Hello and welcome to the latest installment of ~*Linky Links~*, a useful roundup of the best things I’ve been reading, watching, and snacking on over the past month. This month I’m highlighting a cool store in Japan, a song to drive down the riviera to, and a prestige TV show that asks: What if Phantom Thread was directed by someone who actually liked fashion? Enjoy!

Something to Watch

Ben Mendelsohn is SO good as Christian Dior in “The New Look.” Why aren’t more people watching this show! I’ve always had a soft spot for Dior as a historical figure, mainly because he seemed like A Decent Guy in Fashion and because he was just so undeniably gifted. There’s something so reassuring in seeing a talented, soft-spoken person succeeding in the field they’re obviously meant to be in. Kinda makes  you believe in fate, you know? See also: Miuccia Prada, Raf Simmons, Dries Van Notten, and many, many more.

Mendelsohn’s interpretation of Christian Dior is quiet, sweet, and dignified in the face of a rapidly changing world traumatized by the horrors of the Nazi occupation. “The New Look” takes its name from Dior’s signature feminine style, revolutionary at the time for its sumptuous fabrics and optimistic outlook. The show weighs questions like “How do you live after after the horrors of war?'“ and “How do you reclaim your life after trauma?”. It also offers an answer: to find your way forward, you have to create.

Something to Listen To

Something about me—I love gatekeeping! For example, I’m an Italo Disco girlie, but unlike every man I’ve ever dated, I refuse to make it anybody else’s problem. Keeping my interests to myself is my gift to you. I do, however, recommend blasting Donatella Rettore’s “Splendido Splendente” during your evening drive. It is the auditory equivalent of a dog wearing sunglasses. No, I will not elaborate! Just listen!

Donatella Rettore · Splendido splendente

Somewhere I Would Like To Go

It’s famously said that you can’t always get what you want, and I guess that also applies to Places You Would Want to Visit During Your Trip But There’s Just Not Enough Time to Hit Everything. I missed this cool Nagano bookshop Happy Days when I was in Japan this past September, but that’s just another reason to come back. I read about it when Popeye did a feature on the owner, which is about as close to a certified fresh seal as you can get on the internet. I love that they call themselves a “useless toy shop” because, same.

Something to Read

I first tried Baek Seehee’s memoir “I Want to Die But I Want to Eat Tteokbokki” as an audiobook, and I can tell you straight up, do not do that! The book follows a dialogue structure condensing real conversations the writer had with their psychiatrist while she was getting treatment for severe depression over a 12 week period. I don’t know if it was the narrator’s voice or the dialogue form that makes it feel like you’re reading a court stenographer’s transcript, but for some reason, conversations that read very intimate and raw on the page come off monotone and robotic in the audiobook. Which is maybe not what you’re looking for if you’re interested in reading about going to therapy?

Lucky for me I am a visual learner and can’t resist a good book cover. In print, “Tteokbokki” it’s a quick read that draws you in with a quiet sort of nostalgia for a self that’s no longer there. What sounds robotic over voice feels intimate and almost secret on the page. I guess that’s the difference between eavesdropping on somebody’s conversation with their doctor and reading their diary. It’s hard to find books that explore the strangeness and humor of going to therapy without making it feel deeply sad or turning the experience into a joke. You end up rooting for Baek not because you feel bad for her but because you can see yourself in her. I finished it in 2 days, which never happens anymore.

Something to Think About

All this week I’ve been shoving this New Yorker article by Patrick Radden Keefe in front of literally everyone I know, from dear friends to captive book club members. It tells the story of a British teenager whose body mysteriously washes up on the Thames. It’s revealed that he had been posing as an oligarch’s son to cut “business deals” with some shady people working in London real estate. His real parents are then left to put together the pieces of a case Scotland Yard chalks up to suicide, but might in fact be much more sinister than that.

I’ve been in the Patrick Radden Keefe hive (rise up Keefinators!) since “Empire of Pain” and in this article he manages to tie together boarding school politics, lower class angst, Russian oligarchs, colonialism, the London underworld, and “Saltburn” levels of teenage lying for the sake of striving above your station. It’s been a minute since I’ve followed any true crime, but this man never misses. The article even features an audio component, so you can listen to it like a podcast.

That’s it for this month! See you next time xoxo

-m

While you do that, consider my favorite quote from the (surprisingly attractive?) man himself:

“You often complained to me that people ‘Don’t understand you!’ Goethe and Newton did not complain of that… only Christ did, but he was speaking of His doctrine and not of Himself. People understand you perfectly well. And if you do not understand yourself, it is not their fault.”

