somethings nice 22: summer heat
stay cool
I’m in New York and it’s a heatwave, one of my favorite weather phenomena in the city, if not one of the spookiest (especially in June). Heatwave days unfold here like a symphony—the overture of the sun releasing its heat as it comes over the horizon, an initial rush of activity, the gradual undressing, the coda of sundown. You don’t get that feeling in Texas because you don’t see people in Texas, unless you mean to. I miss that about living here.
We are on the other side of the solstice, which means that the days are now getting shorter, if imperceptibly. It doesn’t matter yet. I keep waking up at five a.m. because that’s when the sun starts coming through the windows. It’s an incredible time to be in New York because the days are fourteen hours long and Zohran Mamdani just won the mayoral primary and everyone is so happy. At the bagel place, as we were walking away, the server shouted, “fucking yes, Zohran!” I miss that about living here, too.
1. Vegas, by John Gregory Dunne
I’m not even through with this book yet and I can already tell it’ll be a favorite of the year. I’ve loved Dunne ever since I read this setting paragraph from his New Yorker story about the Humboldt murders (the story itself is riddled with issues, among them repeatedly deadnaming Brandon Teena; this paragraph, however, is perfect):
In this part of Nebraska, the high schools are so small that football is an eight-man sport—five linemen and three backs. Outside SS. Peter and Paul, there is a bell tower erected in honor of Steven J. Kopetzky, a football player at Sacred Heart, the Catholic high school. On the tower are inscribed the words “O.K., Coach, I’m ready to go.” During a game in 1974, Kopetzky suffered a concussion, was examined by doctors, and then uttered the words now memorialized on the bell tower. Sent back into the game, he collapsed on the next play, and died. In more sophisticated municipalities, the parents would have sued the school and the church; in Falls City, Steven Kopetzky’s parents gave money for the bell tower, so that his name and devotion to his team and his school would be remembered.
Vegas takes place during a months-long stint Dunne spent living in Las Vegas and contemplating divorce from his wife, Joan Didion. The book, in that sense, reads like gossip. In reality, it’s a depressing fever dream through one of our country’s best and strangest places. Dunne is a perfect writer for that. I need to go back to Vegas soon.
2. “Disney Girls,” by the Beach Boys
I recommended the entire Surf’s Up album in my last roundup, and this song is the real reason why. It’s so strange. Brian Wilson wrote it to lament of the drugged up early ‘70s—he longed for the comparatively simpler, more wholesome vibes of prior decades. The best lyric in this song is: “Oh, reality, it’s not for me, and it makes me laugh.” That’s so true.
3. Magnolia, written and directed by Paul Thomas Anderson
I’ve loved this movie for so long and yet had never seen it in a movie theater! We found out Metrograph was screening it Monday night and got two of the last tickets. Seeing one of your favorite films in a room full of strangers is one of life’s gifts. Everyone laughed; I cried, as always, at the scene above; and, when the credits rolled, the theater clapped. “I really do have so much love to give, I just don’t know where to put it!”
4. A Bigger Message: Conversations with David Hockney, by Martin Gayford
Full of bangers, whether you like Hockney or not. Really recommend for any artist or person who likes art—so everyone, I hope.
5. Listening to someone else’s playlist
A few weeks ago, I was like, “what if I made a super indulgent playlist of all the songs I loved in college?” And I did it, and for about a day I was entertained by it, and then it turned me sick, like all overly sweet things do. I had been inspired by a similar playlist my pottery teacher was playing during class. But then I remembered how a sandwich made by someone else always tastes better than one you make yourself, and I had to put my own playlist out to pasture. Make playlists for your friends, please. They want them.
‘Til next time.