Hi friends. In the interest of being transparent, a close friend of mine passed away on Monday, and that, combined with literally everything else occurring in the world, has made it hard to concentrate on writing. Needing to do something productive with my emotions, I’ve also abandoned most of my reading to start Joan Didion’s The Year of Magical Thinking finally. My friend Ted also suggested that I read Roland Barthes’ Mourning Diary (“it’s mostly just single sentence journal entries, but it’s incredibly moving. he’s a mama’s boy to rival Proust.”), which felt like kismet because the only writing I’ve actually managed to do this week is scribbling random thoughts and memories about my friend in a notebook on my desk. I haven’t written without intent since maybe grad school, but the act of writing down my thoughts for only myself feels oddly soothing. I’m also soothed that George was loved by a lot of people. My last conversation with him was on Fire Island a few weeks ago, where I was talking about my writing and plans for the next year. He told me how proud of me he was for taking a stab at making art instead of mass culture, and there’s obviously room for both in a single artist, but most of my career had been focused on the latter until now. From all of the tributes I’ve seen to him online this week, it’s clear that his friendship was like that with everyone in his life. An ear to listen to all of your dreams and insecurities and tell you that everything was going to be okay. I wish he were here to see the growth of all of those seeds he planted. Cancer sucks.
Please share your favorite books, music, films, etc. that deal with grief. If it doesn’t help me, then it might at least help someone else reading this. And as always, please join our weekly culture chats.
Movies
Favorite first-time watches: 40 Acres, A Nice Indian Boy1, The Fantastic Four: First Steps, Final Destination: Bloodlines, Frances Ha, Jamón Jamón, Live Flesh, Superman, Sweet Bird of Youth (1989)
Rewatches: Carrie, Dick, Soapdish, Salt, Scream
Skip It: Death of a Unicorn, Jurassic World: Rebirth, Materialists, Untold: The Fall of Favre
I can’t be objective since my friend wrote it, but I did enjoy the new I Know What You Did Last Summer. I hosted a screening and watched it with a room full of gays, which is how it’s intended to be viewed. I didn’t love Eddington, but I did think it was masterfully made and a step up from Beau is Afraid. It’s a very uncomfortable watch, until the final hour (it’s long as hell). I watched Martin Scorsese’s Raging Bull for the first time, which I appreciated more for the filmmaking and performances than I enjoyed it. Jake LaMotta is a classic Scorsese monster, but I’d rather watch the bad guys in Casino and Goodfellas, and The Wolf of Wall Street. At least they’re fun to be around and seem like they have good blow.
Reviews of all these films are on my Letterboxd.
Books
Whenever you ask someone which James Baldwin book to read, the answer is inevitably Giovanni’s Room. But I absolutely love Another Country and think a lot more people should be talking about it. Similarly, the worst person you know is always referencing bell hooks’ All About Love. They probably understood none of it. Recommend to them Love in Exile, a modern, queer, and trans take on that book by Shon Faye. The book cut me deep; it’s really fucking good. And fun to read.
My first foray into David Foster Wallace was his 1993 essay, “E Unibus Pluram: Television and U.S. Fiction.” I followed that with Consider the Lobster. I think there’s been a pendulum swing toward DFW being cool again, no longer claimed by “book bros” because, well, do book bros even exist anymore? If you’re a lady or a gay male reader of DFW, please DM or e-mail me!
I tried my first Edmund White book, Nocturne for the King of Naples, and unfortunately did not love it. I’ll attempt his trilogy at some point, but probably not this year.
I’ve just started Graydon Carter’s When the Going Was Good for all of the Vanity Fair tea. I skipped the first section about his upbringing, though, because it’s really not that serious…
Music
Theatre
I’ve either been on Fire Island or stuck in my apartment the past month, thanks to a stomach bug and a more recent pulled muscle in my thigh. I haven’t been outside, which means I haven’t seen much theatre, but I did go to the premiere of my friend Kevin Zak’s Ginger Twinsies, and I loved it! It’s playing now at the Orpheum Theatre, and it’s a parody of The Parent Trap, but it’s also so so so so so more than that. And it’s fucking hilarious.
Prince Faggot, my friend Jordan Tannahill’s play, starts its second Off-Broadway run at Seaview Studio on September 11! Go see it, it’s fucking amazing.
Food
Similarly, I have not had many restaurant visits the past month, but my friend Levi did take me to dinner at Bar Contra for my birthday. Chef Jeremiah Stone made the recipe for the reading retreat2 I went on a couple of months ago, and the food was fucking delicious. Bar Contra is just as amazing. I’m still dreaming about that wagyu tartare. And the cocktails are excellent as well.
What are you watching, reading, eating, and listening to?
The screenplay was written by my fantastic friend Eric Randall, who is also a writer on Elsbeth.
Page Break, organized by my friend Mikey Friedman. I’ve been on two of them, and I can’t recommend it enough.
First, may I just say I'm holding space for your grief (a phrase I generally hate, a sentiment I don't). Grief is exhausting because it requires extra everything, a colleague told me when my older brother died of leukemia almost 5 years ago. He died just 5 days after going to the local ER with what he thought was a broken ankle. He and I both lived in DC and I was with him when he died. His death was incredibly traumatic for me, but my journey of grief has been so profound (shout out to my therapist, 150mg Wellbutrin, "gardening," and good sex, shout out to my husband). Grief is the last way we get to love someone, and you will always love your friend, just as I will always love my brother!
My condolences to you, Ira. I'm so sorry. Something I've done that helps me a lot is to set up recurring donations in memory of someone. My uncles for example, when they died a year apart, I set up a recurring monthly food bank donation in the town they grew up in, where they still lived, as they were always looking out for their friends, some of whom, I'm sure, might have needed this help. When I get the receipt for it, I remember them and smile a little at how they were both always that kind of guy.