Nass contributors recommending your next books, albums, and meals at Whitman.
If on a winter’s night a traveler by Italo Calvino
You open your copy of the Nassau Weekly and flick through the pages, thinking to yourself, who even reads this stuff? You pause on the ‘Nass Recommends’ section for no particular reason – a review of If on a winter’s night a traveler, by the supposedly famous Italian author Italo Calvino (you’ve never heard of him), catches your eye. Not just because of the ridiculous title – the review is written in second person, just like the book. A gimmick, you think. The reviewer raves about the book – apparently a thoughtful meditation on what it means to read and write and why we as humans are so indefatigably attracted to it; a polemic against mass media and the publishing industry, against capitalism turning art into spectacle and pastiche; a creative labyrinth of romance, mystery, social realism, thriller, fantasy, comedy, tragedy. You gather that the book is a compilation of stories that begin and end abruptly, with no thread binding them together but you, the Reader, and your attempts to put together a complete story, to foster connection with your fellow Readers and perhaps even find love. Typical postmodern nonsense, you scoff. The review promptly informs you that Calvino might seem postmodern, but is rather post-postmodern (whatever that means), that he transcends his own irony, provoking a sincere discussion about the value and beauty of literature. You close the Nass, dismissing the review as some pretentious comp lit major’s deranged ramblings, but you can’t seem to stop thinking about it. The next day, you visit Firestone and check out a copy of If on a winter’s night a traveler. You lean back, open your copy, and think to yourself, who even reads this stuff? You finish the book in a matter of days. – by Aaryan Jagtap
here, this is happening by archie
Does longing have a sound? Does intimacy? Does acceptance? The South Korean indie album here, this is happening by archie guides the listener down a warm landscape of gentle sincerity, making a compelling sonic suggestion that any theme—from open affection to quiet regret—can sound enchantingly dreamy. For this reason, the album has become a staple in my morning walk playlist. The gentle synths, fuzzy guitars, and blissful electronic elements imbue my physical reality with a feeling of being in mystifying stasis. The second track, “after gazing sun,” sets the balanced tone of the album with its sunny, shoegaze textures and introspective lyrics. From then on, the album asks questions about the past and makes statements about the future, fluctuating between reflective acceptance and regretful dwelling. “Realize / that vicious cycle / so I just wanna go to bed / sing me to sleep,” archie and a featured female voice sing on the ninth track, which incorporates more of the album’s glitch and dream pop details. It’s a soundtrack for my day-to-day, for my ups and downs, for the equilibrium I seek in my life. I encourage anyone to take a walk and listen to this album. See how it touches your perception—take an opportunity to dream awake. – by Ryan Choe
No One Belongs Here More Than You by Miranda July
This summer, minimalistic black text on a neon background was all the rage, which is perhaps what subconsciously made me pick up this nausea-yellow collection of stories. It’s a book that deals with selfhood in a way that feels contemporary, while still getting some 2007 in there. It’s from before people sat in their living room and confessed on Tik Tok their eating habits, or what they are wearing today, or their most recent hookup in surgical detail, for any stranger (friend, according to the algorithm?) to see. Yet it has that vibe; July only deals with soaring levels of honesty and discomfort in her fiction. Some parts of it are really cringe, and disgusting, but I believe that nobody can come out of this book without feeling seen, or just less embarrassed. Each of her protagonists sees themselves as separate from the world, yet live through intense moments of closeness and intimacy. July’s motive is exactly what her title promises. She’s just here to lean in, and to talk to each one of her readers about you and no one else. She creates little echo chambers of desire, and weirdness, and insecurity, and truth, and sometimes makes them collide in ways that are simultaneously funny and sad. Her characters are It-girls, but in the sense of tag, not Chloë Sevigny. It sucks when people run away from you, but doesn’t the game work only if we, occasionally, do catch each other and take turns being it? This collection of short stories is definitely not one of my favorite books. It is definitely not one I’ll read again anytime soon. But it’s a book that makes you breathe a little bit easier. As you flip through, you will think ‘thank god I am not like that’; and ‘thank god I am a little bit like that’. – by Teo Grosu
My Old Ass
The classic trope of a fervid teenage girl preparing for the departure to college has been done many times–, from Ladybird to 10 Things I Hate About You. However, this September, Megan Park gave us an unforgettable version— filled with cranberry farms, time travel, and mushrooms.
My Old Ass is a movie that not just resonates with teenage girls, but anyone that has experienced loss, or the pressure of time. The plot follows Elliott and her journey into appreciating her picturesque upbringing on a Canadian farm. When Elliott decides to get high on her birthday, she sees her older self, who carries a foreboding message: be nicer to your family, and avoid a guy named Chad.
