I ask my friends to share something they’ve been into recently; it’s a rotating cast of characters; don’t overthink it.
this week’s squad: @eugenewei, @terrygtnguyen, @katiewav
💬 The Fabelmans dir. by Steven Spielberg
“(Moving) portrait of the artist as a young man. Spielberg’s overt sentimentality isn’t always for me, but here it’s turned on his own childhood and his birth as a filmmaker. It’s about how art is a way we see the world, make sense of it. And in this case, it’s how he sees his parents, especially his mother, over the passage of time. It will win a lot of Oscars, including, I suspect, Best Picture.” - Eugene
💬 “Parachutes, My Love, Could Carry Us Higher” by Barbara Guest
“I try to start my mornings with a poem. I’m reading through The Collected Poems of Barbara Guest and her poem, ‘Parachutes, My Love, Could Carry Us Higher,’ is an early classic. I discover a new detail each time I read it. There are layers to the speaker’s emotions, despite the confessional repetition of ‘my love’: tension, uncertainty, and hesitancy towards surrender. My favorite lines — ‘Now the suspension, you say, / Is exquisite. I do not know.’ — capture this tender essence. Guest manages to shuffle through these complicated feelings, while interspersing her lines with dream-like imagery: berries like pomegranates, pink and pale blue fish. You can hear Guest read the poem here, which she apparently wrote in late fall.” - Terry
💬 Diptyque Jasmin
“I’ve been on the hunt for a candle for awhile (it’s cozy szn). I had a few preferences in mind during my search, but wasn’t really sure what I was looking for until I stumbled upon Jasmin. One of my fondest childhood memories is eating dim sum with my family. Today I live a quick ~15min train ride from several great dim sum places, but that wasn’t always the case. Growing up, we would have to drive two hours to get to the nearest respectable dim sum restaurant and Chinese grocery store. The monthly(ish) trip would always be an annoying ordeal, and it’d only feel worth it when we were seated and immediately greeted with scalding jasmine tea. This candle brings me back to the sigh of relief I’d have after finally making it to a white cloth dining table and spinning around a lazy susan.” - Katie