Hi! It's been a minute! My absenteeism here is largely because I fell into a rather deep despair for a few weeks after the presidential debate when it looked like we were barreling straight towards another Trump term. But the tides have turned! Suddenly the vibes are downright 2008 out there. I know I have many friends and followers who think both parties are the exact same and that the election doesn’t matter and that I must have worms for brains (or worse) for believing otherwise, but so be it.
Anyway, I wanted to get something out, so here are a few things I've managed to enjoy over the past month or so:
Jil Sander Sun
This loud-ass fragrance screams 1980s, which is admittedly my least favorite decade. Mostly because of Reagan, but also because I think everything looked HORRIBLE. Hideous. The hair alone...good god. But, of course, plenty of great stuff was still churned out during this unfortunate era, like this perfume (which arrived on the market in 1989). It's musky, powdery, and VERY sunscreen-y. It's also dirt cheap on Fragrancenet so if you're a blind buyer, it might be worth a gamble.
Quarter Sheets cherry tart (sorry that the picture isn’t better, but I couldn’t wait to eat this thing any longer than I did)
Hannah Ziskin is the pastry chef at Quarter Sheets, a tiny Detroit-style pizza place in Echo Park. She's also a genius! I feel genuinely grateful that I live in close proximity to the place and can afford to eat her desserts every so often. The cherry tart Spencer and I had last week was literally the best dessert I can remember ever eating. Imagine the most perfectly ripe cherries you've ever experienced perched on top of caramelized pineapple jam, lemon verbena custard, a hint of black pepper and a drizzle of high-quality olive oil. Flawless.
Ripley Under Ground by Patricia Highsmith
In which Ripley is nearly buried alive! This is the second installment in Patricia Highsmith's Ripley series, which is comprised of five books in all. It's not as good as the first one, The Talented Mr. Ripley, but it's pretty damn good. I put off reading these books for years because I've seen all the adaptations (The American Friend, a rather loose take, being my favorite), but that was frankly a dumb move. I’ve heard that the quality of the remaining books is pretty uneven, but I’ll give them a shot.
Insomniac with Dave Attell
Fellow geriatric millennials may recall this goofy little show that ran on Comedy Central from 2001-2004. I downloaded the whole series last week after I stumbled across a link on Reddit, and I feel blessed! I loved it when it aired and I'm totally enjoying the nostalgia upon rewatching. Each episode is filmed in a different city after Attell's standup set that night, and he basically just wanders around bullshitting with strangers and enjoying the seedy shit that goes down before dawn. One major takeaway is that pre-smartphone nightlife hit a LOT different. As in, better. I'm grateful I got to experience it even though I was most certainly blacked out much of the time!
That’s all for now :)
the debate fully broke my brain for a month lol but we survived!
I'm with you, the vibes are high, no worms for brain here <3