The title is unsuspecting: you wouldn’t expect to sob at a movie with “ass” in the title. But I guarantee that if you’ve ever felt grief, or have been in love, you cry, too. This movie teaches us to admire every fleeting moment of life, even if it causes future pain. If you are filled with doubt right now, I challenge you to watch My Old Ass. – by Clara Docherty
Take a stroll down (YouTube) memory lane
When was the last time you felt like yourself? Who are you without your Sambas and oversized jorts? No, you are not your carefully selected Letterboxd Top 4, or even your ostensibly esoteric music taste. At your core, you are what you watched on YouTube in your formative years. The world’s best scientists are hard at work investigating this phenomenon, and they have succeeded in narrowing it down to content consumed from the ages of 9-14, with older outliers among those with strict parents. You’re not alone, queens!
Deep in your jaded years of young adulthood, now is the best time to tap back in. There’s no denying that this may be a difficult process- it’s hard to face the person you were before you read your first Pitchfork review. However, it is essential to lay down your pride in order to get to know yourself again. Open YouTube and reconnect with your childhood joy! You could have been a massive Minecraft kid, or a total fiend for Dramageddon (“And you did it at my birthday dinner!”). Maybe you were an Emma Chamberlain OG or knew Troye Sivan before his glorious pop stardom. This is a safe space. Go watch that animation storytime! Study up on Game Theory! Reject nonchalance, embrace Smosh!
Of course, this all hinges on whether or not your perception of this creator has been tragically and irreversibly altered due to any variety of unsavory actions on their part, and/or their subsequent cancellation. Happy watching! – by Danny Flaherty
On Joy by Zadie Smith
Though it’s been around for years, if you’ve still somehow never had the pleasure of reading Zadie Smith’s essay “On Joy,” I beg you to do so. I was introduced to the concept of the essay by way of Smith, and she is my first and forever essayist love. When I was sixteen, I went through a period of being obsessed with my own emotions (a period I’m not sure I’ve yet left), and in particular I found myself chasing after the elusive notion of all-encompassing joy.
Happening upon Smith’s essay on that very emotion saved me, though, from the insanity of this quest. Smith sharply distinguishes between pleasure and joy, contrasting moments of eating a pineapple popsicle (pleasure) with the “terror, pain, and delight” of her child (joy). Joy, this emotion I always saw as totally pure and thus always slightly beyond reach, is instead intensely difficult and complicated. Joy, Smith argues, is not a simple emotion to bring into everyday life: “It hurts just as much as it is worth.”
Smith freed me from the confines of thinking there is such a thing as a flawless emotion – I hope she can do the same for you (or at the very least educate you about the experience of joy while on ecstasy). – by Lucy McWeeney
Whitman Chicken
When she feels under the weather, she may have acted maliciously towards others. After all, her nickname is “Whitman Chicken,” an undeniable symbol for the very art of being questionable. But somehow, perhaps because I only met her a month ago, she has not yet made me feel uncomfortable.
Every now and then, when I talk with someone who has interacted with her, we soon realize that we are not quite talking about the same person. They usually refer to a specific mood of hers, while I think of her as a bed-rotting thought daughter who is forced to connect with random acquaintances because her parents think it’s good for her career development. Of course she recreates her identity daily—yesterday she took a nap on the grill, today she writes poetry in the oven, tomorrow she will work out while attempting to navigate through the existential crisis about whether she can call herself a brat on a stir-fry pan. She contains multitudes, and it saddens me to realize that it’s not a widely accepted concept.
Yes, you told me she punched you in the stomach the other day. She punched your friend, too. I am not trying to defend her acts of frustration, and I do realize she might punch me someday in the near or faraway future. I can’t fix her, and I have never intended to do so. This game of chance sprinkles some surprising spices of absurdity and surrealism over the plate which we call plot. I’ll savor this feminine urge. I’ll stay. Maybe you should too. – by Wendy Wang
Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
I discovered my favourite book this summer, and I have a lot to say about it. Many 500+ paged books tend to lose you somewhere in the middle, making it hard to even carry on reading, but not this one. Chimimanda Adichie’s Half of a Yellow Sun keeps you on the edge of your seat; Adichie’s storytelling prevents you from ever having a solid opinion on anyone or anything – you’ll find yourself rooting for characters you once frowned upon, criticizing those who you thought could do no wrong, and ultimately challenges what you think the right choices really are. All this to say, the book takes you through a whirlwind of emotions.
Set during the pre, during and post the Biafran Civil War, Adicihie excellently captures her audience by distorting the timeline, changing the narrative and weaving numerous storylines throughout the novel. This book will not only teach you about defining moments in Nigerian history, one that is rarely represented in Western literature, but it will also have you questioning your values of friendship, loyalty, family and trust. – by Aliya Kraybill
Heaven or Las Vegas by Cocteau Twins
The dreamiest of dream-pop, ethereal and at times unintelligible, “Las Vegas or Heaven” will forever remain impenetrable to any attempts at definition. Released by Scottish band Cocteau Twins in 1990 and recognised by many as among their best work, it serves as an entry point for many (myself included) to this strange genre. Discovered for me when Spotify wandered errantly off my carefully curated playlist, the first thing I noticed was the lyrics. Was this French? No, Spanish? No–that was definitely English. In truth, it doesn’t matter. It’s rhythmic and hypnotic, not narrative, yet not without meaning. Only a handful of words or phrases are deftly pronounced before blending seamlessly back into the sweet shifting magic of singer Liz Fraser’s overlapping vocals. And it’s perfect.
