tbh, this has been the ideal scenario for someone like me, impulsive with absolutely no patience for the things I want.

look at her!

I’m looking forward to spending the next few weeks setting up my new office, recharging, and coming back with more time and energy to devote to this newsletter (and another project I’ll be launching in August, stay tuned for that one…)

Along with packing and moving, I’ll also be travelling next week with my mom and sister. Fear not, because my brilliant friend

abby

has graciously agreed to write next week’s Sunday letter, in the first ever Solitary Daughter guest post. I think this will be a fun way to take a little break while still getting to showcase smart writing from my cool pals.

See ya in August!

This week’s recommendations

The following reviews were published during the WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes of 2023. The work would not exist without the labour of writers and actors. You can learn more about how to support the labour strikes here and here.

In preparation for Barbie, I watched Singin’ in the Rain (dir. Gene Kelly and Stanley Donen, 1952) after Greta Gerwig referenced it in her Letterboxd interview. I was not prepared for the dark jokes and crude, modern humour, and I was thinking about the infamous first-take dancing scene for days afterward. When Barbie featured an extended Singin’ reference, I got to smugly point it out to my friends afterwards, so it was all worth it.

As for Barbie? Listen, I didn’t have strong attachments going in. I think we had two Barbie’s growing up, and we cut one’s hair to make her into a Ken. I thought a lot about the film was sweet, some of it was underdeveloped, some of it was hamfisted. It was a fun summer film that spawned a million think pieces (I really enjoyed

Consumption Report

’s review) and maybe it’s my limited brain space these days, but I don’t have a ton more to offer. I loved the practical effects and the doll-like body movement employed by the actors. I enjoyed the snappy Baumbach/Gerwig humor, and I appreciated Gerwig’s signature feel-good charm. I wrote a few months ago that Gerwig’s schtick is that she is “blisteringly intelligent but simultaneously never cruel; she is somehow optimistic in her portrayal of humanity without being naive,” and that was consistent for Barbie.

In the end, it’s not a film that can please everyone. It tries and fails to please everyone, then says it knows it can’t please everyone, tying its self-consciousness to that of all women. So is it “successful,” or not? Well, it’s certainly not my favourite of Gerwig’s work (Frances Ha you have my heart) but I think it will mark an interesting turning point in Gerwig’s career—where that will lead, who knows.

There was just something so special about going to my local theatre on a Friday night and being surrounded by people dressed in their best pink get-ups and costumes and having an absolute ball together. Our pink-clad group ran into a gang of older women on the way out of the film, and we took their photo in front of the Barbie poster for them and vice versa. It was like looking into a mirror of older selves and it was a perfect capstone to a night with Gerwig.

Sidenote: I know Gerwig had plenty of influences for the film, and the scene above was a direct remake of 2001: A Space Odyssey (dir. Stanley Kubrick, 1968). But the visual reference itself of Barbie as a giant reminded me of Yorgos Lanthimos’ V Magazine photoshoot from 2016, which, ironically, also exemplified the uneasiness of growing into one’s body as a young woman in order to sell swimwear. Hmm!

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Are you a TV re-watcher? We have quite a few comfort re-watches in our house (30 Rock, Veep, It’s Always Sunny, I Think You Should Leave, Curb Your Enthusiasm, and Harvey Birdman are a few examples). Apparently, there’s a term for this: volitional reconsumption. But why do we love re-watching things? Why do so many shows, such as Girls, end up having resurgences years after ending? The Vox article on the topic mentions how nostalgia plays a role in re-watching old favourites ten and twenty years down the line, or with a loved one who hasn’t yet seen the film or show:

The definition of nostalgia is a yearning for the past. It’s a desire to go back to a previous time. What I found in my research is that it’s not so much [participants] were yearning for the past. It’s that the rewatching experience allowed them to appreciate how much they had grown. It wasn’t yearning for the past; it was an appreciation of the present.

All that to say, lately we’ve been rewatching Curb, which has fallen off in recent seasons. But the early seasons remain masterpieces, with season two’s The Doll (2001) a special standout due entirely to Susie Essman’s delivery of “hystericaaal.” Where’s Susie’s EGOT???

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Anne Helen Petersen

on a contentious and very relatable issue: why do we place so much stress on ourselves over how our houses are “supposed to” look?

To have (and spend) on a home was to align yourself with the American capitalist spirit — and the home itself was positioned as a site of personal and familial growth. You became a better person through the cultivation of your home, which was also a site to manifest your creativity, your commitment, your domesticity.

A gorgeous essay from my Bookstagram pal

Swati Sudarsan

: “I am not with family, but I am with people who read my story.”

I enjoyed this Twitter thread from Naomi Klein on doppelgängers in film.

Filling Station, a short 1979 poem by Elizabeth Bishop: “Somebody loves us all.”

a. natasha joukovsky

on “the riddle of the artist”:

as we’re increasingly incentivized to give more and more of our attention to who-based minutia, the less mental real estate we have for under-biographed art/ content we’d theoretically find far more worthwhile.

From LitHub, Joy Williams on writer’s block:

Perhaps the disease, the dilemma, the affliction is trying to tell the writer something. Much that is being produced is unnecessary, indulgent. When the sincerity, the weird naivete and enchanted stupor of writing leaves the host—the writer—one can only pray for their return, their reintegration.

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Saskatoon’s finest, Joni Mitchell. No regrets, coyote.

Reading: “I’m currently reading Jamaica Kincaid’s Lucy. I’ve been familiar with her work for so long and it’s been a literary feast diving into her work. I’m also finishing up Next of Kin by Jae. It’s older Law and Order: SVU fanfic that was reworked into a novel. I really love indie romance books and Jae is delivering with this sapphic interpretation.”

Watching: “Earlier this year I finished the complete series of Poirot on BritBox. So I’ve fallen into a massive British detective hole. I’m ripping through the tv series Vera and debating if I should pick up one of the books the show was based on.”

Listening: “Candle Flame – Opolopo remix by Jungle and Summerlude by Benny Sings have been going pretty strong for me these past days. And a healthy dose of Ella Fitzgerald when I need some background music for reading.”

Life, etc: “My days have been filled with books, friends, and family. With the occasional jaunt to the bars for a crisp sour beer.”

P.S. You can find Ify on Instagram @ifyaboutbooks!

New phrase of the week: ars longa, vita brevis — Latin translation — meaning “skilfulness takes time, and life is short.” Courtesy of

Henry Oliver

’s recent post, “How to read the canon.”