Hi-ho readers,
Greetings from day 43 of social distancing. I’m generally a homebody, but being in my house is really starting to get to me. I’m getting used to my new job after a month, but feel like I’ll have to re-orient myself entirely on the day I actually get back in the office. And when will that even be? PAUSE orders get pushed back incrementally every few weeks, probably to avoid stoking a riot if they said we won’t be back outside until September.
It’s very different to want to be inside of your own volition, than to be inside because you can’t go out. Fiona Apple, notable recluse, said something similar recently in an interview. I thought it would take me longer to get to a segue, but we’ve arrived quickly! Fetch the Bolt Cutters, Apple’s first album in eight years, was released last Friday.
I found Fiona Apple at a perfect time in my life—my first year of college.¹ I remembered a wisp of a song playing in my cousin’s minivan several years prior, and went down the rabbit hole. Every feeling I thought I’d ever had felt fresh in her songs, and a long time later I can say that’s still true. My college girlfriend’s ardent fandom made mine all the stronger, and I found myself wondering every few months if we’d ever see new music.
For latter-day fans like me, our moment came last week. Acclaim has been universal, with Pitchfork awarding its first perfect 10 since Kanye’s My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy a decade prior. It’s the spiritual sister to its predecessor, The Idler Wheel… a percussion heavy affair recorded largely in Apple’s home in Venice, CA. It’s “unconventional,” contorted, but also a poetic gift to us who have considered countless places to scrawl or scream her lyrics.
Media Diet (Fiona Edition)
- Allow Fiona Apple to Reintroduce Herself, The Story Behind Every Track on Fetch the Bolt Cutters (Vulture / Rachel Handler)
- The Homemade Insight of Fiona Apple’s “Fetch the Bolt Cutters” (The New Yorker / Carrie Battan)
- The Wit, Wisdom, and Awe of Fiona Apple’s ‘Fetch the Bolt Cutters’ (NPR / All Songs Considered)
- ‘Fetch Your Tool of Liberation’: Fiona Apple on Setting Herself Free (NPR / All Things Considered)
- Fiona Apple Is Finally Free (Elle / Kristin Iversen)
I did read and do other things these past two weeks that were not Fiona Apple related. However, I am using this issue’s playlist space to share my personal favorite songs in her body of work.
Songs in My Heart (with playlist) (Fiona Edition, in chronological order)
- Sleep to Dream
- Shadowboxer
- On the Bound
- Limp
- Fast as You Can
- Get Gone
- Get Him Back
- O’ Sailor
- Parting Gift
- Every Single Night
- Jonathan
- Anything We Want
- Hot Knife
- Dull Tool
- I Want You to Love Me
- Newspaper
- Heavy Balloon
- Drumset
I have been pretty down, but two things that have improved my time “in captivity,” as my mom says, were planning Jehan’s surprise birthday party on Zoom, and playing an extremely elaborate game of trivia, also on Zoom. And, as always, shout out to my therapist, whose weekly phone sessions have kept me far more grounded than I would be otherwise.
Also, a letter of recommendation. I finally set up my desk with a monitor at home, which has been great, but the even greater thing has been the seat cushion I ordered from Purple. It is very cushy.
Non-Fiona Apple Media Diet
- Rick Steves Is Learning to Cook and Enjoying Every Sunset (GQ / Gabriella Paiella)²
- this video from last year: Where Are All the Bob Ross Paintings? We Found Them. (The New York Times / Larry Buchanan, Aaron Byrd, Alicia DeSantis, and Emily Rhyne)
- This series from NPR’s Goats and Soda, How to Raise a Human.
I’m looking forward to better days ahead and forcing myself to spend more time outside. How about you?
See you in two,
Emily
¹ Other crucial discoveries at this time include Liz Phair and Prince.
² I love Rick Steves, and am reminded of this great article from the New York Times Magazine last year, Rick Steves Wants to Set You Free (by Sam Anderson).