june, baby

What if I want to go inside

Hey lovelies,

Hope you’ve all been well throughout this disgusting little heat wave we’ve been having. I’m not sure if it’s a heat wave or if it’s just summer now. I’m sweating like a bitch and all of my clothes are wrong, but it’s okay.

I went to Rockaway Beach for the first time this Saturday and it felt magical in a cartoonish sort of way. Like, we walked onto the beach and immediately saw dolphins, which I didn’t even know was an option that was available to me. I rode a surfboard on my stomach like a wimp, I ate a delicious spicy chicken caesar wrap, I saw many a soft-looking dog enjoying the breeze, I got an inexplicably blotchy sunburn on my back. I was so absorbed in my book on the train ride home that I forgot to notice there was sand in my bikini. The perfect beach day!

I’ve been watching less because I’ve been trying to spend more time outside, something I must contend with at the beginning of every summer. Sometimes there is just a little too much day. Can I say that? Sometimes there being that much day makes me feel guilty, and I’m outside but I’m biding my time until I can come back inside and do my stuff, my reading and watching and writing and general tinkering, picking things up and putting them back down. Summer is kind of hard! Nobody’s talking about it! But it’s nice, too. I love when my freckles come back.

One other lovely thing about summer is: the movie theater is the best place to be when it’s 90 degrees and you’ve had enough.

Movie stuff

A Wedding (1978) / dir. Robert Altman

I’ve been picking my way through the Altmans, and I’m adoring my journey. A Wedding takes place almost entirely at the wedding reception for the son of a large Italian maybe-mob family and the daughter of nouveau riche Southerners, though it would be difficult to call the new couple the protagonists of the film by any means. As is Altman’s way, but on steroids here, A Wedding is all side plot. It operates as a sort of roving window into the disparate lives of the wedding guests, following them into bathrooms and backyards and hidden corners. There are drugs, there are deaths being kept hush-hush, there are freaky daughters who are maybe a little too into their dads. Carol Burnett is spectacular as the mother of the bride having a passionate, impromptu affair with another guest. It’s so weird, and so funny. I loved it. Nashville on deck.

Falcon Lake (2023) / dir. Charlotte Le Bon

A revelation, truly! I was familiar with Le Bon only from her work on season 3 of The White Lotus, for which she’s been remembered for her fabulous pink Jacquemus one-piece getup and the fact that she sort of looks like Winona Ryder. Turns out she’s a fucking visionary. Falcon Lake has a Call Me By Your Name-ness to it, in its yearning horny adolescent age-gap romance and its visceral representation of a rural, languid summer in all its cricket-y glory. But there is a hazy sort of spookiness at its core that makes it extremely unique and extremely special. It’s phenomenal and haunting. I haven’t ever really seen anything like it. I need more from her immediately.

I Like Movies (2022) / dir. Chandler Levack

Chandler Levack, man. She’s fucking got it. I really, really liked this movie, following an obnoxious teenage film fanatic who deigns to get a job at the local video rental store and develops a strange, Licorice Pizza-esque relationship with his boss. If you chafe against movies with unlikeable protagonists, this will not be for you, but it really skewers a certain archetype of terrible teenage boy, as well as that horrific feeling of being stuck at your friend’s house while they scream at their mother and then act like nothing happened.

Carolina Caroline (2026) / dir. Adam Rehmeier

A sweet little Bonnie-and-Clyde caper across the American South. It’s not reinventing the wheel, but it’s nice. I always like Samara Weaving, and Kyle Gallner’s performance and appearance and general vibe is well worth the price of admission—if you’re not familiar with this beautiful man and his body of work, just know he is Brad Pitt to a very specific subset of people. This NYT profile of him was lovely. I’ll continue to watch anything Adam Rehmeier makes on the off chance that it reaches the heights of Dinner in America, a beautiful and batshit and completely singular movie (also starring Gallner) that changed my life and that I rewatched as soon as I returned home from seeing Carolina Caroline.

Obsession (2026) / dir. Curry Barker

I don’t have much to add to the #discourse other than to say that I absolutely loved this, that it scared me shitless and filled me with dread, and that we’re going to be seeing a lot more of Inde Navarrette, who is doing mind-boggling things with her face and body in this film. If you’re looking for a worthy up-and-coming YouTube group to put stock in, as many an assistant is currently scrambling to do, my enthusiastic recommendation would be to check out Almost Friday TV—I’ve been following these guys for a very long time and they’ve made some real horror-comedy (and regular-comedy) gems.