Respectfully yours,

-M

I spent a little more time than I expected this morning reading The Cut’s article on The Most Covetable Things from Joan Didion’s Estate Sale. The unexpected bit came mostly because if you got me really drunk I would probably admit to you that I’ve always sort of thought Didion was kinda (whispers) overrated. Amazing pages, terrible fans.

To be a white girl who whispers “I looooove Joan Didion” communicates to me that you are someone who has Very Big Feelings but definitely had a boyfriend in high school, and go around saying “That’s so funny” instead of laughing like a normal person. The Emily Ratajowskis of the book aisle, if you will. And all that is fine! Girlbosses can read! Emma Roberts can have her book club, as a treat! But I have a hard time taking this kind of person seriously. This is obviously not Joan Didion’s fault, but if I’m going to pass on the entire Beat poets because too many men have told me I have to read them, I figured I’d apply the same rule to the female equivalent. Besides, my tastes veer more towards Fran Leibowitz basic.

Anyway, where was I? Oh yeah, the auction. I’ll say this about Joan Didion: she had one chic estate. They include fancy things (Celine sunglasses, a set of pink glass teacups) and useful things (reading glasses, a six-piece Le Creuset set). There are also, unsurprisingly, a lot of books. It got me thinking about what I would have for sale in my own estate sale. When I die, which I hope will be soon, who will take off with my twelve hundred fountain pens? My aesthetically pleasing productivity cube? My Timothee Chalamet pinup posters?

With all this in mind, here’s 5 things you’ll find in my estate auction:

1) Empty, decrepit tube of Weleda Skin Food Original Ultra Rich Cream. Also recommended by writer Stephanie Danler, the most aggressively thirsty Joan Didion acolyte I know. Hey, a throughline!
Estimated value: $10

2) The Princess Diaries, books 1-3. Literally tearing apart at the seams, as any well-loved book should be, this is a foundational text for my personality, writing style, and taste in men.

Estimated value: 25 cents.

3) Five broken French presses. This remains my favorite method for making coffee, and yet, even though it is literally fool proof, I truly don’t know anyone who has an intact French press.
Estimated value: $45

4) A CISCO Systems baseball cap from the eighties that I stole from my mom—my most prized possession currently. That is, if I’m not buried with it, because I do love the idea of becoming a skeleton in a baseball cap.

Estimated value: $150

5) Deck of Tarot Cards Curse on your family included!

Estimated value: $300, but the buyer must be a practicing witch so I can ask her questions from the afterlife.

6) Ironically, 6 unused notebooks, 2 of them also black Moleskines.

Estimated value: $1,000

7) Two untouched, never used mates with corresponding bombillas. The metaphor pretty much writes itself with this one.

Estimated value: $50

8) This money bank.

Estimated value: priceless

10) Cursed pile of SEPTA tokens. Every time I think I’ve gotten rid of the last of them, I’ll reach into the pockets of a pair of pants I haven’t worn in years and find another one. A regular monkey’s paw of the 21st century.

Estimated value: negative billion dollars.

Yours in life and beyond,

-M

For a while now I’ve subscribed to Kimberly Drew’s Something I Saw Today newsletter, where she emails a picture of an artwork per day. Years on, this is my favorite missive: a painting of James Baldwin by Beauford Delaney. For some reason I haven’t stopped thinking about it since. Actually, there are a couple of reasons! That yellow suit! That smirk! The texture background! Yellow Wallpaper who?

I especially love how Delaney’s use of color gives a playful spirit to depict an impressive intellectual mind. The usual move is present great minds in black and white portraiture, and Baldwin has certainly had plenty of those. Still, it’s refreshing to see him surrounded by color, buoyed by a world he so obviously loved. It’s often (and justly so) that we bring up heavy things when we talk about Baldwin, but it’s hard not to look at this painting and feel cheerful. The lesson here, I think, is that you can have both.

There are many reasons I’d want to be Olivia Laing (successful writer career, accent, gardening skills), but the main one is her house. I’ve spoken at length about how much I love to stalk creatives’ homes (not literally, just… uh… on the internet), but this particular one seems like a very chic hobbit hole. And that fireplace! Who doesn’t want a fireplace?

Fades out to “Jump” by Madonna,

-M