Thank you for reading The Lately! This issue is my weekly culture catch-up where I discuss what I’m watching, reading, and generally enjoying lately. If you like this newsletter, please consider becoming a subscribing member.
A lot of changes over this last week — some good, some less so. Reader, I feel like we are friends; I basically send you some cleaned up version of a diary entry once or twice a week, so I’d like to start off by sharing that on Saturday night, my family said goodbye to our beloved golden retriever, Jetty.
It was not entirely unexpected, but still, anyone who has lost a pet knows what a specifically painful form of heartbreak it is. Jetty was pure sunshine. The grumpiest looking people would pass him on the sidewalk and couldn’t help but smile. The loss of him is immense. I tell you this because it is no doubt coloring my writing today with a touch of melancholy * insert Dan Gilroy mispronunciation and Jake Gyllenhaal “it’s melancholy, Dan” here*
The good change I refer to above is that last week, I quit a job that was making me miserable. A tarot card reader actually told me to do this a few months ago. I don’t usually put a ton of stock in things like that, so reader, know that isn’t WHY I quit, but it wasn’t NOT a helpful push.
Leaving this position means two things. 1) I can devote more of my energy to creative pursuits, like my writing, and people that leave me feeling invigorated. And while I do want to try to give myself a little break before I hop into a full workload again — I’m deeply not good at sitting still UNLESS it’s with a book — 2) For the time being, I’m completely freelance and available for hire! If you or someone you know are looking for anyone to assist with copy writing, social media management, video creation and editing etc…hit me up.
With that disclaimer on my mood etc out of the way, let’s get into it!
Watching Lately
- spoilers ahead -
Succession last night!!! How do YOU think I did watching the worst people on television break down at funeral in my current headspace? Hmm? Another unrelenting hour+ of the best drama on television.
The power dynamics never stop shifting, do they? When the episode begins, Roman is riding high off his election night victory, Kendall is filled with doubts (personal and professional), and Shiv is the biggest loser with nothing to show for her buddying up to Matson. Moments that stood out to me…
Roman practicing his speech in the mirror (which we just knew was never seeing the light of day) only to crumble at the funeral. “Is he in there? Can we get him out?” broke me. Turns out pre-grieving is…not a thing. It’s a testament to Kiernan Culkin’s acting that I found myself once again empathizing with the same self-serving POS who only last week did his absolute darnedest to install a fascist president. Him quietly remarking that Logan made him breathe funny and then throwing himself into a mob because he doesn’t know how to function without someone (his father) metaphorically and physically beating him up…Emmy!
Marcia & Caroline & Kerry & Sally Anne — I love women. This was maybe my favorite moment of the whole episode. “Sally Anne was my Kerry, so to speak” / “It’s all water under the bridge now” / “At least he won’t grind his teeth tonight.” Iconic behavior, all around. The thing that made these four women adversaries, rivals for one loathsome man’s attention and wealth, is the thing that now bonds them. These are not girls girls, OBVIOUSLY. And Caroline especially doesn’t have a maternal bone in her body given the way she just sat there, watching her children flounder through the service, but I didn’t read this moment as duplicitous or like these women trying to get something from each other. I don’t believe Caroline or Marcia were trying to make Kerry or Sally Anne feel badly or less than. They all loved a very flawed man and now he’s gone and that sort of bond is powerful. Logan would hate to see it, and I love to.
Kendall and Shiv, rising to the occasion as Roman cannot meet it. On the spot grappling with their feelings towards a father who could not love them the way they desired, whose approval they will now never have. Shiv saying goodbye to her “world of a father.” RIP me. Kendall with full sincerity uttering the phrase “the corpuscles of life gushing around this nation” … give writers everything they want, I beg.
Greg riding on a City Bike. That’s all.
I could absolutely keep going because every moment of this show is a gift. I cannot believe it all ends next week. What a treat it has been to be alive to watch Succession as it airs. Unprecedented times, indeed.
Pretty sure last night’s Barry triggered me to have a nightmare about ax-murderers. So that’s fun. While I’m going to be heartbroken to see Succession end, I think for Barry, it’s time. It’s all just making a bit less and less sense dramaturgically.
That said, it’s shot BEAUTIFULLY. I am wowed by every last tracking shot. Cannot wait to see what Bill Hader directs next (unless it’s a horror movie…it’ll probably be a horror movie). And I am still completely obsessed with Fuche’s mute Starbucks barista girlfriend and her daughter who does all the talking.
