Most nights, Mr. Magpie takes Tilly for her evening walk while I handle minimagpie’s bedtime routine — unless I’m out for the evening, in which case we swap, and in which case I take Tilly out in Central Park whenever I get home. You might think that walking a dog in the dark through a largely abandoned public park would be an unpleasant, borderline nerve-wracking experience, and while I’ve encountered my fair share of odd sightings — some real and some phantom — by and large, the late night walk is peaceful and uneventful. The park is drained of tourists. Sure, you’ll stumble upon the occasional lovebirds or clusters of Europeans smoking cloves, but what’s primarily left is a retiring bunch of local dog-owners, many of whom tend to themselves, the majority of whom live in my building or the one just next to mine, and a handful of whom strike up the usual dog-parent banalities (“what breed?” “how old?” “what a beauty!” “lots of energy”) with the tempered interest that more commonly accompanies comments on the weather.
Mainly, though, the walk is cinematic, and I’m always hyper-aware of the fact that I will one day look back on the way Manhattan looks at night, from the north-side of the Heckscher Ballfields, with a kind of wistful nostalgia. Something about the intervals of street lamps and shadows casts a film noir glow over Central Park, though the mood is far from the pessimism and menace those movies typically conjure. Instead, the skyscrapers along Columbus Circle and Central Park West stretch from the park treetops in a way that telegraphs avuncular calm rather than looming intimidation, their presence correct, decorous, demure in some way, their faces a purple-gray dotted irregularly with squares of gleaming yellow — the windows of fellow New Yorkers brushing their teeth, or searing their steaks in their small galley kitchens, or huddling by a laptop to send off a final email.
New York feels personal and startlingly knowable on these nights, so different from the days, during which I tend to feel anonymous, and during which corners of Broadway and Columbus and Amsterdam can feel shockingly different than they did just an hour or two prior, owing to the alchemy of lighting, of the presence or absence of street vendors, of the unanticipated erection or removal of scaffolding, of the flow of crowds.
I first recognized I could belong to New York during a late-night walk with Tilly at my side, first saw myself as a New Yorker strolling through the intermittent shadows lining one of its pleasantly broad and well-kept pathways at 10:33 or 11:01 or 9:27 p.m. — in short, I first fell in love with New York at night.
I am grateful for many things in my life right now, and I thought I might share some of the smaller moments for which I am grateful here from time to time. Today, I am grateful for New York by night.
+This would be such an elegant way to serve appetizers. I was about to write “to serve canapes,” but when have I ever made a canape? I don’t even know what a canape is — I just know that, according to my limited perception, everyone ate them in the late 90s and early 00s. On second thought, they tray would be perfect for heaps of oven fries or maybe a mound of grilled asparagus.
+I don’t know why I thought this was so funny, and, improbably enough, pondered buying it for my mom, who is the least likely of any human walking this planet to end up in hell, but I thought of her because she has a needlepoint pillow that reads: “If you can’t say something nice…come sit next to me.” It’s a ridiculous slogan for her to have in her house because she might be the least petty-minded, gossip-inclined woman I know, but it makes her laugh and it makes me laugh, too. Maybe I’ll buy it for my bestie instead, because we used to have a joke about going to hell in a handbasket together. (She also recently used this phrase, which I promptly filched: “are you reading the book, or did you drop it like a bad habit?”)
+PSA for all parents: this was a sleeper hit of a toy, and more than worth the five dollars spent on it. At first, I wasn’t sure mini “got” it, but she certainly does now, and sometimes I’ll just take one page with a few stickers on it and it keeps her preoccupied for ten or fifteen minutes at a restaurant. A good idea for travel, too. Highly recommend.
+I’m head over heels for this dress in the lavender color and this one in the white.
+These little mats are a clever idea for cordoning off a little play area for a not-yet-mobile babe. I used a quilt for mini, but I like that these hold their shape!
Have you listened to Kanye’s newest album, Ye? One of the songs, “Violent Crimes,” is a ballad of sorts to his daughter, lamenting the inevitability of her growing up, coming of age, and consorting with men. The song startled me because it reflects a level of introspection and vulnerability I don’t typically associate with rap music, especially when Kanye says:
“Father forgive me, I’m scared of the karma
‘Cause now I see women as somethin’ to nurture
Not somethin’ to conquer”
I also related — deeply — to his parental protectiveness, his anxiety over the future of his daughter, and was touched in particular at the specificity of his concerns:
“Don’t do no yoga, don’t do pilates
Just play piano and stick to karate
I pray your body’s shaped more like mine and not like your mommy’s…
I pray that you don’t get it all at once
Curves under your dress, I know it’s pervs all on the ‘net
All in the comments, you wanna vomit
That’s your baby, you love her to death”
There is something about the details in these lyrics that rings true to me, reads as authentic and original, and I can’t stop listening to it or thinking about it. After, I look over at minimagpie with an aching heart and pull her into me, aware that the minutaie and quirks of her fifteen-month-old self might disappear as quickly as this afternoon. When did she stop gumming on toys and preferring to actually play with them? When did she start understanding how those reusable sticker books work? When did she stop sleeping with her butt in the air? Where did she learn that fake laugh she tries on us now and again, waiting a tic afterward to see whether she’s elicited laughter from us?
Something in Kanye’s song has mediated my experience of motherhood, reminded me to truly stop, put down the phone or the broom or the laundry basket or the armful of toys or the Kindle, nestle myself on the floor, and drink this little soul up in all of its fifteen-month glory. Because as much as I need my mother to occasionally remind me that it’s OK — it’s necessary, survivalist even — to deposit mini in her crib for quiet playtime once or twice each day, I also cotton to the reminder that it’s also OK — necessary, survivalist even — to set aside the chores or the selfish pull of a bit of time to myself to get down on my hands and knees alongside her, lest she grows up in a hurry.
Post-Script.
+The darling two-piece set shown in the snap above is by Spanish line No Sin Valentina. Why are all the cutest baby clothes from Europe?
+Speaking of, La Coqueta Kids is currently running a summer sale, which *almost* makes up for the exorbitant price of shipping their pieces from abroad. I have my heart set on this.
+I keep all of mini’s outgrown clothes — the ones we want to keep, at least; the rest we donate — in these soft-sided storage bins.
+I have been stopped by three mothers inquiring about mini’s snack tray, which attaches to the Bugaboo stroller. It’s genius because mini otherwise hurls her empty snack catcher onto the dirty Manhattan sidewalk.
+Mini went to heaven when we surprised her with this stroller. She’s now completely abandoned the walker and will spend hours of each day pushing her dollbabies around, adjusting the sunshade, etc. It was actually a helpful tool in encouraging her to walk more steadily on her own, because she quickly learned she could not lean on it with the same pressure she’d used on her V-tech walker. This frustrated her and led to more than a few tumbles, but she got the hang of it within a day and has been toddling around happily ever since.
