Whatever Works!

Including pretending this is work-related to avoid your family for a few minutes. No judgment.

When you get this I will have just concluded a series of friends and family related pit stops in the Midwest and will have finally landed for the rest of the week on the east coast, slightly more acclimated than if I’d flown direct from LA, and preparing, like the rest of this fair nation, to dive straight into some starchy carbohydrates while avoiding talking about depressing things. Unless you’re on the other side of the starchy carbohydrates thing by the time you get to this, which, given ones inbox during a holiday week (a holiday week of SALES! no less) is entirely possible, although in my house the starchy carbohydrate period tends to extend through until January, if not forever.

Anyway, it’s been a hell of a November, right? You’ve earned some pie. A thing that’s been helpful for me this month was deleting X, not watching television news, and reading, rather than engaging with reality, for at least a week straight. It’s been a wonderful escape.

Are you looking for things to read? I’ve found great satisfaction in re-reading, now that all of our books have arrived from the east coast storage situation. It’s like having a bookstore in our house, if that store had zero help or organization and lots of open boxes on the floor. On November 6 I picked up James Salter’s Light Years, which is just as coolly stunning and warmly elegiac as I remember, with all the same slight nausea of nostalgia. The effect was like a hot cheek pressed against a cool windowpane. Later I got out of bed and into our new hammock (from Yellow Leaf hammocks, which I cannot recommend more) and I moved on to Donna Tartt’s The Secret History, which was really ideal, absorbing and diverting and full of strange intrigue and the primal allure of belonging as it is (though none of course any stranger than reality). And then I decided that maybe the move was to read books written in or set around climactic times when it felt like the world might be ending but life kept going on anyways, with its small indignities and squabbles and various hijinks and swoons, so I read A Time to Be Born, by Dawn Powell, which is really pretty funny, and I especially recommend if you like comedies of manners, drawing room intrigues à la Henry James, or that TV show The Gilded Age, even though this is set in the months before America entered WWII, some things in New York never change that much. And now I’ve been submerging into Doris Lessing’s epic The Golden Notebook again, with its all too relevant redirects into the failures of colonialism and communism and other politics. I just bought Caroline O’Donoghue’s The Rachel Incident at the Detroit airport because I love her podcast, Sentimental Garbage, and I think it’s important to patronize the rare airport bookstore that still sells books, and not just hideous tchotchkes and enormous portions of snacks. It’s more than likely I’ll finish that first. It also has the benefit of seeming to be not about politics at all.

Something I wrote: I interviewed Nara Smith for Who What Wear, which is the first time I think I’ve really profiled someone who is famous solely because of social media, and it was fascinating to see how that translated into real life. (Largely this meant a lot of young strangers doing doubletakes on Melrose place in that “oh I know you” way of the real life emergence of a figure you have only ever seen in the clandestine shadows of your own private doomscroll routine.) If you’re unfamiliar, Smith is a model turned TikTok sensation famed for her cooking videos, mostly the ones in which she placidly makes mass-produced snacks (FruitLoops! Oreos! potato chips! chewing gum!) and things like toothpaste and sunscreen for her children from scratch while wearing increasingly impractical runway looks. She is married to a male model, Lucky Blue Smith, who was also very internet famous for years before they met, and whose internet fame has rebounded along with her ascent. They have three young children with non-traditional names (Rumble Honey, Whimsy Lou, Slim Easy), and because they got married young and are varying degrees of Mormon, she has been labeled a “tradwife.” This is an identity that she openly and enthusiastically rejects, largely on the basis that she has been in the professional world, as a model and now a content creator who models, since she was 14. I was interested to talk to her about why she rejects it so roundly, given that her work is creating content around tradwife ideals (i.e. whipping up whatever the family desires while looking Pleasantville-perfect)—she may not be the thing she is selling, but she is still selling it. I think we had a good conversation, though some of what I felt were the more trenchant parts did not make the final version, unfortunately. Anyways, the photo shoot is beautiful. Go check it out and let me know what you think?

But perhaps you don’t want to read. Perhaps you want to dress. I went to my friend Sam Lim Achatz’s 40th birthday at the fantastic Aviary in Chicago last weekend (theme: Death Becomes Her) and wore the most gratifyingly sexy drapey slouchy dress from Entire Studios and perhaps most gratifyingly, it was both insanely comfortable and insanely decently priced while not being from Shein or something horrendous. And it wadded up in my carry-on like a t-shirt. I also snagged a pair of their sweats and a slouchy sweater and some chic cinched khakis and coveted this shearling and I am maybe just obsessed with the brand? It’s much cooler than I am but that’s okay. (Sam looked gorgeous and resplendent in sparkles, as ever, and remains utterly undefeated in the party-throwing department.)

Speaking of cool, I have found great joy in the lower temperatures this winter in LA, as they are not actually low at all, I am reminded upon return to the east coast, and yet still come with plenty of the associated options for layering. A boost of optimistic painterly florals on a cozy crewneck (above, shown with gorgeous perfect pooch, sold separately). A blown up paisley-print with dark denim sailor pants (below) feels like a seasonally appropriate nod to the lay-it-on-thick 70s that’s always in style in the canyon—without being too arch.

This jacket!!!!! Is perfect!!!!! Its giving me old OdlR, or Adolfo… And this cutie patootie contrast trimmed cardigan I wore out to dinner at Mother Wolf one night and then to get coffee the next day, I liked it that much. This little Courrèges-y jacket over a sleek ribbed knit and little houndstooth skirt (below) makes me feel polished as all get out, while being just Françoise Hardy enough to feel ready to jump on the back of somebody’s motorbike. And these skirts over tights, or with bare legs and tall boots? Perfection. And the prices really aren’t that crazy, which this time of year (when you’re supposed to be shopping for everybody else, you know) is a huge relief.

