Story Time!

A funny thing about moving house is it’s not really that funny at all. It’s actually largely boring, traumatizing, expensive, inconvenient, and ultimately really generally destabilizing. Even when it's an upgrade, and you’re doing it so that your life will improve (even sometimes drastically!) at first it doesn’t really matter: your things used to be one way, and now they’re another, or you can’t find them. And maybe you need all new things now. Everyone tells you it’s a great time to cleanse and clarify and clear out the things you don’t want and be really intentional about the future, and I’m sure all that’s probably true, but at the end of the day you need to get your things moved from one place to another, even if that other place is a donation center, and that is exhausting. I don’t feel particularly clarified. I feel like I can’t find my socks.

Anyways, that’s one reason why I haven’t written in a while. We moved! To another canyon in Los Angeles! We’re excited about it. More to come on that matter, because I’m still hunting for perfect lamps to go with the perfect rugs I’ve found (more on which when I’m ready)—and you know, nearly everything else. The really good news is the 40 boxes of my books that have been patiently waiting on the east coast for the past 3 years are finally tumbling their way home to me… 

So yes, I’ve been busy. Do you have some gorgeous lamps to show me? How about seating options? No? Ok then, onto the other news! 

I interviewed Billie Eilish for the November cover of Vogue. (Hold for applause.) (Just kidding.) (Kind of.) It is very excitingly, for me, my first print cover. It’s her fourth (American) if you include the digital one her dog, Shark, got earlier this year (“Dogue”). Such is life when you’ve been super famous, extraordinarily talented, and extremely interesting for the entirety of your teenage years. The shoot is beautiful, and I love the styling. I think her new album, Hit Me Hard and Soft, is her best to date, and I loved spending some time with the person behind it. (The people, if you include her brother Finneas and her mother, Maggie, which given the tight-knit nature of this family, you probably should.) As one of her best friends Nat Wolff (who, along with his brother, Alex, is also opening for her on tour right now) told me, “Billie's music gave me faith in the music industry way before I ever met her, and then getting to know her gave me faith in humanity.” Note to all of you, get best friends eager to toot your horn. That didn’t even make it in the piece! Imagine all the stuff that did! (You don’t have to imagine—go read it. Let me know what you think.) 

On the topic of good friends to have, Padma Lakshmi also rates pretty highly— when I profiled the wonderful Ali Wong for this month’s InStyle (two covers! I know!) she went long on Ali’s appeal but never in a way that felt anything less than 100% sincere. There are so many inspirational bullshit quotes about women supporting women, or true friends wanting to see you shine, etc. but it is truly is so genuinely important to have people in your life who are not only thrilled to see you succeed but want to celebrate it, and I worry that in this hyper competitive doomscroll of a world of ours not everyone has something even remotely close to that. So it’s nice to see it play out in practice, rather than in theory.

It was also such a treat to talk to Ali, and not just because she reduced me to deep belly laughs several times over lunch. It was great to see her perform live in Santa Barbara on the last night of her tour. I’ve admired her comedy for its raunchy honesty since Baby Cobra, and her undeniable talent in projects like Beef and Always Be My Maybe. I’m excited for what she’s got coming up next. The shoot is also really fun—you can tell when someone really enjoys fashion, and she does. She also looks terrific. As Padma told me “she’s ageless…she could be 45 or 29! You can’t tell from looking at her,” which I later repeated to Ali because I think everyone should hear a professionally gorgeous person sing their praises, and she told me the following:

Ali Wong: This is a very random story, I met Garth Brooks. Was it like 2 years ago? He had no idea who I was. 

ATC: Amazing.

Ali Wong: Someone was like, ‘oh I love your special where you're pregnant.’ He was like ‘you have children? How old are you?!’ I was like, I'm 40. ‘I thought you were 16!’

ATC: You're like, ‘I'm a teen mom from the show Teen Mom.’ 

Ali Wong: Yes! He was like ‘I thought you were 16 years old.’ And then he told other people later, because I had a whole conversation with him, and he told other people, he was like, ‘have you met that girl, Ali Wong? I thought she was 16 years old!’ and I was like okay, either I do look young, or Garth Brooks has never seen an Asian person in his life. 

Jury’s out! Anyways. I loved profiling her. Did you watch Single Lady on Netflix? What did you think?

More visual stimulation: I can’t stop looking at (/coveting) 92 year old Bogota-born Olga de Amaral’s gold-rippled textile art, currently on view at Foundation Cartier. I think if I had one of these on my wall I would never be sad or cranky or lazy or hungover again. I wouldn’t even mind that a lot of our furniture won’t be here for several more weeks. Just me? 

I’ve been listening to Bella Freud’s new podcast, Fashion Neurosis with Bella Freud, on Spotify, where she has various boldfaced names on her couch to analyze their feelings about how they dress and why. Rick Owens’ episode is great. I wore a Bella Freud silk shirt with a tuxedo out in New York two weekends ago and felt like approximately 10 million USD. She’s always nailed something important about clothes for me. I think it’s that it feels like how interesting adults dress. You feel smart, playful, alluring. More so because of the smart part. Also, it’s fun just to listen to smart people talk about getting dressed.