+Just ordered these darling and affordable rugby striped jammies for mini. She is in the 90th percentile of height — yes, the ninetieth!!! and I was always in the fifth! — and is currently wearing a 2T.
+I think I might order her this Camelbak waterbottle for when her nanny takes her out into the Park for the day.
+In case you’re wondering, these are a clutch lifesaver for a car trip. They thoroughly engaged her for a nice stretch of quiet time.
P.P.S. I totally lost track of my monthly updates — the last one is here! I’m long overdue…should I restart these? They kind of feel like a vapid brain dump of miscellany, but…
I’ve had a hankering to re-watch Sex and the City recently — I feel like I’ll understand more of the emotional travails of the principle characters now that I, too, am in my 30s, and I, too, live in New York City. But I’m also curious about the fashion, whether it holds up or not. I’m fairly confident I’d still wear most of Charlotte York’s wardrobe (minus those itty-bitty handbags, which aren’t much in vogue anymore and remind me of clunky mules I wore in the early 2000s), but how about Carrie B.?
One fashion detail heavily featured in Carrie’s wardrobe was the spaghetti strap, and I’m confident that this sartorial decision was in part owing to SJP’s frail stature (everything so slight and tiny, even the straps!) and in part owing to its innate, negligee-like sexiness. I mean — how saucy is the bronzed babe above in her barely-there cami? (I also love her small Miraculous Mary medal — you can buy a similar style here or here.) I’m in. My top picks for getting the look:
P.S. Entirely unrelated, but I spent an ungodly amount of time in pursuit of a laundry hamper a year or two ago, and I wish I’d waited until this came out. Love everything about it. Color, handle, shape. Perfect!
P.P.S. I think I’m going to last-minute-order this flag sweater for the FOJ. So adorable! Also, there’s a coordinating mini style — on sale here! (If the flag is too much for you, how about this adorable summer sweater?!) Speaking of last minute FOJ ordering, though I have mini’s outfit squared away, how adorable are these for her jammies?! I think I’m going to order her both the striped pair and the star pair!
P.P.P.S. A Magpie wrote asking me what to wear in the rain! My answer: For shoes:
+Hunter short rainboots (for some reason this shorter length feels more chic right now, and I love them in the blue)
The only other pair of shoes I wear in the rain, really, are my Supergas. They have a thick rubber sole so if it’s just drizzling, they do the trick, but if it’s pouring down or there’s pooling water, I wouldn’t recommend them.
Then you’ll need a raincoat. If you want to dress up, a trench will do the trick. If you’ll be wearing more casual clothes, a classic Petit Bateau would be perfect. And if you’ll be doing anything outdoorsy, I can’t obsess enough over my Marmot Precip!
Finally, you MUST OWN A DAVEK UMBRELLA. THE BEST THE BEST THE BEST: highly well-made and super compact.
By: Jen Shoop
When I was around six, I decided I wanted to be a nun — no, a teacher — no, an actress. And then, for many years, I daydreamed intensively about becoming a star of the silver screen, until I reached eighth grade and came to two conclusions: first, that I did not enjoy performing at all, and second, that I was far better at academics. I had earned exactly two roles across my elementary and middle school career, but I’d gleaned from both experiences that acting was uncomfortable for me and did not play to my strengths. The first was Witch No. 3 in Shakespeare’s “MacBeth,” which my fifth grade class performed at the Folger Shakespeare Library on Capitol Hill as a part of an annual program in which local elementary schools perform(ed?) renditions of The Bard’s plays. I had desperately wanted to be cast as Lady MacBeth, but a precocious, mature-looking classmate of mine with a thick mane of blond hair and an outsized, melodramatic personality clambered all over the role once the play had been selected, and I was too shy to throw my hat into the ring. Even at the age of ten, I knew that she could pull off the hystrionics of “out, out damned spot” far better than this shrinking violet ever could. Instead, I was randomly cast as one of the three witches, with the starring line: “By the pricking of my thumbs, something wicked this way comes.” I rehearsed the line four thousand and twenty nine times, varying the way I said “wicked” each time — sometimes in a shriek and sometimes in a snarl. Of course, no one remembers my performance because showtime nerves led me to rush through the phrase in a monotone recitative, and I don’t know that anyone could even hear what the hell I was mumbling. I did, however, gain some smallscale notoriety among my classmates because I had managed to memorize not only my lines, but the lines of every single character in the play. I knew — even then — that my skill in rote memorization was probably better served in the academic sphere than it was in rushing through lines and scurrying, my heart in my throat, to exit stage left.
But still, I persisted in my dream. I wrote stories about a fictional me, a big time actress me, being interviewed by Entertainment Weekly. I daydreamed about attending awards shows. Implausibly, I imagined myself dating Val Kilmer (?). I swooned over the pageantry of it all.
And then my career as an actress — and any ambitions for celebrity — officially came to a close in an actual pageant in eighth grade. Every year, the school put on an old-school Catholic Christmas pageant, and the eighth graders were responsible for acting out the key roles of Mary, Joseph, Cesar Augustus, the innkeeper, the three kings. In the spirit of democracy, the class voted on who should be play each role, and I won — much to my surprise and private delight — the role of Mary. The casting was especially meaningful to an eighth grade me because the class hunk, Enrique, was voted to play the role of Joseph. Enrique was a handsome, good-natured boy who looked an awful lot like Benny “the Jet” Rodriguez from The Sandlot, had accordingly been a crush of mine since fourth grade, and had recently started dating the hottest girl in our class, Aline (pronounced ah-leen-ay), who had moved to the U.S. from Brazil a year prior, wore enormous silver hoops and flared bell-bottoms that hugged her perfect curves in all the right ways, had been rumored to smoke cigarettes now and then (the eighth grade me was shocked and impressed), and was overall one of the biggest babes I’ve ever met in my life. I was flattered that my classmates had voted me in, but I was mainly keen on playing a starring role — even in a religious performance — across from the most eligible bachelor in my parochial Catholic school. But the principle thing I remember from the pageant? A deep flush — not from my counterpart, but from the feeling of being watched. I was painfully self-aware, suddenly wondering whether I usually kept my lips open or closed over my teeth, whether I was blinking more often than usual, whether anyone had noticed the peaceful, faraway look I thought I’d arranged on my face. I couldn’t wait to shed my blue cassock, retreat into my bedroom, and lay on my stomach on the blue carpet of my childhood bedroom, listening to the Brandy and Monica single “The Boy Is Mine” (I guess I was a repeater then?!) on my Sony Discman.
