A Good Distraction (or five)
I’ve been thinking a lot about loss lately, for reasons which are likely obvious and not. There are degrees to these things. A whole rangy scale of life in 2023 from terrorism and its accordant unspeakable horrors on down to everyday absences. I’m sad a lot, these days, but so are most of us. The ambient pain is turned all the way up and sometimes it drowns everything out. We all get a little wary of connection, wanting to avoid that familiar tap dance of ticking the right boxes—inoffensive, supportive, deep, sensitive, wise—even though connection is often what we need most.
So I’ve been away from this whole endeavor, my dear friends. It’s hard to write about big escapes and small delights given the circumstances. Easier to stay busy, keep moving, hope someone figures out the right thing before you have to. There’s no right thing to say, and I know for a fact that you certainly don’t come here to read the news. Distraction feels good, but does that mean it is good? People share platitudes and poetry and prayers and some of it helps, I think? It is clear that none of us has the answer, especially if we think we especially do. Stay present, hold on tight to the people you love, that’s all I got.
Is this too melancholy? Do you want a distraction? If you do, here’s a small handful. Let me offer them to you like a bouquet to arrange however you want (or to toss in the compost heap). It’s been a year and a day since I first launched Here We Go, I just realized. We both deserve the flowers.
Chimp Empire (Netflix). This show was recommended to me by a very gifted actress I recently interviewed who watched it and The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City to inform a particularly difficult (human) character she’s about to play. It’s beautiful, actually, and far enough from current events while actually informing a lot of them. (Not for nothing but chimps are our closest relations, genetically speaking.) The series is from James Reed, the director behind My Octopus Teacher, and the cinematography is equally unbelievable. And Mahershala Ali narrates, should you needed further convincing.
The Go-Between by L.P. Hartley. I knew the first line of this classic 1953 novel before I’d ever read it: “The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there.” The plot centers on Leo, who some half-century after the fact reflects on the summer he spent as an (appropriately) naive 12 year old staying with a school friend on a great English estate, and accidentally becomes drawn into some very complicated adult entanglements. Ultimately it’s a book about class and sex and war and beauty and books and memory and loss and nature. I’ve come to really appreciate how certain books, especially those written almost a century ago, require the reader to disengage from their current reality and slow way, way down. This is one of those. (Especially worth picking up if you, like me, loved Brideshead Revisited, and are intrigued by Emerald Fennell’s upcoming film Saltburn.)
Ever Amid Rouge Stain. Look, how long have we known each other? Of course I’m a sucker for a nourishing new lip tint in the most delicate shade of rosy pink. And it comes in this gorgeous little pot and the box is stabilized with that eco-genius mushroom packaging?! Forget it. It’s gorgeous, it’s special, it’s admittedly insanely priced, but I do love that after the product is used up, you can wash out the ceramic pot and repurpose it as a perfect little cachepot for earrings or hair pins or your little stick of palo santo. Beautiful. The very definition of a treat.
SOBAN (Los Angeles): Not new. Was to me! Seriously delicious Korean food in a no-frills setting that has made all kind of best-of-L.A. lists and was the location of the unofficial Parasite Oscars after party (fun fact, I attended the Oscars that year. It was not the best night of my life, but why would sitting in a theater in an uncomfortable dress be?). If you live here, you should go, if you don’t, try it the next time you visit. Get the raw marinated crab, the braised black cod, and the tofu seafood pancake, and save some room for the delectable table full of banchan. Thank me later.
Mirth Sweaterdress. A classic silhouette in a non-bulky knit (sheared responsibly from Peruvian alpacas, if you’re wondering) that will work for fall and winter too (even here in L.A.). I wanted it in white but then got it in black, which I had avoided wearing for my first two years of living in California and am now embracing again. The beige is chic too. Throw on a chunky belt and a big earring and those Khaite flats everyone is wearing now that the Alaïa ones are sold out and you’re ready for anything.
Vyrao. Rarely am I convinced by a fragrance. Most of them seem like a brilliant idea in the store and the worst you’ve ever had by the end of the first day you wear it. (There are scientific reasons for this—a fragrance in the bottle is different than in the air or on your skin, and changes on the latter as it dries—as well as psychological ones, surely.) To borrow the music critic’s critic’s favorite maxim, writing about fragrance is like dancing about architecture. You need to smell it, and you need to smell it on yourself. It is as personal to you as the places on your body that you wear it. And really, I don’t want to smell like anyone else, even if they’re famously great looking or have a hit single or heaps of money or whatever. So no one is more shocked than me to admit that I was utterly seduced by Yasmin Sewell’s new fragrance line, Vyrao, when she spritzed me with it at the Violet Grey flagship here in LA. Gorgeous bottle for the vanity, incredible selection of scents, all very elegant and delicious. I want them all. You may too? But truly, don’t take my word for it—unless you want to, and then for what it’s worth, these three are my favorites—you can get a sampler pack, to find your own. I’m currently considering some of the incense, too.)
That’s all this week. I hope you’re taking the time you need for yourself. I hope things won’t always be so hard, for all of us. Sending you lots of love.
P.S. For those who have inquired after my marbles(!) some of the pieces have sold out on Moda (!!) it’s true, but some are still available on the Anastasio Home site. If you got one, let me know how you styled it! I love to see them in the wild. And as always, thank you for your support: it really means the world.