Hi-ho readers,
Let me start with the most important news of the day: we have all finally been blessed with new Lady Gaga music. Not “Shallow,” not Joanne, but some real Mars 2112¹ rah-rah filmed in a desert shit. It’s called “Stupid Love.” Please enjoy the video.
Places to Go, People to See
My friend Jonathan was in town from Los Angeles for his birthday, and I had a wonderful visit with him at his party. I went to the Brooklyn Botanic Garden and was reminded further that membership pays for itself, and I will definitely renew in the coming year. I had President’s Day off and explored the American Museum of Natural History and southern Central Park with Charlotte, and finally acquired the Zabar’s fit of my dreams. We ate at Bar Pitti but didn’t see any celebrities (at least not any that I recognized). I had dinner with my mom at Cafe Un Deux Trois (again).
I had my second shift at the farmer’s market, and many nice friends (Delaney, Adam, MJ, Jillian, Matt, Alexandra, Taylor) came to visit me! I won’t be working this Saturday but will be next Saturday, and you should come visit me. I saw Aly & AJ at Baby’s All Right, and they were truly phenomenal. I started watching The Good Wife² and it’s filling some of the hole that being caught up on Law and Order: SVU leaves, but I just found out SVU got renewed for THREE MORE SEASONS.
I’ve had a really bad cold and cough for the last week so I’ve been in bed either watching The Good Wife or catching up on article-reading, so there are several longer reads this round.
Things I Read and Liked
- Where Do Bodega Flowers Come From?³ (by Dan Nosowitz for Gothamist)
- Nothing Compares to Yuzu (by Helen Rosner for The New Yorker)
- Orthographic ligature⁴ on Wikipedia
- Starbucks: a reconsideration (Rachel Sugar for Vox)
- Overturned Cargo Ship Soon To Be Sliced Up And Removed From Georgia Sound (Molly Samuel for NPR/WABE)
- The City Below (Robert E. Sullivan Jr. for 7 Days Magazine via The Village Voice)
Songs in My Heart (with playlist)
- Let My Love Open The Door – Pete Townshend
- Possum by Night⁵ – The Mountain Goats
- Too Little Too Late⁶ – Department of Eagles
- Origami – Rubblebucket
- Attack of Panic – Aly & AJ
- Take Me – Aly & AJ
- Papa Was a Rodeo – The Magnetic Fields
- Describe – Perfume Genius⁷
- A Public Affair⁸ – Jessica Simpson
- Stupid Love – Lady Gaga
A Poem for Leap Day
The next two weeks should be pretty quiet, but tomorrow is Leap Day! Do something weird. Here’s a poem I wrote in 2016.
balmy air sneaks its way through
the gaps in the cable-knit,
in this finicky colony housing
confused birds and the carnage
of melting snow.
people sharing happinesses,
incredulous – it’s sixty
in the shade. the ground is still hard
and we’re sitting under trees.
californians in parkas,
vermonters in shorts.
february twenty-ninth strolls by:
a fluke in a jean jacket.
walking home
i yell at water in my shoe,
a shock of unbridled joy
in pretending that it’s spring.
See you in two,
Emily
¹ I think about Mars 2112 probably every week. Real tri-state kids know.
² Have you watched The Good Wife? Please talk about it with me.
³ I asked this question because I bought bodega flowers for my girlfriend, and the Gothamist archives, as usual, provided answers.
⁴ …I’ve been alone a lot recently.
⁵ I love this one but also was reading Helena Fitzgerald‘s recently completed newsletter griefbacon, and its entry about this song.
⁶ This is obviously a JoJo cover, so it could never be as good as the original, but it’s so wildly different that I almost didn’t recognize it.
⁷ The new Perfume Genius album is called Set My Heart on Fire Immediately.
⁸ I have truly no explanation for this one except that I want to go rollerskating.