On the car ride home, I asked my father what he’d thought: “How was I?”
He was switching lanes, and I remember the tick-tick-tick-tick of the blinker as he said: “Well, I don’t know that your future is on the stage.”
I knew he was right — to the degree that I wasn’t even burned by his blunt response in a predictably angsty -teenager way. I willingly took his feedback on board. That chapter had closed, and I funneled my energy into a pastime better-suited to my abilities: academics.
It’s funny, though, how things turn out. Tonight, I will be speaking at a public event, and, in preparing for it, I realized that throughout my career I have consistently found myself on stages of various forms: as a teaching assistant in graduate school, at academic conferences presenting my papers (one such took place in Rome, Italy, and my parents extravagantly flew out to hear me read my paper — I was a nervous wreck the evening before, barely sleeping an hour or two), then at dozens of non-profit convenings as the executive of two different start-ups in the education technology sector, then at design-centric gatherings presenting some of the learnings from some products I worked on with the design firm IDEO (a whole other story, and one worth telling — perhaps one of the best experiences of my professional career), then pitching the business I built with my husband at a range of pitch events, and, now, occasionally, as TheFashionMagpie. How can that be, I wonder?
Sometimes I marvel over the symmetry of this particular thread in my narrative, my early aspirations and failures somehow a foreshadowing of what was to come. You aren’t meant to act, my dear, but you will need to learn to be comfortable on a stage. How tidy — how kind, really — that life permitted me the space for these false starts, acknowledging in some way that I’ve never been one who thrives on a “jump in feet first” mentality. The stage had its pull then, as a middle schooler, and it has its purpose now, as an entrepreneur. I wouldn’t say I’m at home on a dais, but I’ve overcome stage fright by force of will and repeated exposure, and — against all odds — I will admit that I indulgently enjoy being in the limelight now. I had to first see myself as a somebody, and then acclimate myself with the discomforts and thrills of being a perennial fish out of water, but now, when I stand at the front of a room and tap my glass for attention, it makes me feel as though I have something to say, and that something is worth listening to.
+In need of a last-minute Fourth of July dress that’s not too overly patriotic-looking (and not into any of these)? How adorable is this (under $50)?! OR THIS (LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE X 10000).
+Do you ever read “lowbrow” books and feel guilty? Don’t.
+I’ve gotten a bunch of emails asking about the bookshelves you can see behind me in some of my Instastories at home — they are these, and I am obsessed with them.
+This would be a good solution for a small space with a window and nothing to put beneath it — turn it into a little reading nook, with storage below!
+For some reason, Amazon keeps saying this is a book I might like…
By: Jen Shoop
I’d crossed paths with the designer label Goat a couple of times over the past years, but it wasn’t until Megan Markle showed up at a recent event in an elegant Goat dress (shown above and below) that I did a triple/quadruple take and took a more earnest interest in their wares.
I am in love. If I were a working woman with a boundless budget, I’d wear Goat nearly every day of the week — their dresses are demure, ladylike, and sophisticated, but they somehow eschew the stodginess you might expect. But since I’m me — a stay-at-home writer and chaser-of-a-one-year-old, I think I’ll need to save up for just one of them for a special occasion, and I’m torn between the following:
Second PSA: You can get the Goat look for less with this or this. And speaking of getting the look for less, you know that Lisa Marie Fernandez tiered dress I’ve been making eyes at for a few weeks? This nails the look for under a third of the price.
Also, I know y’all have been sitting on pins and needles waiting to hear about how we got the pet smell out of our carpet, and this is the only thing that worked (and we’d tried a bunch of remedies, including borrowing a steam cleaner from a friend!)! It smelled super strong and chemical-ly after application, but it’s completely removed the pee smell. Win!
And another also — I love this little striped shirtdress!!! The color! The width of the stripes! Best of all — the price!
I turn 34 on June 26th, and have been casually on the lookout for a dress to wear to my birthday dinner. I don’t need a new dress because I have plenty, and my fallback is a white tiered Self-Portrait that I have only worn once before but that is SO DARN PRETTY (similar in ethos to this) I have been looking for any excuse to pull it out of its garment bag. But still…it’s MA BIRFDAY. I love this (shown above), this, this, and this.
You’re Sooooo Popular: The Sale Summer Blouse.
The most popular items on Le Blog this week:
+Two darling statement blouses for summer — this one and this one — both on serious sale!
My siblings and siblings-in-law and I got into a funny debate at our family reunion when it emerged that one of my sisters will occasionally like a song so much that she will replay it five or ten or even fifteen times in a row. This gave way to a protracted, passionate conversation about whether it was weird or not to be a “repeater” in the way only siblings or very close friends can dive into petty topics with fervor and hyperbole without royally offending anyone (to my knowledge…) — and we discovered that there was a fairly even split among us. About half repeated songs regularly and the other half determinedly didnot. What was interesting about the conversation was that the non-repeaters were overbearing in their conviction that repeating songs was “weird” and “not how music was meant to be listened to,” and the repeaters were all sheepish about their habits: “I feel guilty, but I can’t help it!”
For the record, I’m an alternative, third kind of music-listener: the very occasional repeater. (This seems consistent with much in my life: I’m a little of this, a little of that, but wear only a handful of labels comfortably: wife, Catholic, and — more recently, after extensive soul-searching — mother and writer.) Only rarely, when I’m really into a song, will I listen to it two times in a row or a handful of times over the course of an evening — but the thought of listening to the same song backtobacktoback feels claustrophobic to me.
What about you? Repeater? Non-repeater?
#Shopaholic: A One-Piece.
+I am DYING over this white one-piece. I very much do not need another swimsuit — I barely use the drawer-full of them I currently own! — but I think I might need it.
+This crib or this crib would make SUCH a huge statement in a chic nursery!
+In love with this acrylic x-bench — though I should say I’ve had really good luck finding amazing x-benches at Target, and this in the gray-and-cream cabana stripe has my full attention right now! I might put it under the window in our bedroom…
My high school French teacher, Madame B., was a jolly, heavy-set middle-aged woman with a quick laugh and a lovely sense of perspective — even in high school, I could tell that she was amused by the petty dramas and mishaps of her teen charges, but in a way that suggested that she appreciated our youth rather than condescended to it. I remember one of my classmates sighing loudly about the D she had just received one languid afternoon in our classroom on the fourth floor of the main hall on our campus; her seatmate prodded: “What are your parents going to say?!” and the girl’s shrugging response was, terrifyingly: “I’ll just tell them I’m pregnant. And then the D won’t matter.” (Can you imagine?! Teenage girls are the worst!) Madame B. gasped and then clucked her tongue — “Tsk tsk tsk, no no no — we will figure out a better way,” and then she looked out the window and murmured “Mon dieu. These girls” to no one in particular.
