Hello there,
Happy New Year! Everything, globally speaking, is still terrible. More than 50 countries hold elections this year, and there is a non-zero chance US democracy will not survive 2025.
Hope you're hanging in there, and in the meantime, here are some things to distract you.
Watch
Last night I saw a movie in an actual theater and it was one of the best movies I’ve seen in a long time. American Fiction is laugh-out-loud funny, moving, thought-provoking, and an incredibly gratifying watch. It's perfectly cast, superbly written, and has fantastic set design that makes every scene just that much funnier. There's also a hilarious writing scene that is different from any on-screen depiction of writing you've ever watched. It's everything a good movie should be.
A few streaming options I’ve enjoyed recently:
Society of the Snow (Netflix): Not for the faint of heart, this depicts in graphic detail the true story of a Uruguayan rugby team who survived a plane crash in the Andes. Some of it is hard to watch, but it's beautifully done and the end is such a welcome relief.
Unknown: Cosmic Time Machine (Netflix): This short documentary tells the story of how the James Webb Telescope came to be and against all odds was finally launched and worked. At a time of so much conflict, it's heartening to see what happens when people actually work together for the good of humanity.
Criminal Code (Netflix): This Brazilian series shows a different corner of the hopeless drug war as Brazilian federal police try unsuccessfully to stamp out organized crime along the Brazil-Paraguay border. While sometimes a bit melodramatic, it's decently written without getting too novela-y, and has lots of action if you're into that.
Read
I realized that recently I've been reading a lot of depressing memoirs. Two of some of the best books I read in 2022 and 2023, I'm Glad My Mom Died and Solito, respectively, fell in this category, and without realizing it I read a bunch more in the last few months.
There's something of a guilty pleasure in reading memoirs. It's harder to let yourself cast judgment on the story because it actually happened, and often the best memoirs are the most upsetting ones. It's admittedly voyeuristic, and a huge leap of faith that the author is telling the truth and did the work to retrace their steps through family and friends rather than just rely on their memory.
How to Say Babylon is the kind of book that felt physically painful to read at times. Since the author is a poet, it's beautifully written. It retraces the life of a woman who grew up in a strict Rastafari household in Jamaica with an abusive father, and how she managed to write her way out. I loved the whole book except for the end, and even so it's well worth the read.
I was loathe to even pick up Spare, Prince Harry's memoir, given all the hype, but out of curiosity I got the audio book and really enjoyed it. Because it's ghost-written, it's really eloquent, and even though most of it is just deeply sad, I found it oddly relaxing to listen to. I guess this was the point of the book, but I was surprised just how much I pitied someone with so much money and power. But I find it hard to believe anyone could read this and still think that Great Britain should maintain the monarchy.
Motherland is one journalist's story of growing up in Venezuela and escaping its spectacular collapse while caring for her disabled mother who couldn't leave. It's really two parallel stories, that of the recent history of Venezuela and her extremely troubled family history, and is so deeply bleak that I can only recommend this if you're really up for it. That said, it is a must-read if you're interested in how democracies die; her description of watching her country's gradual descent into authoritarianism made my hair stand on end.
I learned about Brutalities: A Love Story because the author, like me, is a New Yorker who relocated to the Southwest, and I was intrigued. But the similarities end there, because the author — in spite of a wealthy upbringing — has had a life more difficult than I could ever imagine, including careers in sex work, welding on skyscrapers, and farming, all the while enduring more physical abuse than seems humanly possible.
See the full list of recommendations.
Follow
I've been enjoying these two dog accounts on Instagram:
Little Manyu, a pampered Chinese Shiba inu
Bean, a Husky/Aussie mix in San Francisco
Do
I've gotten really into Tradle, a game where you try to guess the country based on its exports, and this week I learned about a country I didn’t know existed: the Pitcairn Islands. It's a tiny British overseas territory with a fascinating history and an absolutely horrifying modern-day scandal involving a third of the country's male population.
Until next time,
Rachel