80. HOW TO MAKE DEPRESSION CAKE
also i finished two more good books :)
my sister made me depression cake this weekend, just the way i like it. depression cake, for the uninitiated, is a one-layer yellow cake made from a boxed mix, slathered with duncan hines creamy vanilla frosting, and topped with granulated rainbow sprinkles that look like tie-dyed sand. although the cake is technically homemade, the most successful iteration tastes as though it’s been sitting in a supermarket fridge for several days. it is my favorite kind of cake. i’m not joking. it’s a shame that it most reliably appears when my brain is numb, my eyes are wet, and my limbs are pinioned to my bed by grief.
i woke up on saturday to the white hot outline of my blackout curtains. it was noon. i felt like i was lying at the bottom of a landfill.
i did the things i’m supposed to do when i feel this way. i went outside. i made myself pick up some food that i might enjoy. i ate the food. i listened to music and played the piano. i sang. i tried to make plans with friends. i called my mom. i took a shower and washed my hair. i did not feel better.
i woke up on sunday to rain and a perfect hair day and a hollow ribcage. i did not go outside. my roommate told me she had never seen someone eat cereal so angrily. i have no memory of anger. i tried to wear soft clothes but couldn’t find any, so i wore jeans. i called my mom again. i asked my sister to come over. she came. she brought her girlfriend and the depression cake. i cried when i saw it. then i ate a slice the size of the dsm-v.
i wish the cake had fixed me. it did not. but for a few minutes, i was moved enough that someone had taken the time to make something that they knew i loved that i could feel my body again.
p.s. doing much better by the end of the week! many good things happened! don’t worry! it just feels important that sometimes i write here about what’s not going well in addition to what is.
p.p.s. this post is too long for email! click the title in your inbox or click HERE to read it on my little substack website so you don’t miss anything.
reading.
finished romantic comedy by curtis sittenfeld in maybe 36 hours. stayed up til 2:15am reading, like i was a teenager again. a total comfort read that made me laugh out loud several times.
also devoured the guest by emma cline. definitely not a comfort read, but i liked it even more than her first book, the girls (which should impress you, as i do love books about cults). the ending did send me immediately to my phone to text naomi in total bafflement, at which point she directed me towards this article featuring a whole bunch of different people’s interpretations of what happens. (spoilers, obviously — if you haven’t read the book, do that before you read this, because the book is good.)
(p.s. — i’m trying this new thing where i keep a list of books i’ve recommended in this newsletter on bookshop.org. if you end up buying one of the books through there, i get 10%! you do not have to buy anything from me ever… but this does allow me to briefly cosplay as an influencer. ha!)
this interview with sophie, the other half of good apples collective! it’s so fun to read interviews with your collaborators and know that if this was the first time you were hearing about them, you’d want to be friends. the inside of sophie’s brain is such a magical place.
looking to read about an extremely niche controversy currently unfolding in the publishing industry? i’ve got just the thing for you.
the new york times isn’t done deifying sondheim, and i, for one, don’t mind! though can someone parse the below sentence for me? you’re allowed to not like assassins (though i, personally, do!), but i’m not sure why its portrayal of mental illness is what one would choose to highlight as its major flaw.
also, that article features a characteristically brilliant photo by the one and only sara krulwich. i’m obsessed with it (below). and i know it should probably below in the next section, but i can never decide if this newsletter would be better organized in careful chapters or as an extended free-associative trip through my brain.
looked up some reviews of the frosting i like on my depression cake. some favorites for you to enjoy below.
seeing.
idiots of the world unite against the idiot system circus, presented by bread and puppet theater. i went with my friend cathy and bought some of bread and puppet’s excellent print work after the show. thought about how bread and puppet are probably doing the closest thing to true brechtian theater that i’ve ever seen. sometimes it’s thrilling and inventive! sometimes it’s pretty didactic! sometimes you wonder why we are on this planet! sometimes they give you some bread at the end of the show!
little beautiful things around my apartment. i bought myself some really stunning orange and yellow roses from the grocery store across the street and plugged in some christmas lights.
“be a clown” from the pirate king, performed by gene kelly and judy garland. (thank you to emily for doing the important work of watching this movie. she would like to report that it is NOT a film about gene kelly being hot, and is in fact a film about theater people being annoying.) if you watch this, you will notice the song is almost identical to “make ‘em laugh” from singin’ in the rain, which also stars gene kelly. the internet has helpfully informed me that “make ‘em laugh” was actually based on “be a clown.” i love to imagine the executives at mgm going “hmm… we were so close… what if we do it again… but with donald o'connor... and he jumps through a wall…”
my friend’s drag show at dream baby in the east village. she was so good. i was so proud and filmed her entire performance like i was amy poehler in mean girls.
this excellent series of photographs of creative people and their cats. diane keaton, ursula le guin, m.f.k. fisher… plus, some excellent quotes on the cats themselves.
laughed my way through a special installment of “jokes seth can’t tell.”
olivia rodrigo’s performance of “all-american bitch” on snl was pure musical theater goodness. the staging! the cakes! the set!
tiktok fed me this video of bill hader meeting his idol, keith morrison from dateline. and if you liked that, here’s this video of adam scott meeting his idol, mark hamill. long live adult men getting overcome with emotion!
ezra showed me this excellent little chris fleming snippet about mental illness that i somehow hadn’t seen before.
i keep scrolling through pictures of scented candles. i still cannot smell them through the screen!
hearing.
the first episode of culture study. so good! especially enjoyed the discussion of what it means for clothing to be “flattering” and how we can expand our sense of what clothing is for. tl;dr: you have to kill the fashion cop in your head (in addition to the regular cop in your head). i did laugh at the aggrieved submitted question, “why are glasses SO BIG?!” i want my glasses to be as big as possible, thank you very much. i want to feel like a cartoon snail who runs a library inside a mushroom. also obsessed with the idea of clothing and fashion as a really powerful language and a way for us to communicate our understanding of social situations. also also, this had lots of smart things to say about how a) the fast fashion problem can really only be curtailed by regulation, and b) there are still some things we can do as consumers to put our money where our mouths are. anyway, clothing is somehow both incredibly meaningful and also just not that big of a deal!
i. cannot. stop. listening. to. this. song.
also, sofía never misses!
also, also, cynthia erivo on “meadowlark.” you’re welcome.
making.
two (TWO!) job offers out of the blue this week. whoa. both grew from seeds i have been planting and cultivating for a while, but still… it’s so strange to be in a place where i semi-regularly get emails saying people want to work with me (and pay me for that work). i’m not going to say what they are here until the paperwork is signed, but the beginning of 2024 just changed radically for me — i’m going to be in and out of the city a whole bunch, working with tons of new people, and i’m really, really excited. i also feel really grateful that i have projects lined up for later in 2024 that i love, and that i work with so many great people who make it possible for me to juggling so many different projects.
decks! fundraising! crm! lol! also working on a new and improved cityscrape page for the good apples website.
sophie and i met with mo holmes, who will be coming on board one of our upcoming projects as dramaturg. i haven’t had the chance to work with a dramaturg on a full production that i was directing since college, and after only one meeting with mo, i can already tell that having her in the room is going to be such a gift.
more playing piano and singing at home. i learned to play “video games” by jensen mcrae (not yet out on spotify) and plunked my way through “the first noel.” glad i have my little keyboard.