I think of Madame B. occasionally because she had us memorize the Renaissance poem “Allons voir si la rose” and recite it aloud, alone, in turn, in front of the entire class. I was horrified by this assignment, as I was painfully shy in my early high school years, and nothing could have been more torturous than standing and reciting a poem in awkward high school French in front of my cooler-than-I classmates, D-grade girl included. (Do you know what I mean by awkward high school French? That mode of speaking a foreign language where you don’t want to appear like you’re trying too hard, so you don’t really aim to nail the accent? So you half-assedly attempt the word voir and hang onto the “r” at the end a little too long instead of straining for the correct pronunciation, which sort of melts into nothing at the back of your throat — vwaaahrrrhhhhhhhhhh—? Again — ugh, teenage years are the worst.)
At any rate, I occasionally think of the words to Ronsard’s poem; they’ll float into my mind at random moments: “et sa robe de pourpre” will cut into my thoughts when I hear the word “purple” or “qui ce matin avait declose” will roll off my tongue when I for whatever reason think of the word matin (“morning” in French). And instantly I’ll skip back to Madame B. and the recitation and, specifically, the unceremonious way in which she’d tap the next classmate to jump up and deliver the poem — she’d say: “vite, vite, vite!” in rapid-fire succession. (Go, go go!)
This is how I feel the last two weeks have been: VITE VITE VITE! GO GO GO!
And I honestly like it. I like being busy. I like the urgency of having plans to run between (although I am never as graceful as the chiffon-and-silk-clad chic pea in the photo above while doing it! Ha!) But it means that this post is going live very late on a Friday morning. SO VITE VITE VITE — for today, a very quick and haphazard list of things on my radar…
+I have been a longtime devotee of Glossier’s Boy Brow, but I just picked up a stick of this and people go insane over it. If you’ve never used a brow gel/pencil, you must give them a try — I was reluctant but it completely finishes a look and I can’t leave the house without applying it!
+Speaking of dresses — I wore this dress to our inaugural Magpie book club earlier this week, even though the weather was determined to foil my plans: it was in the 60s and downright cool that night, so I wore a jean jacket and Chanel flats with it instead of bare shoulders and sandals. I got a couple of questions about the dress via Instastory, and the short answers to all of those are: it is so beautiful and well-made in person and it runs a little large.
+Speaking of book club — ZOMG! The Magpie book club was absolutely the highlight of my summer thus far; I loved meeting so many Magpies I’ve only known through comments / email / direct message, and the observations and insights this ring of smart ladies brought to the table were nothing short of brilliant. We talked about the book (Anjali Sachdeva’s All the Names They Used for God) thoroughly, intensively, for a good hour AND THEN — the author dialed in! I had emailed her to applaud her on her incredible short story collection and she responded with a generous offer to answer questions live at our book club. One comment she made that has stuck with me: I asked her about the fabular nature of many of her short stories, about how the supernatural forces across many of her short stories — the mermaids, the mindreaders — require that you suspend belief or flip into some sort of allegorical mode. Her response was that sometimes the world is too hard to look at head-on — it’s too horrible, too distressing — and that fables give us the space to more comfortably broach these topics, understand them, emote around them. She also explained that she prefers short fiction to longer form because she’s able to achieve more layered, intense writing in them. A lot of food for thought. (And please read along with us for next month’s book pick, which I announced here, and which is getting a lot of buzz. I also have a couple of spots open for next month’s book club — date TBD — and will announce details soon if you’re interested in joining in person.)
+A couple of the books that my fellow book clubbers recommended, and these have since shot to the top of my reading list: Exit West, The Empathy Exams, and The Power.
+I’ve been on the hunt for a pair of tortoise shell glasses, and I love these — and they’re $50 off today!
+Am I showing too much of my inner dork by admitting I am contemplating buying this? Needlepointing seems so therapeutic and far more attainable than learning how to knit, which requires more skill and more tools.
+I just reread this post on moving fast and slow through motherhood…and it still rings true, five months later.
+I have not forgotten about the Women of Substance series! I will be bringing a new lady into the limelight soon, but in the meantime — a) email me if you have a nominee, and b) I love her.
P.S. Finally snagged one of these for our stroller, as mini tends to like water and snacks on our long walks through Manhattan. I find her to be lovely company now while I’m running errands — but only when she’s stocked up on snacks.
P.P.S. I also bought her this, finally, and she’s going to FLIP. She loves draping toys over the front of her walker and pushing them around, so this will be a huge upgrade for her.
P.P.P.S. In search of a couple of “indoor activities” on hand for rainy days, I also snagged this set.
By: Jen Shoop
I recently listened to a few snippets of an interview with Joanna Coles, Chief Content Officer for Hearst Magazines, and former longtime editor-in-chief of Cosmopolitan, and at one point, she commented breezily that she never cries.
Never cries?
Never?
Oy.
I am a crier. Like, a weekly crier. Maybe — if I’m being honest — an occasional daily crier. Not necessarily over serious stuff, either: it might be minimagpie throwing her arms around me in a hug, or a moving scene in a movie (I may or may not have open-mouth sobbed during portions of the movie Hostiles, which I loved until the final scene), or a sweet gesture from Mr. Magpie, or a little love note from my mom, or three boxes of pantry items tumbling onto my head at a particularly frenetic moment, or — and this has happened, too — a tender kindness from a stranger on a hard day, or that time not so long ago that Mr. Magpie and I observed a middle-aged gentleman sitting, solo, in a favorite Italian restaurant of ours in Chicago, and we noticed a little pamphlet at his side: “The best dishes in Chicago.” There he was, by himself, dutifully ordering the pasta a la norma and a glass of white wine, per the article’s recommendation. There was something so moving about his earnest pursuit of The Good Stuff, his unblinking faith in the article’s assertions. We couldn’t help but spool an entire maudlin storyline out of our brief glimpse into his life: was he recently divorced and looking to live his best life? A bachelor foodie with a bucket list of dishes to try, but no one to try them with? A traveling businessman making the best of a solitary trip? Whatever it was, something about his lonely foray in search of a culinary treat spoke to us, and I couldn’t help but wipe a tear away later as we discussed it back home.
I wish I weren’t a crier. It’s embarrassing. It often exacerbates an awkward or emotionally fraught moment — leading people to pause, awkwardly, and wonder what to say or do. And it can undercut a genuine emotion when friends sigh or roll their eyes comedically or crack a smile: “Oh, there she goes again” or “Why is she crying?!” or “Oh, Jen…” And so I’ve tried — fruitlessly — various strategies to prevent myself from crying over the years:
“Look up at the light,” one college girlfriend said, rather gruffly, when tears pooled in my eyes as I spilled my guts over heartache of one form or another. “You won’t cry then.” I was taken aback at her seeming tough love — it was this that stayed the tears rather than the look-into-the-light trick, which I’ve tried dozens of times since, to no avail.
