Bits #41
A bumper edition of things to read, watch, marvel and/or mull over
A double portion of recs today, to make up for the fact it’s a few days late :)
Under the paywall today: pre-smartphone nostalgia; the vegan gossip girl; a digital-only TV drama about fertility; Georgia O’Keeffe; a handful of excellent celebrity profiles; the conclusion of the P Diddy trial; the mushroom murderer; and (on the subject of), a fascinating investigation into the biggest female-led mass poisoning in history…
What makes somebody cool has always been by its very nature, indefinable— a sprinkle of sprezzatura mixed with a sniff of je ne sais quoi— but according to a new study in the Journal of Experimental Psychology, it usually involves 6 personal traits: extrovert, hedonistic, powerful, adventurous, open and autonomous. Those qualities seem fairly youth-skewed and—dare we say it— a fairly lethal combination in a grown man.
Did you know you can pin Whatsapp chats? Tiny but thrilling life improvement. No more wading through dozens of kid-related group chats to find my husband or my mum.
I can’t stop thinking about this story of a Taiwanese couple who hired two pole dancers to perform outside their son’s graduation (via The Week, obviously.) If this was what made the cut, think of what was left on the cutting table? I’d give so much to know.
The best thing I’ve randomly chanced upon this week is this pea pod pill case, which would be perfect for your handbag/ pocket.
hello, i’m adorable Could The Salt Path be the A Million Little Pieces of the 2020s? I’m still processing yesterday’s Observer investigation, which suggests that much of Raynor Winn’s wildly successful memoir (turned into a film starring Gillian Anderson) is untrue. The report is extremely thorough and not unsympathetic. “People have the right to keep their medical history private” notes investigative journalist, Chloe Hadjimatheou. But:
“We are deep enough into the post-truth world to know that if the idea of truth is mis-sold, the idea of truth takes a knock… The power of a true story lies in the fact that it’s true: it promises to tell the reader something real about what it is to be human and what’s possible.”
Winn and her husband replied via a short statement, that “this is the true story of our journey”.
“I didn’t have any idea Demon would bring home so much bacon” says Barbara Kingsolver, of her wildly successful book, Demon Copperhead (one of my favourite novels of the last 3 years) about working class Appalachian life and the opioid crisis. With the book’s royalties, Kingsolver has set up a recovery residence for women aged 30-70 whose lives have been torn apart by addiction. Appalachian life is frequently misunderstood, she tells Hannah Marriott for The Guardian. No small part in thanks to JD Vance’s Hillbilly Elegy, which follows a classic bootstraps narrative: it was “really all about himself, how he got out and made good, and the people that stay behind, well, are just lazy”. Appalachian culture, she tells Marriott, is about modesty and self-reliance. “If [Vance] were a real Appalachian, he wouldn’t tell that story”.
I’m only two episodes into What It Feels Like For A Girl, but I love what I’ve seen so far. Adapted by Paris Lees from her brilliant 2021 work of autofiction—a trans coming-of-age story set in Nottingham in the early noughties—it features solid turns from familiar faces (Laura Haddock, Michael Socha), impressive new talent like Ellis Howard (who has an amazingly mercurial face) and a truly epic soundtrack. (The y2k nostalgia is a trip: Nokias, fags, fluffy scrunchies, multi-change CD players.) It’s, witty, profane, shocking and joyful. In director Brian Welsh’s hands, even the seediest aspects of Byron’s young life feel tender.
I thought I knew everything I needed to know about pronatalism, but this episode of Today In Focus on Make America Pregnant Again with Helen Pidd and Moira Donegan (both vg voices for radio) is gripping slash utterly horrifying. The dystopian sounding NatalCon, recently held in Texas for its second year, brings together an unlikely collective, notes Donegan: trad Christians—anti-abortion, think women belong in the home (in the words of one speaker, shampoo magnate Charles Hayward, “women should be socially stigmatized for having [careers]”; and techno-futurists—who are open about the racism (they want white babies “not Inca babies”, as one speaker put it) and eugenics (they want smart white babies without hereditary or mental illness, and are totally fine re: abortion and genetic testing) of their pronatalism. This is about ego, not children: adoption doesn’t even come into the conversation.
“Let us say the perspective of the straight white man is being dampened in the world of literary fiction. Should we care?” writes Marc Tracey for The New York Times. I’ve never really bought into the idea that straight white male novelists no longer exist—David Szalay, Lee Cole, Nathan Filer, Hal Ebbott, Nathan Hill, Nick Hornby, David Nicholls, Tom Crewe, Damon Galgut, Paul Lynch, Paul Murray, do you need me to continue—but this piece is a great exploration of a pinch point in many bookish circles right now.
I took my daughter to The LCB Ballet last week (her first evening treat on a school night! Felt like a milestone) where ballet dancers age 9-16 were performing an adaptation of Shirley Hughes’s Ella’s Big Chance. I was so hot I literally stuck to the chair, but the dancing was gorgeous and the sets were brilliant. My daughter adored it.
Something else I would love to see but definitely won’t get tickets to (“Just this once, believe the hype” writes Dominic Maxwell) is Evita at the Palladium. ICYMI, Zegler has been serenading the crowds of Oxford Street every night, in an alfresco balcony scene. She’s incredible.
The third year of ESEA Lit Fest (the UK's award-winning celebration of East & South East Asian literature) takes place next weekend at Southbank Centre. Guttingly I’m not in London, but if you are, I rec getting your hands on some tickets: the festival features prize-winning authors, poets and artists including Tash Aw, Will Harris, Susan Barker and Elaine Castillo.
In an episode of Shameless a few weeks ago, hosts Michelle and Zara kindly namechecked a short essay I wrote on the tension of the celebrity profile and my concerns for media literacy, before lamenting the lack of good celebrity profiles these days. So! Here are four contemporary profiles that I thought were excellent.