From her first lofty siren-like aria on “Cherry-coloured Funk” to the mellow guitar and voice and harmony and drums melting into an explosive chorus on “Heaven or Las Vegas” to the incredible momentum on “Frou-frou Foxes in Midsummer Fires”–there is truly something so huge and yet so contained in each one of these 10 tracks. So, when you’re next crawling back to your dorm at 2AM from Firestone, worn and bleary-eyed and defeated, let this beautiful album massage your sad little brain. Let it leak into all those smart little nooks and wrinkles in there. Let it remind you what it feels like to simply be. – by Amelia Carneiro Zhu
Tom Lake by Ann Patchett
The pandemic forces 57-year-old Lara’s three daughters to return to the family’s cherry orchard in Northern Michigan. As the world shuts down around them, Emily, Nell, and Maisie ask their mother to recount the summer she shared a stage, and romance, with famous actor Peter Duke at the theater company Tom Lake. Lara indulges them, fondly recalling her sun-soaked days sneaking quick dips in the lake between run-throughs, brightening dull rehearsals with secret bottles of vodka, and playing doubles with the crew at sunset. Similar to the rest of Ann Patchett’s novels, Tom Lake is less action-packed and more meditative. It combines the best aspects of all of my favorite Young Adult books – the drama of The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo, the tender romance of The Song of Achilles, the simple yet graceful prose of Normal People.
When reading, you’re bound to experience one or more of the following – 1) A burning desire to behold the beauty of a Midwestern cherry orchard and to experience the thrill of summer stock. 2) Surprise at the startling accuracy with which Patchett captures mother-daughter relationships – a tangle of love, companionship, and competition. To Emily, Nell, and Maisie, Lara epitomizes the future they are destined to attain should they choose to inherit the orchard. To Lara, the three girls are an aching reminder of the romantic youth she can retrieve only in memory. 3) A mix of homesickness and nostalgia for hazy past moments you can’t quite put a finger on. – by Lucy Peck
Come Away with Me by Norah Jones
The harsh white light flooded my senses, shocking the tolerance I’d built up to the warm wooded glow of Baker Hall. I stepped into the communal bathroom, pleasantly surprised to hear the drone of droplets already falling from behind a curtain at 2:30AM. As I began to shampoo the day’s awkward conversations, bouts of overthinking, and heavy sighs out of my hair, a soothing hum from the neighboring shower cut through the pounding water. My ears perked up as the tune that accompanied my trek to the dining hall earlier soared above the suds, colliding with the tiles. The coincidence alone brought a smile to my face, and I frowned slightly when she cut off. While lathering my conditioner, I restlessly counted four measures of rest before timidly picking up the lullaby at the chorus, echoing her soft hum.
By the time the next verse began our voices were intertwined–an intuitive blend of unison and harmonies, floating above and dipping below the melody. Prompted by a decrescendo on the final note, silence descended on the room, broken only by rogue droplets from the turned off faucets. I pondered waiting to meet the person behind the mysterious voice, but felt the moment too pristine to risk ruining. So with dripping hair and a peaceful smile, I left our shared refrain hanging in the air. I “Don’t Know Why” she started singing that Norah Jones tune, or exactly why I started singing along. But, this is a recommendation to sing in the shower if so prompted. And even more so, it is all an urge to embrace small moments of shared joy. Or perhaps, it is simply a reminder to listen to Come Away with Me while walking to class. – by Vivian Clayton
Reading Elena Ferrante in your 20s
What do we want out of our friendships? What do we need? The intimacy of friendship is this: the care, the joy, the excitement, the anger, the comparison, the pride, the disappointment, the love. Closeness as a reminder of ourselves through the disarming pace of personal change. When Ferrante introduces us to Elena and Lila in My Brilliant Friend, the girls are six—in the last book of the quartet, The Story of the Lost Child, the women are in their mid-sixties. There’s a lifetime in that em dash. Elena and Lila have lovers, schemes, children, dreams, and losses. Their deeply intertwined childhoods break from codependence to distance then pull towards each other again.
This summer, I called friends as I drove hundreds of miles along the East Coast. I talked with Eliza as I left my driveway in Columbia, Emma through the curves of southern Virginia, Ethan across the Delaware Memorial Bridge, Misan until I ran out of gas. When I got to Amherst, I started Ferrante’s Neapolitan Quartet sitting next to a friend I’d known for a week, and, on an airplane two months later, I finished the quartet’s last page sitting next to a friend of ten years.
As our understandings of ourselves and our places in the world develop, we must constantly renegotiate our relationships. Ferrante here, as Elena looks at Lila over decades from both within and beyond their friendship, pierces what makes female friendship both so necessary and so terrifying. Read Ferrante’s Neapolitan Quartet now to accompany you through today’s changes—and so that your future self can re-read her when you need it most. – by Lucia Brown