“Bite your cheek if you feel like you need to cry,” my sister wrote in a note to me when I was eleven and upset about something or other. This, also, has failed me at inopportune moments: I’ve tried this, and also tried pinching my hand, the theory being that focusing on another type of mild pain — physical — might distract from the impending waterworks.
I’ve stockpiled funny moments — I especially love the slapstick and bawdy humor of A Million Ways to Die in the West, and will force my mind to replay favorite moments in a valiant attempt at self-distraction as I feel tears forming — but, again, without success.
I hoped that after surviving some of the travails of the past few years — deaths, losses, failures — and also enjoying some of its extreme triumphs — births, moves, successes — I might be better situated to separate the wheat from the chaff when it comes to tear-worthy moments. But no. I might have a better perspective on things in a general sense, but I seem always a minute away from a cry.
Recently, I’ve accepted this in myself. Crying is as natural to me as smiling — when something funny happens, I laugh; when something moves me, I cry. We all know the impossibility of stifling the giggles once we get going; the same goes for crying — so why fight it? Why denigrate it? If anything, it’s a testament to how deeply I feel the world around me, to how much of my heart I wear on my sleeve — it’s me. I’ve even come to embrace the laughing reaction it sometimes elicits from loved ones, which I’ve come to learn might be a form of relief, the displacement of the grief or anger or heartache they are experiencing into a sort of avuncular condescension: “Oh, Jen — there she goes again.” And the conversation shifts, and the mood lightens, and we can all take a breath.
What about you? Are you a crier? Do you stifle it, or do you own it? And if you’re not a crier — God bless you. (How do you do it?!?!?)
Post-Script.
New org-dork alert: we have a lovely upholstered Parson’s chair with built-in storage under the seat. Unfortunately, minimagpie has learned how to remove the seat cushion and dig around in the basin, and the basin is where we store batteries, pens, shipping tape, and other office supplies. I resolved the problem and indulged my inner Marie Kondo by sifting through everything, tossing much of it, and organizing the rest in a combination of these and these (perfect for surplus pens and batteries!). It’s borderline humiliating how happy this organization project left me.
I have also heard that these bins are great all-purpose organizational wizards — use them under the sink, over the laundry machine, in the closet, etc.
Apparently this pineapple basket was so popular it sold out immediately — but is available now for pre-order. I think I need this for our entryway! Would be a great spot to conceal our stash of mittens, miscellaneous totes, dog toys, etc.
You know I can’t say no to a highlighter. This stuff looks magically pretty.
I think I need this for minimagpie! She’s years and years away from needing her own key, but…! Imagine stockpiling it for the day she gets her key to the apartment? I love it.
Super mad I missed out on this dress — it’s sold out in my size but still available in a few others and looks like the spitting image of an Alessandra Rich!
A couple of photos I’ve come across on Instagram and Pinterest that have inspired me lately…starting with the stunning tennis court shot above, which reminds me of a lazy summer morning. It also reminded me that, a few summers ago, I took tennis lessons, bought a bundle of tennis clothing, and had Mr. Magpie buy me a tennis racket, and absolutely none of it’s been put to use since. Maybe I’ll ferret out an instructor here in Manhattan…after all, I’d love an excuse to wear this or this, or to splurge on one of these.
Every now and then, I ask our nanny to stay an hour late and I run across the street to a wine bar for a glass of wine or a cocktail and an hour of reading my kindle — solo. It is an indulgent kind of heaven for me. I shared what I’m reading right now / planning to read soon here, but do you know what I always want to re-read when I go on these excursions? Rebecca, by Daphne DuMaurier, an eerie but romantic mystery novel set in a gorgeous mansion. It feels like just the kind of escapism I need…
This bedroom is so EXTRA, I can’t even. I love the designer’s borderline reckless use of elaborate and intricate color, shape, pattern, the semi-jarring contrast of a stately, masculine, marble-topped side table against the lush, vintage-looking velvet headboard. It’s layered and busy but also sophisticated. I especially love the De Gournay wallpaper and the Cologne and Cotton bedding, and that palm leaf lamp base had me scouring Etsy for lookailkes (I love this — imagine it with a crisp white lampshade! Epic!). If nothing else, maybe I should finally pull the trigger on those Aquazzura for De Gournay shoes I’ve lusted after for a year or more, or the Waverley bedding set I’ve mentioned at least 245 times, or maybe this set of De Gournay-inspired melamine plates (swoon!).
This snap makes me excited for our upcoming trip to the Hamptons (I described my imagined perfect day there), even though I don’t think the photo above is actually of the Hamptons. I love the climbing lilac (what is it with me and lilac?!) and can almost feel the heat of the sun on the steps as I run down them barefoot, with Tilly at my heels. It’s summer, in a picture. (Only I’d probably be wearing something like this.)
Speaking of what to wear in the summer, I have a small to mid-sized problem with white dresses. I own about 324 of them and have no intention of attending to the addiction. I mean — how easy, how chic, how perfect does the beachy blond above look?! A few others on my radar: this, this, this, and this. I also love the oversized, label-less straw tote…something like this might suffice.
I recently discovered the label Hunting Season and am dying for one of their raffia and lizard shoulder bags. Love the retro shape and the colors couldn’t be more up my alley. Yes, please!
Mr. Magpie and I just committed to a trip to Tuscany with family next summer! I am over the moon — it’s been way too long since we went on a sustained trip somewhere. Is it too early to start shopping for it?! I am definitely going to read this book by Gabrielle Hamilton, the chef behind celebrated NYC restaurant Prune (and I think Mr. Magpie is taking me there for my birthday later this month!) A friend of mine recommended it after I mentioned our trip to Tuscany, as apparently Hamilton had a magical experience there as well. I’m already imagining myself in summery, ladylike shirtdresses like this, this, and this. Maybe a pair of simple braided slides? And a new Marysia suit? (The house we’ll be renting in Tuscany has a pool!!!!) But mainly I’d love to wear this sophisticated, printed kaftan…
P.S. This would make an incredible gift for a hostess with a green thumb!
We had been dating for a couple of months when Landon invited me to a house party hosted by some of his best friends from high school, several of whom were girls, and several of whom belonged to a friend group self-dubbed “The Butterflies,” of which Landon had been an honorary member.
Like any self-doubting, occasionally petty-minded girl in her late teens, I was instantly suspicious.
