Weekly R.E.P.O.R.T.

Reading, eating, playing, obsessing, recommending, treating... this week.

It’s clearly fall now. The weather is colder and I can wear sweaters, which I love. This past week I started university, it was hectic to say the least, but you probably already knew that, if you followed my tumblr. Anyway, I’ve been reading lots of books, watching lots of movies and eating lots of good food, I’m here to talk about that.

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Reading:

I started reading (re-reading, for what probably is the thousandth time) The secret history by Donna Tartt. The secret history tells the story of a small group of classics students who, influenced by a charismatic professor, begin to look beyond the modern construct of morality, and murder one of their classmates. The narrator tells us in the prologue “…Bunny had been dead for several weeks before we came to understand the gravity of our situation.”

What makes the story interesting is that it’s nothing like what we know as murder mystery novels. You know who the killer is in the first page, you know who the victim is, what you don’t know is the why or how, and that is what makes Tartt’s novel so compelling: she knows how to build tension, even if the reader knows the substantial details of the murder she can keep a certain mystery.

It’s a very interesting read for those who enjoy classics (as in greek and roman culture and language) and literature, and it’s a great satire. The novel criticizes elitism in American universities and pretentiousness, and it does it in such a way the reader might not even notice at the beginning.

I am also reading Antigone by Sophocles, for school. I’d read it before and I enjoyed it, I find it a very compelling story, I always cry when I read it. In all honesty I cry because I think of my brother.

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Eating:

I’ve been having lots of chickpea salads lately, they’re easy to make and they’re very good, I’ll leave you a recipe here, but I usually just take whatever vegetables I have in the fridge and chop them up, the I add the chickpeas. I like to put lime juice and feta cheese on mine, too.

I’ve been eating soups too, now that it’s colder, miso soup is always my favorite, but my mother made chicken broth the other day and I can’t stop thinking about it.

I’ve also really been into beef tartare lately, with fries, obviously.

Unfortunately, I haven’t had any sweet treats lately, so I can’t say much about that.

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Playing:

I’ve been playing with my dog a lot, I like to take him to the river, on long walks in the mornings. He loves it but he gets super dirty afterwards. He’s napping in my bed as I write this.

When it comes to music I’ve been playing a lot of Oasis since they announced the reunion tour, yes, I’m coming out as a britpop fan. I’ve also been into lots of Nancy and Frank Sinatra, and The strokes. I haven’t been properly obsessed with a band, but I’ve had it bad for the song Love spreads by The stone roses.

In terms of movies, here’s a couple films I last watched and enjoyed:

Crash by David Cronenberg. I had been wanting to watch this for a long time and I never really did, until a couple weeks back when I was bored and home alone. None of my friends were available to hang out and I’d been on my phone for hours: My brain was melting, I pulled out my laptop and opened Filmin (to me, the best streaming service to ever exist). I stumbled upon Cronenberg’s film and put it on to appease my boredom, it worked.

David Cronenberg’s film is about a young man who, after being in a car accident, joins a group of people who fetishize car crashes. It’s a psychosexual drama about technology and modern culture, I really enjoyed that. Also, I have to be honest with you, I found James Spader extremely attractive, so I, of course, watched another of his films.

Sex, lies, and videotape by Steven Soderbergh is a drama, starring Andie McDowell, Peter Gallagher and, obviously, James Spader. Andie McDowell plays Ann Bishop Mullany a frustrated wife whose marriage to John Mullany [Peter Gallagher] is falling apart since John is cheating on Ann with her sister, Cynthia. The couple gets an unexpected visit from Graham Dalton [James Spader], John’s college friend, which changes their lives forever.

As you will guess from the title, the movie is about sex, lies, and videotape; The lies are John and Cynthia’s relationship, and how they manage to keep it under wraps; the topic of sex is related to almost every character in the movie, and plays a major role in how the conflict unfolds; the videotape is the tipping point for the conflict of the movie, Graham likes to interview women about their sex lives and record it on videotapes which he then watches, that inevitably gets him in trouble with several of the characters.

I also watched Velvet Goldmine by Todd Haines and really liked it. I will admit it was pretty much a David Bowie fanfiction movie, but hey, we’re into that, right?

In the film we follow Christian Bale as Arthur Stuart, a Journalist who is assigned to uncover the truth behind Brian Slade [Jonathan Rhys Meyer] and his “rockstar” persona. We get two timelines, the 1970’s, in which Arthur was a teenager and big fan of Slade and his contemporaries, embarking in a journey of self discovery thanks to these rockstars; and we get the 1990s, in which Arthur Stuart interviews a series of people involved in Brian Slade’s life, and that picture of “The Rockstar” gets demystified.

It was a fun movie to watch, although I don’t think I’d ever seen so much nudity and glitter in such a short span of time. Would I recommend it? Probably not, but hey, the cast is pretty hot, and it’s entertaining. Do with that what you will.

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Obsessing over:

I’ve been really into logging the media I consume, for some reason. I think maybe it makes me feel as though I have some control over my life, which is something I’ve been lacking lately. I really love Letterboxd and Goodreads.

I’ve been obsessed with figs, I couldn’t care less about a wasp dying inside of them or whatever, they’re perfect for late summer/early fall snacks. I like to eat them with goat’s cheese or dark chocolate.

I’ve been into David Cronenberg’s entire filmography, after watching Crash I became obsessed with his style. I also really loved Videodrome.

I’m obsessed with the aesthetic in Donna Tartt’s novels, and with that kind of late eighties fashion that seldom imitates the 1950s.

i.e:

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Recommending:

I have recently just started uni, so I’m using Notion a lot, I really recommend it for people who are bad at being organized; however I prefer to physically write down things, so I find paper journals and planners work best.

I really enjoy reading The New Yorker, I got a yearly subscription last christmas and I honestly use the app basically on a daily basis. I read an article on the commute to uni, I listen to one while I clean my room, or maybe while I cook. I also really love collecting things and owning the physical magazines, I find them so cool, and the stories so insightful.

I recommend all of Mary Oliver’s poetry but especially Wild Geese. I first read her poetry last July, during a summer course at Oxford Uni. The way she writes is so beautiful, it feels like a warm hug. Like hanging out with your mom when you’re a clueless child. I really, truly, love her.

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Treating:

Myself. These last few days I’ve been trying to be kind and good to myself, because starting uni was very stressful. I am not forcing myself to work out, but I’m not letting myself wallow. I’m reading and writing rather than being on social media, I’m hanging out with people who treat me nicely. Being sweet to oneself is essential if we want to grow and change.

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I love talking to you guys on here and on tumblr, you’re my little angels. What are some of your recommendations for this fall? any films or books I should have on my radar? I WANNA KNOW IT ALL. Xx,

Anna.