September Grab Bag

Emma Casley

— 2 min read
September Grab Bag

Happy first day of Fall! It’s been beautiful weather in NYC and I am dedicated to watching silly horror movies and reading spooky books for the rest of the season. Would love recommendations of either if you have any! 

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Here are things that caught my eye this September:

  1. As a Gaylor who is mostly embarrassed to be a Gaylor, I really loved this thoughtful exploration of the subcommunity and their reactions to Taylor Swift’s recent engagement
  2. Ruby Tandoh was one of my favorite early Great British Bake Off contestants and has become one of my favorite food writers. I loved this interview with her in Culture Study –  I definitely want to check out Ruby’s new book now. 
  3. Speaking of Great British Bake Off, the new season is out! I’ve been amused by how not good at baking most of the contestants seem this season lol. Along with GBBO, I’ve been watching Task on HBO (love 2 be depressed), the new season of High Potential (hokey but still fun), and re-watching The Pitt because I need my fix while waiting for the new season
  1. Obsessed with how Jia Tolentino talks about pop music in this episode of Song Exploder. Almost definitely accidentally stole some of her phrasing in my Man’s Best Friend review.
  2. If Man’s Best Friend and Oh, Hi! are anything to go by, we really should be checking on our straight friends right now because…what’s going on there
  3. I love that Joe Dante is as obsessed with suburban culture as I am 
  4. Really been enjoying the podcast What Went Wrong – clearly a podcast from people who love movies talking about the histories of troubled film productions
  5. I went to the opening of a beautiful new horror bookshop The Twisted Spine earlier this month and picked up The Return by Rachel Harrison. Tore right through it! It features my favorite mini-genre: what if there’s a group of friends but it’s super fucked up. Plus a creepy kitschy hotel!  
A fireplace surrounded by dark wood bookshelves with a painting of a ship above it.
  1. Begging for Tucker and Dale vs. Evil to be in a double feature with Cabin in the Woods. It’s what the world deserves this Halloween season.
  2. As a necessary dose of Cultural Enrichment, I went to the Whitney with some friends this weekend. I have no background in art but my favorite piece was the Testament of the Holy Spirit by Eduardo Carrillo. What great colors! 
Picture of the painting Testament of the Holy Spirit by Eduardo Carrillo: an orange table with a snake and ashtray on top of it and a dog sleeping below. Light filters in from the window and the walls are purple

Hopefully you all have made the migration with me to my new Ghost-hosted newsletter. I’m still figuring this whole thing out so let me know if anything seems weird or different with this new setup. See you next month!

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Each month I will try to highlight an organization that’s important to me, in a small attempt to help out In These Trying Times. While financial donations are great, there’s also other ways to get involved in community building work — volunteering, building relationships with neighbors, offering up skills and services you might have.

Today I’m shouting out the Prisoners Literature Project.

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