“Girl friends…?” I trailed off, feigning calm, preoccupying myself by studying a few strands of hair for split ends. “You had…you were a part of a group of…girl friends? Called…the Butterflies?”
“Yeah,” he shrugged. A silence pooled between us.
“That’s cool,” I said, the words wooden and false in my mouth, as my mind got to work determining how best to sleuth out the names of these girls and whether he had been romantically involved with any of them. I opened my mouth and closed it, not wanting to seem “thirsty” or jealous when there was no reason to be, but inwardly convinced — already — that these girls a) had been involved with him before, b) wanted to be involved with him, or c) were going to make me feel horribly excluded in the way only girls can, by taking hearty advantage of years of formative high school memories in order to put me in my place as “the new girl.” I could almost imagine it: “Lan, Lan,” a tall, leggy blond would say, swirling her red Solo cup of beer in front of him “–remember that night you told Vicky that the party was a block away and she got lost?!” Peals of laughter, lots of name-dropping, and then me, staring blankly with an awkward grin glued on my face as I pretended to understand the joke. “Oh, that’s funny,” I’d nod eagerly, to no one.
As the party approached, I decided there were two routes in front of me: I could either feign illness and skip out or I could attend and try to win them over. Because I was convinced by the end of our first month of dating that Landon would be my husband one day, I decided that these friends of his were probably worth the effort. I blow-dried my hair, put on my favorite sundress — a pale pink floral strapless number from Ralph Lauren that tied at the bust — and my requisite pearl earrings, and applied a spritz of Coco Chanel Mademoiselle. I was tan from the summer and I looked in the mirror and thought, “You look pretty. An approachable version of Charlotte York, if I don’t say so myself.” I had baked cookies for the occasion — who can have beef with someone who bakes cookies? — and then waited at the foot of the stairs in my childhood home for Landon’s black Jeep to come roaring up the drive. He was polite enough to cut his music before turning in between the stone pillars at the foot of the driveway, but I could hear his bass from down the block.
As a teenage girl, there is nothing in life more attractive than a teenage boyfriend with a deep tan and a good car swinging by to pick you up for a date. I still get a somersault in my stomach thinking about it — the headiness, the promise, the dewiness of youth.
“I’ll be back later!” I called over my shoulder, practically skipping out the door. Landon always put the car in park and jumped out to get me when he’d pick me up. I loved this — I still love this — gesture of chivalry, especially after growing up in a sprawling, busy family, where my parents routinely dropped us off a few blocks from our destinations to avoid creeping carpool lanes or one-way streets that would add five minutes of navigation to their return trips, and where my brother would often sit, fuming, in the front seat of the car on carpool days, waiting for his four tardy sisters, honking his horn irritably as an accelerant.
And then we were off — zipping down the incline of Tilden Street to take a right onto the winding coil of Rock Creek Parkway. He turned the bass up, rolled down the windows, and idly propped his elbow up in his window, his fingers drumming the roof. He was blond and tan from the summer, freshly showered and shaved, and he smelled like soap and Altoids. He wore his oxford shirt rolled up to the elbow, but — as always — tucked in at the waist. My God, he was something to see. It was too loud to speak, the wind whipping through the car and the music blaring, but at some point he grabbed my hand in the console between us and smiled at me. Something passed between us then, some invisible dynamic in the evening shifted, and the knot that had been forming in my stomach ever since he’d informed me of his tribe of lady friends dissolved. I saw him as mine, and he saw me as his. I felt an implicit, unbreakable alliance between us, butterflies be-damned.
The Butterflies, as it turned out, were nothing like I’d imagined. They were warm — introducing themselves, unprompted; offering small talk; fawning over the cookies; admiring my dress. And though they trotted out inside jokes, I couldn’t fault them for it — what else do high school buddies do when reunited at the dawn of long summer together back home? One of them, E., was especially attentive to me, offering to find me wine when I declined the keg beer, showing me to the bathroom, asking where I lived, laughing politely at my attempts at humor. As the evening wore on and the wine settled in, she introduced me to other friends as Landon’s girlfriend, and I flushed at the label, and also at her tacit, easy acceptance of our relationship. She could have just introduced me as “Jen,” but she made the effort — then, as many times later — to show her support for our relationship, even in its awkward toddler phase. It made me feel sheepish about my suspicions about these gals and their intentions.
I grew to have deep and meaningful connections with many of these girls, all of whom were genuine and down-to-earth in a way that Landon often describes as “OG Arlington, Virginia” — chill and pretense-free, but they’ll call you on your B.S. Still, it took a couple of months — maybe years? — for me to cement my friendships with them, and I remember the exact day I did: my friend E. was going through a tough time with a gentleman she was dating, and one of her closest friends from the Butterfly group, K., pulled her into a bathroom, where I had been reapplying mascara.
“Oh — do you want me to leave?” I asked.
“No no no,” said E. While K. consoled a tearful E., I silently applied 432 coats of mascara, not wanting to interject myself but also concerned for E. and curious about what was going on. I was flattered at their candor in front of me: K. was empathetic, knowing, understanding as she listened and offered her advice to a heartbroken E., and, before I could do anything about it, I found tears slipping down my cheeks.
Yes — as these two girls engaged in a deep moment of friendship and heartache, I awkwardly, quietly bawled in the corner.
It was only when they were cleaning themselves up to return to the party that they noticed a sniffling me with rivulets of mascara streaming down her cheeks.
“Oh honey,” said E., laughing and hugging me.
We’ve been thick as thieves since. It was a bizarre rite of passage, but I think she must have seen that beneath my occasionally aloof exterior was a highly emotive, deeply loyal soul who could be so moved at the pain of a friend that she would wordlessly sob her heart out in the shadows of a bathroom during a house party. On the flipside, I discovered how much I cared for E. in that moment — and how badly I wanted to key or torch or otherwise destroy the car of the gentleman in question.
I realize now that the fact that Landon had a group of close girlfriends in high school was a harbinger for good things, a signal of his maturity and his ability to appreciate women as more than just potential suitors. I’ve still not ferreted out whether or not he dated any of them, but that’s beside the point anyway — his friendships with these “butterflies” meant that he understood women as friends, and was generally unphased by some of the occasionally nutty things young girls do in relationships, like that time I threw a fit at a wedding and smashed my camera on the ground and then ran through the rain like I was Rachel McGoddamnAdams in The Notebook or something. (Hint hint: it’s not as cute as the movies make you think.) And so –I am grateful to these women and for their friendships with Landon for affording me certain allowances along the way. But I am also grateful in a different sense: I am the fortunate beneficiary of Landon’s friendships with these women — these butterflies whom I originally feared and mistrusted, whom I originally approached with the practiced, knowing cool of Baroness Schraeder when she discovers Captain Von Trapp dancing with Maria in the backyard and smirks knowingly at the duo (does anyone else love “The Sound of Music”?), but whom I gradually came to claim as friends of my own. E. was my bridesmaid, and I will be hers this upcoming October. And how lucky to find that in gaining a boyfriend, I had also gained a clan of friends to call my own. I think they call that kismet.
