Linky Links: May Edition
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!
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