December 07, 2018
Hi everyone! You definitely didn’t notice this letter is two days late, right? Cool. We’ve got some good reads, good tunes, and good watches for you today.
Notes from Summer: I’m currently writing the prospectus for my senior thesis & thinking about the massive amounts of literature I will have to go through this winter break—I’m also thinking about how a lot of the literary community that I currently have, and plan to write about, was in part thanks to Jill, whom I once called Queen of the Contemporary. For sure, I’m on the internet an obscene amount, and I have a poetry community at college, but I wouldn’t have a lot of the favorite books I do without Jill. I wouldn’t aspire to the very specific writing style I do (even in my academic work) without her, either. I’m carrying my friends with me in all this, and hope to carry all of you, too.
Notes from Jillian: 😭😭😭 Summer is the sweetest person on this planet and I love her. Anyway, let’s get into the good stuff.
Sorry that all I do is talk about therapy all the time now! I’m one of those people! I’m not sure what to say about Friends With Secrets other than you need to see it. It’s an incredibly intimate, personal look into the online therapy sessions of three friends, and it’s the best thing on the internet right now. Reading it helped me realize some of the specific things I want to get out of my own therapy sessions, like what topics I want to touch on and how I want my therapist to react. Maybe it can do the same for you.
– Jillian
Poetry twitter has been in a frenzy the past week over a horrendous plagiarism scandal. This poem has been circulating as an example of the Right Way™ to use the work of other poets in your own. Its popularity is not confined to this moment though, since it’s pretty much the most beautiful love poem of all time. On top of being an incredibly difficult form, this poem makes me want to care so deeply about someone that I would put in that work. Read it with people you love.
– Summer
It’s all about the pasta. If you for some reason aren’t watching Vanderpump Rules, what are you doing? It’s the only good TV show, and it just started its seventh season on Bravo. I’m about halfway through the sixth season right now, and I’m ready to preach the gospel of SUR to everyone who will listen.
Vanderpump Rules is about (queen) Lisa Vanderpump, her many LA-based restaurants, and her staff—they have all dated, cheated on, broken up with, lied to, and backstabbed one another at some point over the years since the show began. And yet they remain close friends! I love it. I’m in a whole Slack dedicated to it. And I think you should love it too.
– Jillian
Eliza Skinner’s Cool Playlist Podcast takes situations from the general to the hyper-specific and makes the ideal soundtrack. This episode, Gay Prom, is the only one that’s made me break into tears. She and Cameron Esposito put together a beautiful playlist of gay artists to hit every moment in that fantasy prom, letting gay teens be normal and love and be loved. I won’t spoil which song it was, exactly, but the last moments…..it’s really good.
– Summer