Someone check on me next Sunday around 10pm PST. Surely, even in spite of all my pre-grieving for these two series finales, I shan’t be fine.
Speaking of penultimate episodes…YellowJackets. We already know season 3 is happening, so I’m gonna need them to reign it back in because my nervous system cannot handle more of these “let the wilderness pick a person for us to hunt and murder and eat” scenes.
And when we found out that mouse Akilah has been keeping in her pocket has been DEAD all along? No. I remain unwell. Thank you, NEXT.
The Other Two stays the funniest show on television, and I stay telling you to watch it.
Reading Lately
It was a BIG week for audiobooks! Specifically books by Nora Ephron.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, I’m a Nora Ephron girlie. When Harry Met Sally and You’ve Got Mail are my two favorite movies; the limit does not exist to the number of times I could watch them.
But I’m embarrassed to say that until this past week, I had not read any of Nora Ephron’s novels or essays. And so I made serious effort to rectify that. I listened to Heartburn, narrated by Meryl Streep, as well as I Remember Nothing: And Other Reflections and I Feel Bad About My Neck, And Other Thoughts on Being A Woman, both narrated by Ephron herself.
As someone who grew up Jewish yet WASPy in the DC area, this one passage from Heartburn made me feel incredibly scene: “That’s another thing about Washington. It makes you feel really Jewish, if that’s what you are. It’s not just that there are so many gentiles there, it’s that the gentiles are so gentile. Listen, even the Jews there are sort of gentile.”
Ephron’s voice is so singular and strong. In I Feel Bad About My Neck, she writes “I can make a case that I regret nothing. After all, most of my mistakes turned out to be things I survived, or turned into funny stories, or, on occasion, even made money from.” The GOAT for a reason. Not for nothing, Ephron turning painful moments from her personal life into her most successful stories inspires me greatly to try to do the same.
I could find 100 other quotes from these books to type out for you here, but I’d rather you just read them. Ephron’s books are quick reads, and even faster listens, and I recommend them all (though I Feel Bad About My Neck was definitely my favorite of the three.)
Another thing on my list of things I find myself a little embarrassed about…that it took me so long to read a book by Kazuo Ishiguro. But last week I also listened to Ishiguro’s The Remains of the Day, and it was beautiful. Subtle. Cutting. Worth the wait. Not that I’m surprised, given Ishiguro is a Nobel Prize winning author.
“For a great many people, the evening is the most enjoyable part of the day. Perhaps, then, there is something to his advice that I should cease looking back so much, that I should adopt a more positive outlook and try to make the best of what remains of my day. After all, what can we ever gain in forever looking back and blaming ourselves if our lives have not turned out quite as we might have wished,” Ishiguro writes.
Look at that! A theme across what I’m reading that we cannot live in regret!
In Remains of the Day, Ishiguro also writes “in bantering lies the key to human warmth” and, you know what, no one does banter like Ephron! This is me figuring out how I’d connect these seemingly unrelated works for the sake of an SAT essay or some such assignment. Let me have this little thought exercise.
Lastly, one of my favorite romances of the year is officially on shelves as of last Tuesday — Christina Lauren’s The True Love Experiment.
“Book people are just better, I swear by it."
I read an advanced copy back in January and haven’t stopped thinking about it since! In this romcom, romance novelist, Fizzy, and documentary filmmaker, Connor, team up to make a Bachelor-esque dating show stacked with every dating trope in the book (pun intended) that will take both of their careers to the next level…that is if they can keep the chemistry between them from taking the whole thing off script.
“Fuck, he’s perfect. This is awful.” Fizzy, a relatable protagonist for real. The whole book is sexy and smart and especially lovely for those of us who have trouble trusting a good thing.
I personally needed this reminder and maybe you do, too. “The person my heroines choose is always the person who makes them feel like the best version of themselves. You make me feel that way.”
Products Lately
Tavi Active — one of my favorite athletic/ athleisure companies — is having a Memorial Day sale and staring this Wednesday, you can use my code SAMANTHA20 for 20% off
I am about to spend my summer living in Olive & June press on nails like these Italian Tile themed ones
Because I’ve been getting a lot of DMs about it lately, a reminder that I start every morning with an espresso from my CitiZ Nespresso Machine
Thank you for reading! As always you can find me on Instagram and TikTok. Come say hi.
My deepest and most sincere condolences on your loss, Samantha. Jetty sounds wonderful. There is no loss quite like the loss of such a beloved friend.
May his memory be a blessing