By the way, do you want me to do a gift guide? It seems like everyone else already has. Are you gift-guided out? Sometimes I feel like I am, and then sometimes I look up and I’m like 10 tabs deep on some random foodie founder’s favorite stocking stuffers, or something. So why don’t YOU tell ME, hmmm?

Perhaps you’re looking for fun trips to plan instead? More to come on this very soon, but here’s an easy one if you’re on the West Coast and want to look like you’ve slept like a baby for the past twenty years: go to Meadowood Spa in St Helena, CA for the new Pietro Simone Corrective Lift Facial, which incorporates exosomes and microcurrents and something with an organic cotton thread and a crazy deep massage and other mysteries that, I can tell you first hand, add up to something pretty incredible when applied to your face and neck. I was blown away with the results. Pietro himself travels a fair amount (you can catch him in studio in New York and East Hampton, too) but the treatment is there at Meadowood’s incredibly soothing, award-winning suite-only spa. I have had two wonderful visits there this year and honestly never had a bad massage, treatment, or even mood there… And then you get to be in Napa! Go get ahi poke tacos at Gotts (FYI, for my LA friends, soon at the Farmers Market at the Grove!) and the bread and crudité at Charter Oak. And you know, the wine. (What? It has antioxidants.)

More places to eat? How did you know! In Los Angeles, I have two new favorite restaurants, and they are: A Tí, in echo park, where we watched the Dodgers win the penultimate game of the series and ate the best tacos I’ve had in recent memory, including a Japanese sweet potato style I could have had 12 of, and Budonoki, where we went with friends last week and ate most of the delectable menu, and which is sort of the dream izakaya. 

Need something to watch? Conclave was everything everyone said, bitchy and funny and thickly plotted while being about cardinals stuck at the Vatican while selecting a new pope, with all the scheming and backstabbing that entails. Interview with a Vampire on AMC (now on Netflix) is one of those projects I derided when I heard about it (why remake such a great movie?!) but this version takes different, big swings, and I really enjoyed the result. Say Nothing (FX/Hulu) is probably going to be the best show that comes out this year. If you haven’t read the exhaustively researched and expertly crafted book, of the same title, by Patrick Radden Keefe, you should. It’s fantastic and moving and gripping and shocking. Thankfully, the show is too.

Should A+ escapism be what you seek, I watched What A Way To Go! (on Youtube), and have no idea how I’d missed it before. I mean the Paul Newman as a sexy painter scenes alone! The cast is insane (Newman, Dick van Dyke, Robert Mitchum, Gene Kelly, Dean Martin!). And the sets. And the Edith Head costumes! (You’ve probably seen this one on Instagram.) Shirley Maclaine plays a woman who just wants a simple life, except her husbands keep striking it rich and then dying in a strange, untimely fashion, leaving her all the money she didn’t want in the first place. It’s a totally crazy movie, a great big lark. Not everyone likes it, though. I went to a lunch for the great Bob Mackie (who has a new documentary coming out soon) the day after I saw it and we were talking about his early career making costumes for the Hollywood studios (at one point with Edith Head, no less!) and I told him how much I’d enjoyed the movie and he kind of wrinkled his nose and said it wasn’t for him, maybe because he “knew Shirley [Maclaine] too well…” I mean…! Somehow that still feels like a recommendation?

Something to listen to? I went to a party for Vyrao’s new fragrance, Mamajuju, hosted by my friend Djuna Bel, and Laraaji played in her glorious garden as the sun set. I was totally transfixed. His music is very soothing, pleasantly brain tickling, and an altogether vibration-raising alternative to the Christmas music being piped into every single public space this time of year. (You can also find a library of his laughter meditations, which for awhile were broadcast every Thursday in Los Angeles, here. We can all probably use that, no?)

Retail Therapy IS self care: My beautiful genius friends at Highbrow Hippie launched a supplement that tackles stress and hair loss and its high profile fans (Gwyneth! Julia! Meghan!) are already legion. This Marabou pistachio and toffee milk chocolate bar is so good it’s dangerous, but I’m sure it’s also better than that one that’s all over TikTok from Dubai. (So stick that in their stocking.) This Varley pullover is perfect for layering (so soft!) and I love the big splayed collar. These silky LeSet pants could be pajamas but they’re basically a travel hack all their own at this point, as they’re always in my carry-on for dinners out, to wear with a cashmere blazer or a drapey black v neck sweater and an elegantly easy or (statement!) flat. Iris & Romeo’s Weekend Skin is a great one-and-done Vitamin C + SPF I rely on when I’m rushing out the door (and keep in the gym bag), but I have been using BareFaced’s liquid gold and Overachiever skin booster serums every day. Just don’t forget the SPF. And I’m loving Vetted Skincare’s rich moisturizer at night. Unscented, ultra-sensitive. Simple. That’s what we want, folks! That or the really insane elaborate facial. We contain multitudes.

Speaking of, I loved this story about what we can learn from listening to horses. (And, you know, each other.)

And this one, which gave Uniqlo the credit it deserves. (Fun fact: it’s actually far more sustainable than most high fashion.)

I think A.I. is incredibly lame and depressing (and incredibly environmentally costly, which we really CANNOT afford, especially now, which is something I will, you guessed it, trying very much to not be discussing at Thanksgiving this year), but at least this episode of the very good podcast Decoder Ring had one excellent use for it.

And finally, pour one out for a real one: RIP Gary Indiana.

That’s all I have for you this time! Thanks for being here. It means the world. I hope that you have a wonderful holiday. Sending you all the love in the world. Drop me a note if you do want a gift guide, or just if you feel like it—I always love to hear from you.

xx ATC