If I were to go back in time and plan a meeting-the-butterflies outfit all over again, I probably wouldn’t stray far from my original choice (florals are still my thang), but I also like the way this LWD blurs the lines between sweet, sexy, and demure. I’d love to pair it with these slides and this personalizable (!!!) tote.
This floral dress with its cut-outs and ladylike midi length achieves a similar effect.
All that said, Landon’s friends were always on the more casual side, and even though I’ve never minded being the dressiest of the group (would much prefer to be overdressed than underdressed), a statement top (I’m obsessed with this, this, and this) and some white skinnies would have been right on the mark.
Finally, because we’re nearing Father’s Day and I’ve received a couple of emails on the topic and this post is Mr. Magpie-focused, a few ideas for gifts for the dads in your life:
+For a techie: Ring, a wi-fi enabled video doorbell — my dad just got this and it’s pretty nifty — or a set of wireless earpods. I mentioned this recently, but Mr. Magpie is obsessed with his Hue lightbulb system — you can control your lighting from your smartphone and, now, with our Homepod, we can just tell Siri, “Turn out the living room lights.”
+For an outdoorsman: Gardening gloves, a pocket-knife (I once gave a similar style to my brother and he loved it), or Danner hiking boots (I love the styling on these, and they’re supposed to be incredible). I also wrote about this in a recent Magpie Micropost (you can get these delivered to your inbox by signing up here), but these windbreakers are truly the best, and are currently on sale. Every man in my family owns one.
+For a fashion-interested gent: I recently bought Mr. Magpie a pair of navy Tretorns and I love the way he looks in them. A nice alternative to his go-to boat shoes. My brother-in-law showed up at our family reunion in a pair of these Vejas and he looked FUHHH-RESH. Either would be good picks for a well-heeled dad. Polo is also having an incredible sale, with an extra 30% off orders over $150. Mr. Magpie snagged a couple of items, including this textured linen shirt and some polos.
+For a foodie: a box of Ample Hills ice cream (OMG OMG OMG you must try the peppermint pattie!) or a REALLY good bottle of bourbon and some luxardo cherries (for old-fashioneds). When we were in Aspen, Co a few summers ago, I bought Mr. Magpie a calf-hair beer coozi that I had branded (yes, hot branded!) with his initials at a little boutique and he uses it pretty much daily. This needlepointed one would have a similar heirloomable quality. A new cookbook is also always a good pick, and this is beautiful and well-reviewed — or how about a box of high-end dry pasta? Mr. Magpie loves the brand Rigarosa, but we also get a lot of Afeltra in our house — you can buy both here.
+For an athlete: A Klean Kanteen with a sports nozzle (have written about this extensively, but it is simply the best bottle for an athlete or a mom with only one free hand) and/or an Aquaquest pouch. I know the pouch might seem dubious, but it is probably one of the handiest things I own. It’s waterproof, large enough to stow a cell phone, keys, and some cash/credit cards, and stays in place.
+Splurges: I contemplated buying Mr. Magpie one of these awesome Yeti coolers (I’d have gotten it in the blue or coral) — I love their styling and the reviews are nutso — back when we lived in Chicago because Mr. Magpie loved nothing more than smoking something all day long with a cooler of beer in our backyard. I would have also loved to have bought him one of these classic Craftsman rolling tool chests in cherry red for his mounting tool collection in our garage.
+Miscellaneous: These are kind of cool if you’re planning a move or keep a lot of stuff in boxes in a basement. I wish we had found these before our move!
By: Jen Shoop
My first in-person convening of the Magpie book club is this Wednesday (and there’s an offshoot happening in D.C.!) — are you reading along, too? (I hope?) As a reminder, we’re reading Anjali Sachdeva’s All the Names They Used for God. Meanwhile, scroll down to see our book club pick for next month! But first, I thought I’d share a couple of lines of inquiry I’ve been noodling over as possible starting points for our discussion; please share your thoughts in the comments, and I’ll read them (as I always do, voraciously), and weave them into our convo!
Book Club Discussion Questions.
How does Sachdeva portray the natural world in her stories — and why? I’m thinking specifically about Robert and Terri in “Logging Lake,” when they venture off to hike, or “The World by Night,” where Sadie ventures out of her house and repels into a cave, or the sea in “Robert and the Mermaid.” Is nature a benevolent force? An enemy? Why do the characters seem drawn into the earth, into nature, in so many of the stories?
Similarly — what are we to make of science/technology in these stories? Think about the glass lung, when a supposed discovery leads to an enormous explosion that injures and kills many, and the story about the septuplets as a miracle of science. What are we to make of the relationship between man and science?
Many of Sachdeva’s stories have a touch of the mystical or magical to them — the mermaid, the discovery of treasure in “Glass-Lung,” the supernatural powers the girls exert over their husbands’ minds in “All the Names for God.” How did you interpret those stories? How did they make you feel as a reader? Did you willingly suspend belief, or did you find yourself straining to read them as a fable or allegory? Are they fables?
One Magpie told me that she found these stories “unrelatable.” Do you agree? Why? Do you think that “unrelatability” is strategic on Sachdeva’s part? (I.e., could she have gotten her points across using less fabular/dream-like stories and anchoring them in more true-to-life narratives?)
There are several characters across the stories that suffer physical challenges — the partial blindness of Sadie, the glass lung (and therefore enforced muteness), the individuals who have been “forked,” the physically compromised septuplets. Why do you think she chose to feature so many characters with disablements and ailments? What did their presence establish?
Do you think the stories were ordered in a specific way for a reason?
What did you make of the story titled “All the Names for God”? Why did this story share the title of the collection? How did it make you read the other stories?
Why do you think Sachdeva’s stories span so many different timeframes and so many different cultures? Why would she skip around so much, and what is the effect on you as a reader?
Did any of the stories scare you, or leave you on edge? Why? Which ones?
Book Review of Anjali Sachdeva’s All the Names They Used for God.
