Issue #141: Damp, girl.
Good morning, shoppers!
Here’s one for you: What did one cheese say to the other?
I Camembert. : (
Anyway!
Add to cart,
Kase + Maggie
Sometimes, the best place to be is nowhere at all. As of late, I’ve been setting up shop on my sofa, all my lights turned down low, air conditioner blasting to the high heavens, a sweating glass of iced tea in my hands and I just bask in the glow of something, anything really, radiating from my television screen. On this week’s slate? The Farewell (2019), Lulu Wang’s comedy-drama about a Chinese-American family who, upon learning that their matriarch only has months left to live, decides not to tell her she’s been diagnosed with a terminal illness. In just an hour and 40 minutes, Wang explores what keeps family together through the lens of a decision that threatens to tear them apart. A must-see. –MC
It was so hot yesterday that when I was walking home from the train, I was visibly sweating from the top of my kneecaps. My kneecaps. Unacceptable. The only answer is to head straight to the town pool. If you’ve ever accompanied a little kid to a crowded pool, you know that it’s anything but a relaxing experience. My kid begs me to hurl her as far as I can into the water, over and over again, and if you think she cares about her little body projectiling into another kid, you’d be sadly and thoroughly wrong. That’s on me. Lives, plural, are in my hands. So when I got the chance to go to the pool solo the other day and finally test out these waterproof headphones that use some it’s-bluetooth-but-not-bluetooth technology, it was just….bliss. Cool water. My audiobook, streaming, giving me that sweet, sweet plot whether I was swimming back and forth or staring, unmoving and dead-eyed, into the middle distance. No children yelling at me to yeet them. Just being a person trading marinating in sweat for marinating in chlorinated water. For a brief moment, I felt what people must feel when they say that going to the pool is fun. It was nice. —KW
The “hot girl” brand seems to grow stronger with every passing moment. It may have started with hot girl summer (a hit song and/or a state of mind, depending on who you ask) and has since evolved into hot girl walks, a salad, playlists galore … I could go on. One bright spot in the Hot Girl multiverse is a Goodreads list titled, “Hot Girl Books.” Its description, while lacking any semblance of proper punctuation, gets straight to the point: “Books hot girls read.” Eve Babitz, visual artist, memoirist, Taurus and legendary literary babe, makes four appearances in the 99-title collection for her works Sex and Rage, L.A. Woman, Eve’s Hollywood and Black Swans. The inclusion made me smile considering I just bought a copy of Slow Days, Fast Company: The World, The Flesh and L.A., a sizzling book she penned in 1977 to seduce an elusive man. As New York Review Books so masterfully put it, “In the end it doesn’t matter if Babitz ever gets the guy—she seduces us.” What’s hotter than that? –MC
Once upon a time, I was Facetiming with one of my gals while she told me about her greatest passion in life: buying three-wick candles at Bath and Body Works. She reverently pulled each jar out of that little brown bag with the twine handles, you know the one, and named the scent. Her greatest find ever? Spooky Vanilla. “Oooh, that sounds cool, what does that smell like?” I asked. “Vanilla. But it has a ghost on the label.” Indeed. Ever since then, she and I have had a running joke about living the Spooky Vanilla lifestyle: Pretty normal, but with a ghost on it. All this is to say that by the time you’re reading this, I’ve probably once again missed out on getting to the Home Depot 12-foot skeleton restock before it sells out. My husband has asked me multiple times where we’d store it when we’re not using it, and multiple times, I have not understood the question. I still don’t understand the question. We’d store it on our lawn, of course, where it would live. Always. Probably in different seasonal hats, to keep things tasteful and the spookiest vanilla they could be. —KW
Barbie, Greta Gerwig’s take on the Mattel staple, doesn’t hit theaters for another eight days and yet, I’m already suffering from Barbie-induced fatigue. Did I jump at the chance to buy tickets the moment I could? Are my toenails currently a shade better suited for the Barbie Dreamhouse than my feet? Have I gasped at all the looks on the seemingly endless press tour? Yes, yes and yes. And now, Birkenstock, which serves as a punchline in the film, seems to have been Barbie-fluenced, whether they realize it or not. The waterproof version of their beloved Arizona slide (which turns 50 this year) now comes in candy pink. A shade that used to remind me of cotton candy but now, I will forever associate with Margot Robbie. –MC
It seems like anyone who’s gone to summer camp is nostalgic for it, and the Fresh Air Fund wants to help more kids have days that they’ll look back on as the good ol’ days. Since 1877, the group has helped underserved New York City-area kids have summer camp experiences, as well as leadership and educational experiences throughout the rest of the year. Help a kid live out their Parent Trap fantasies—consider getting involved or donating.