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,
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
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,
It’s hard times for readers. Never before had we had so much time to read and so little attention span to process the information presented before our eyeballs. Is it just me or is your brain just start screaming every time you try to read anything that isn’t Samantha Irby or Harry Potter? My brain just sounds like an Egyptian mummy now. It’s unnerving. Screams used to come from my mouth!
As your on call literary doctor I recommend the following medicine: art books, or as I prefer to call them, the elevated adult version of children’s picture books. Phaidon, Taschen and Rizzoli tend to have the best (and most expensive) specimens, but there are plenty of . Here are five of my favorites.
I have this whole secret imaginary life that’s completely in my head where I work in graphic design for film sets. I really can’t think of anything more fun: designing props that will get marginal attention by viewers and yet are absolutely essential to establishing the mood of a film. Think about all the film worlds with a you love - Harry Potter, Paddington, anything Wes Anderson touches- and chances are you wouldn’t remember them if they didn’t have a prop designer with a strong point of view. This book gives proper attention to the practice and makes my detail-centric mind shake its metaphorical tail with delight. Written by Annie Atkin’s, otherwise known as Wes Andersons’ main prop genius, it’s a perfect tome for when you just need to look at something orderly and pretty.
"When we’re little we’re brainwashed with history that’s just facts and dates. I try to imagine it back to life with more reality and a sense of humor. Being Irish, you have to have a wicked sense of humor. Some think my work is dark, some think it’s crazy, some just think it’s hilarious." -GF
A Fragonard Acid Trip is how I’d describe Figgis’s work, which caught my eye on Instagram a few years ago. The Irish artist uses puddles of pastels to create an “underlying, decadent perversion” to portraits of nameless French royalty and eyeless baroque ghosts. If this sounds like a nightmare to you, guess what? You’re already living in one! Might as well make it pastel!
I find it really hard to watch travel shows knowing that the soonest I’ll be able to travel north of the Pacific will be in, like, 2025. It’s just too painful to think about the summer I could have had, spilling Aperol spritzes on my spaghetti-themed Hawaiian shirt, if it weren’t for the fact that we have an administration who doesn’t believe in science. My solution? Turn my traveling eyes somewhere that was already off-limits pre COVID-19.
Inside North Korea takes you on a visual tour of Pyongyang’s pastel-decked gymnasiums, government buildings, and theaters to show the “socialist fairyland” of Kim Jong-Un’s dreams. Erased by bombing during the Korean War, the capiral city was rebuilt from scratch from 1953, in line with the vision of the nation’s founder, Kim Il Sung. At once brilliant and unsettling, the whole thing feels sort of like what would happen if Wes Anderson designed a gulag.
This little book is technically not a coffee table book (it’s more like the size of a Harry Potter book) but it’s an essential part of any art historian’s library. It manages to list the complete oeuvre of the Nepalese street-murderer-turned-Baroque-legend, and really approachable look at the artist’s life while avoiding the usual encyclopedic dimensions of most Serious Art Books. Jargon-free and lots of pictures: my favorite!
There’s been a lot of talk about how Edward Hopper is the representative artist of 2020 Quarantine, mostly because his subjects spend a lot of time alone, cooped up in empty, enclosed spaces. I don’t understand this at all because for me the king of quarantine is Giorgio de Chirico. Empty city landscapes, brutalist urban architecture, a creeping sense that everyone has fled the streets for their safety... Maybe it’s all the straight lines and arches, but there’s an angular, straightforward simplicity to a De Chirico that’s very “we are the virus.” If Hemingway painted, he would paint like this.
If you were lucky enough to catch the Georgia O’Keefe: Living Modern exhibit at the Brooklyn Museum years ago, then your name isn’t Magali Roman. My consolation prize is this beautiful coffee table book about O’Keefe’s famous Santa Fe ranches, which have been my inspiration for retirement since I learned what a cowbell does. I am obsessed with Georgia O’Keefe because, among other things, she was basically the Baba Yaga of the desert. Literally all I dream about is becoming an old crone and crawling into a minimalist ranch like a hermit crab, where I can live the remainder of my days shooting scorpions off my property. This book is my moodboard until then.
Go forth and read like the wind!