Five stars. This book blew my mind. While it was written as a series of short stories, they all hung together so cohesively, I wondered whether Sachdeva conceived of the series as a whole — does your mind not ache at the expansive scope and imaginative magnitude of such an oeuvre? Each story points us squarely in the face of the inscrutable forces of nature, science, history, and even the mystical/supernatural that shape our lives and leave us wondering, “But why?” The opening story leaves us staring into pitch blackness; we’ve dug deep in search of something (truth? human connection? peace?) alongside Sadie, an ocularly-challenged woman who has been abandoned by her husband in the Ozarks, only to discover that the further we go, the more difficult it is to discern the markers of reality. At some point, Sadie loses track of the little bits of ribbon she used to mark her path, and we, like her, are left groping through the dark, feeling our way, until the enigmatic ending, when we aren’t sure whether Sadie is hearing the sought-after voices of human company or the babbling of a brook. Sachdeva leaves us here, flailing into the darkness. Many of the stories evoke a similar sensation; we join a ragtag group of characters in marveling over, reacting to, and attempting to make sense of the curiosities of life, only to discover that many of those curiosities — whether at the behest of nature or science — are ultimately unpredictable and inscrutable. (What was the mermaid there for? She didn’t return Robert’s affections; rather, she turns her gaze to the shark. What does Robert learn from that? Why is it that the father in the Glass Lung story happened to survive that accident of science — what did it mean? Why was he then able to take that impairment and use it to his benefit, to dig up treasure, only to find that the treasure was ultimately worthless?) There is a sense of predestination in many of the stories — life happens to people, and the forces at play behind the scenes are neither malevolent or compassionate; they’re maddeningly impassive. It’s interesting to see how these characters react in the face of such apathetic sweeps of fate: many of them seem to accept their lots in life, but not without small acts of revenge. Gina, for example, robs her Montana father and escapes with Michael, only to be abandoned somewhere in Florida. But rather than becoming indignant or defeated, Gina seems cool and complacent with her fate, though she does manage to arrest her errant beau at his wedding day. Abike and Promise turn the tables on their captors in The Names They Used for God by learning how to hypnotize the men around them. And even Sadie looks for an escape, a change, after her husband leaves her. But, all in, many of these characters seem to be swiping wildly, groping, flailing after meaning, which proves ultimately unattainable. And so we end the collection just as we started it: watching Del literally disintegrate into nothing: “We will be just a void in the cosmos, a dark place in the sky where there was once starlight.”
All in, a beautifully crafted, eccentric, thought-provoking (if slightly depressing) departure from a lot of the books I’ve read recently. I’ve never read anything quite like it.
Book Review of Gucci Mane’s The Autobiography of Gucci Mane.
Three and a half stars. I’m breaking my “only round numbers” rule for this one because it’s truly better than a three but not strong enough for a four. I think that because Roxane Gay raved about this book, I kept expecting something to blow my mind, and my expectations were soaring. Instead, I found the writing serviceable and the self-reflection poignant but not particularly groundbreaking. That said, I think it was an important addition to my personal canon, in that it was so completely out of the realm of books I’ve read in the past, and about a subgenre and subculture of which I knew little — trap music from Atlanta, Georgia. I was struck by Gucci, who is refreshingly honest in a way that makes you feel that the entire story of his life — as he tells it — must be true. I was inspired by his business-mindedness; he has a natural knack for strategy, for reading people, for reading situations, and I don’t know if I’ve ever read the words of someone with more drive or ambition. And even if I tried to listen to his music at least a dozen times while reading the book, only to decide it wasn’t for me, I respect it — in it, he talks earnestly about the trying, dark lifestyle he led for many years, selling drugs and living life in the fast lane. And some of his lyrics are outlandishly clever, wildly imaginative–poetic, even, in a seriously non-schmaltzy way. But most of all, many of his songs are gut-wrenchingly honest portrayals of his world, their gritty and raw sound and aggressive lyrics seeming to arise organically from his very tough life.
One big problem I had with the book was the shuttling between Gucci’s voice and that of his ghost writer / publisher / editor / etc. At certain points in the book, the narrative picks up what I assume to be Gucci’s own patois: he says his uncle “rode truck”; admits: “I really just wanted to get me some money”; and uses expressions like “same sh*%, different toilet.” Then there are jarring departures like this: “Even after the railroads were destroyed during the Civil War, Atlanta’s identity as a mecca of transport lived on. The rails were replaced by a web of interstate highways.” It’s poor editing, and it’s distracting. I can almost see someone at the publishing house urgently arguing that the book needs more foregrounding in Atlanta’s history — and Gucci shrugging it off as inauthentic to his voice — and the resolution becoming an awkward patching in of some third party history written by a copywriter. That kind of messiness drives me crazy. I’d rather have it all be a fairly consistent rendering of Gucci’s voice, or something that more clearly demarcates between his telling of his story and some sort of post-production editing.
Finally, the book enabled me to solve a puzzle that has long been plaguing me: do you know how on a lot of rap tracks, you’ll hear a sound byte saying: “Mike Will music”? I never knew what this was — and now I do: it’s the producer’s tag-line on mix tapes he’s produced, sort of a claiming/tagging of the song as his own. Mhm.
Book Review of Julia Sonnenborn’s By the Book.
Three stars. This book had all the hallmarks of being a private smash hit for me — it’s a retelling of my favorite Austen book, Persuasion, but one in which the protagonist, Anne, is an English professor. DING DING DING. Winner written all over it. My issue, though, is that I found Sonnenborn’s version of Anne insufferable, weak, and even a little dim. Ugh. How could she do such a thing to my Anne?! Still, the book was a super-fast read and not without its intrigue; a solid late-night-bed-wine read. (I also thought some of the repartee rather creative.)
Currently Reading: American Wife by Curtis Sittenfeld.
I’m very impressed with the writing in this so far, which is apparently a fictionalization of Laura Bush’s life? It reads like a memoir, and the intricacy of detail and piquancy of emotion in it are startling.
Next on Deck for Magpie Book Club: Florida by Lauren Groff.
I was bowled over by Lauren Groff’s first book, Fate and Furies, so I’m dying to get my hands on a copy of her new new, Florida. (Fate and Furies grew on me with time — I was ambivalent about it at first but have thought back on it dozens of times with appreciation and respect.) This is sure to be a great book club pick if it’s anything like the dense and brilliant work of her first triumph.
Also on My Bookshelf…
+The Alice Network. (Been saying this for weeks, but…I really want to!) I mean, how can I not?: “A female spy recruited to the real-life Alice Network in France during World War I and an unconventional American socialite searching for her cousin in 1947 are brought together in a mesmerizing story of courage and redemption.”
+Something in the Water — supposed to be the next Girl on a Train / Gone Girl / Couple Next Door situation, AND a Reese Witherspoon pick.
What about you? What are you reading? Recommendations?!
P.S. I’m wearing this to book club. It’s so me — bows at the shoulder, floral, midi-length. Yes yes yes yes yes yes.