Also in New York! The new (to me) Chelsea Hotel is sumptuous, gorgeous, possibly (/definitely) haunted. If I lived in New York I’d haunt that bar, without a doubt. The rooms are so comfortable, the staff was heaven, the whole place is perfection. I don't know why hotels in New York are so insanely expensive but if they’re going to be they may as well also be a good experience top to bottom.

Oh, and! Gus & Marty’s is my new favorite place to eat in the whole city, and it’s in Williamsburg, that’s how much I mean it, I’ll travel for it. Delicious. Fun. Buzzy. You will not regret it. I regret only that I can’t go again right this instant. Get the lightly fried sardines, the caviar-topped taramasalata, the branzino, the moussaka, the gyro, the fries….. you get the idea. Bring a group, order the whole menu. Thank me later.

I’ve been watching: English Teacher (Hulu), hilarious, humane. I want 36(+) more episodes immediately. People have compared it to Abbott Elementary but I think that’s just because it’s also set in a school. Education is an incredibly (and increasingly!) bizarre and hugely important field, there’s room for a million different shows about it.

La Maison (AppleTV+). The world of high fashion is pretty historically difficult to get right in film and tv. I don’t know why, it just is. Maybe because everything is already so often ridiculous and dramatic. (I liked Phantom Thread as much as the next PTA acolyte, but that’s like saying Amadeus is about the world of classical music. It is, but...) This French show—charting the succession struggles at a fictional scandal-rocked Parisian house—at least looks as expensive as its subject matter, which is a well-heeled step in the right direction.

La Chimera (Prime). It took me forever to get around to this beautiful, mythic little gem from Alice Rohrwacher (I loved this interview with her and her sister, Alba, in the FT), which was definitely not meant to be watched on a plane but carried me beautifully across the country from coast to coast. It’s achingly beautiful, wonderfully shot and acted. A dreamy little escapist fable. I can't wait to watch it again, not on a seatback screen. 

Did you know that Los Angeles has a natural history museum? I didn’t. I mean, I assumed, but I’d never thought about it. It’s facing the USC rose garden, which I also did not know existed and am now obsessed with. I went last week with friends to see the newly rejuvenated diorama hall and my god! It’s wonderful! If I had a small child I would bring them there every day. The dinosaur fossils! The viewing windows where you can watch the paleontologists working with said fossils! The gem exhibits! It’s major.

While I wait for my approximately 10,000 books to arrive I’ve been sorting through the ones I picked up in their absence. I had somehow never read Carson McCullers’ A Member of the Wedding. You too? Remedy that immediately. It belongs in the expertly wrought quirky young protagonist category along with other iconic gems like Cassandra at the Wedding and I Capture the Castle.

A friend just gave me The Uncommon Book of Prayer by Heidi Smith and I’m more than a little intrigued by the founding conceit, reframing prayer as a kind of meditation/ manifestation that’s unhooked from religious dogma and instead a centering, liberating, soul-enriching exercise. We could all use a little more of that right now, I think. (It’s also beautifully illustrated, if that helps.)

Some other excellent things to read: The wonderful Richard Powers in the New Yorker. Nathan Heller on Kamala Harris for Vogue. Lore Segal in the New York Times Magazine (who died, at 96, a day after this story ran[!]. She always had great timing).

If you’re also feeling that new season, new you itch, and you want to splurge, I just went to a cocktail for Cece Jewelry thrown by The Stax and am seriously coveting all number of gorgeous brushed gold diamond and enamel baubles with charming little engravings secreted on the sides. (I’m not alone.) In the meantime I shopped heavy at Sézane: A swingy, easy fall denim dress to wear with tall boots and then throw a perfect mossy green cardigan over when it cools down. I love a leopard trouser. Especially with a baby blue knit, specifically. Speaking of, this dress made me feel like 1950s sweater girl excellence, and I can’t really say more in its favor than that. I’ve already worn the hell out of this cardigan, with high-rise wide legged jeans, and there’s hard to imagine a garment more “extremely my shit” than a denim shirt this well cut and in this perfect shade of blue. These slinky velvet trousers are a very satisfying shade and will be on heavy rotation for the upcoming crop of autumnal dinner parties, and these adorable shoes are also extremely useful and scratch a sort of classic Miu Miu-y itch without being, well, Prada priced.

Also, I get stopped every day about these high-rise, wide-legged DL1961 jeans. You’re welcome.

Unrelated, but moving also wreaked havoc on my nails. Zoya naked manicure base and top coat have been helping me on my road to recovery and for that, I must salute them.

Thanks for being here, as always, it means the world. Until next time, when I will hopefully have more furniture, or at least the rugs.