Disclosure Day (2026) / dir. Steven Spielberg

I’m so sorry, but I was frowning throughout this entire movie. I did not like the writing (so broad, so wooden), I did not like the CGI animals. They gave Josh O’Connor, one of our very best and weirdest, nothing interesting to do. I can’t even talk about Wyatt Russell, honestly. I’ve been trying to figure out why I was not Moved by this film in the way others seemed to be—I think it’s at least partly because I already assume aliens exist (“Why would he make such a vast universe, yet save it only for us?” is by far the film’s most compelling idea, which is halfheartedly prodded at and then abandoned), so seeing video evidence of them would not really change things all that much for me. IDK, happy for those that loved this! Full-throttle sincerity may not be my flavor!

Book stuff

A Visit From the Goon Squad / Jennifer Egan

Last Wednesday I finished work weirdly early and went for a walk on the East River path, which is kind of a terrible place to walk if we’re all being honest. I ended up lying down on a concrete step in the sun and listening to this episode of The New Yorker Fiction podcast, in which Greg Jackson reads Jennifer Egan’s short story “Safari” (linked here if you want to read it the regular way). I was rather emotionally overwhelmed by the story and by this whole experience, and then I realized that I’ve read this story before.

‘Safari’ is a chapter of Egan’s novel A Visit From the Goon Squad, which I first read in the contemporary fiction class I took my sophomore year of college, a class that was probably singlehandedly responsible for returning me to the life of reading that I shoved to the back burner in my late adolescence.¹ It was among my favorites of all the books we read that semester, following a sprawling cast of characters all vaguely connected to a washed-up music producer and his former assistant. Upon starting my reread I was delighted to discover I remembered almost none of it. What a treat, to be surprised all over again. It was even more wonderful the second time.

Fat Swim / Emma Copley Eisenberg

Speaking of interconnected story collections! I gushed about Housemates a few months ago and am pleased to report I loved Fat Swim just as much. Eisenberg has such a gift for visceral language and four-dimensional characters, and I’m a sucker for books that let you play the “where do I remember that character from??” game. (This is also why I loved Goon Squad). Thank you Emma Copley Eisenberg ! Read Emma’s Substack!

A Long Game: Notes on Writing Fiction / Elizabeth McCracken

Easily the best book about writing I’ve read so far, and I’ve read many. I borrowed this from the library and purchased it immediately upon finishing. Pint-sized and packed with wisdom. Can’t wait to use this forever!

Other stuff

• Mourning the (temporary!) end of Widow’s Bay, perhaps the most structurally exciting season of television to come out in the last five years. What a stunning, bonkers ride. I loved it so much. I laughed so hard. It is impossible to choose a favorite joke, but just know I’m keeping a list in my head, and it might start with “Are you mad at something I said?” Matthew Rhys and Kate O’Flynn, I will be personally campaigning for your Emmys. Betty Gilpin, you too. Also, I think it’s time for me to watch The Americans.

• I’m watching Not Suitable For Work, the new Mindy Kaling joint. It’s not very good, but I’ll be watching the whole thing. I have a lot to say about the Kaling-verse, which includes several properties that are extremely important to me (miss you every day Devi Vishwakumar) and others that are cheeseball city. If nothing else, Mindy is extremely consistent in what she finds to be the hottest thing on the planet: a short-ish sarcastic Jewish brunette man.

• The Olivia Rodrigo album, dear god. I love it. I listened to it all day Friday, crying in my kitchen while making an Alison Roman farro salad. Normally I’m most drawn to Olivia’s punky upbeat stuff, but this time around I’ve been particularly attached to the album’s most gut-wrenching entries (“begged,” “honeybee,” “the cure,” and my sleeper hit fave, “less”). She is a wonderful pop star for our trying times.

• Maybe my favorite playlist of the year, if I do say so myself. June marks the official beginning of Steely Dan season, and I’ve been acting accordingly.

  Happy June, I love you!

  xo, Lael

1. Those who know me know you cannot ask me too much about my college English classes or I will talk to you for an hour about taking Apocalyptic Fiction during the COVID-19 pandemic (a transformative experience)