It’s been a rough week. Time for a little treat. Here are some things, lately, that I like:
Janet Fish’s paintings. Specifically, her paintings of light through plastic and glass.
Tatcha Oil Stick. It is winter in the city and deadly arid. I do not like being dry. This can be run over the face anytime, and won’t lift powder or cream makeup.
Rhode Peptide Lip Balm & Peptide Glazing Fluid. It’s a mild surprise when a celebrity-backed brand is any good. These are good, very good. As mentioned I dislike being dry.
3CE Mood Recipe Blush and Blur Water Tint. The entire procurement process is annoying (make an account; decipher Korean; wait who knows how many weeks for delivery) yet these are just great. The color range is ghostly yet amazingly durable. The blushes come in colors suitable only for the very palest.
The Offertorium from Verdi’s Messa di Requiem, by John Eliot Gardiner conducting the Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique and Monteverdi Choir. Specifically, this recording. It has one foot in sublimity yet is not unlistenably perfect. I have had the immense pleasure of seeing Gardiner conduct before, it remains one of the joys of my life.
Books I’ve read lately that are good:
Duplex, Kathryn Davis (Graywolf Press) A love story set in two or more dimensions, themselves set on a hinge. Surreal and bizarre science fiction washed through female adolescence and the 1950’s.
The Rosicrucian Enlightenment, Frances Yates (Routledge) A perfect book. I have more to say.
Hikkikomori: Adolescence Without End, Saito Tamaki (University of Minnesota Press) This is the work that coined, landed, and popularized the term. It is a difficult read for many reasons.
Depraved Indifference, Gary Indiana (Semiotext(e)) Wretched and nasty and brilliant.