Rabbit Rabbit #11: 23 Fragments

8/1/23

Rabbit Rabbit! I’ll come clean: it’s my birthday. Today I am 23. I won’t be predictable and write cosmically about birthdays. I had planned to do a deep dive into an ultimate favorite topic, like Australian cinema (one day), but I was sick with a cold last week and wasn’t able to write with extreme fervor. I did some reflecting on July and decided that the month was made up of many memorable moments– tableauxs, if you will –so in that spirit, I’ve concocted 23 thought bites here to share. Enjoy this funky little version of RR!

I. One night my coworker and I started watching Magnolia on his phone. We propped it up by the dish pit and got through over half the movie before our manager found it and (obviously) told us to turn it off. We couldn’t stop laughing at Tom Cruise while folding napkins.

II. On July 11, Crugg and I took a trip to Rockaway Beach. It was like we’d never seen the ocean before. We couldn’t believe how nice it was. There was a German family with two young boys in the water next to them and we pretended to be their daughters. Crugg took on the voice of the mother as the waves crashed over us– wooaahh!!!  Later in the afternoon, we walked to the Rockaway Hotel and snuck onto the pool deck. “Beach and pool in ONE DAY,” we kept yelling at each other, eyes bugging. Summer in the city is difficult mainly because all we want to do is swim every day. I can’t even look at the East River.

III. When the movie adaptation of The Lost Daughter came out in 2021, I listened to every interview with Maggie Gyllenhaal and her cast. Everyone quoted her favorite direction, which seemed to have become a sort of joke among the actresses: you’re starving. Apparently, she would whisper this in Jessie Buckley’s ear just before a take. While it’s hilarious to imagine the line in Maggie’s shrill voice, I come back to it a lot. Literally, because I often feel like I am constantly so hungry. In Frances Ha she says “I forgot to eat today” at dinner and it’s supposed to be relatable. I can simply not imagine forgetting to eat. If I didn’t eat breakfast, I’d have to be airlifted somewhere. I have to eat a little before going out to dinner or I’m a grouch with both elbows on the table before the food comes. For a few straight months in the pandemic, I awoke every night at 3 am famished like clockwork, so I did myself the favor of sleeping next to a Tupperware with an Eggo waffle in it. I like to think it’s because I’m existentially “starving” for more/greatness/meaning, but actually, I think it’s because I’m hypoglycemic.

IV. What happens when two people realize they can no longer surprise one another?

V. I saw Midnight Cowboy at Film Forum alone at 1 pm on a Saturday, and Michael Shannon was at my screening. If this were the first time, it’d be a silly anecdote, but I also sat next to him at the opening preview of A Doll’s House in February. His friend came in during the trailers and he yelled, “Over here! Over here!” waving his arms wildly. It was a joke because the room was tiny and nearly empty. I couldn’t believe my eyes when I realized it was him. Next time we’re together I’ll finally say something because then it’s truly a sign.

VI. Women alone on vacation: first Katharine Hepburn in Summertime, and then Rohmer’s The Green Ray. Fun to watch by oneself. I liked the Hepburn movie a lot more because it was hilarious, and she was so ready to have a good time. Rohmer’s protagonist, Delphine, is a real drag. Everyone on Letterboxd called her “sooo me” a.k.a. relatable and depressed, but I thought she just made herself miserable. I love the Rohmer movies, but all of the characters are way too upset and confused for people lucky enough to spend their vacations in gorgeous towns on the French coast.

VII. Cannot stop thinking about Kieran Culkin and J. Smith Cameron

VIII. It rained all day here on the 4th of July until the 9:25 fireworks show over Manhattan, which Crugg and I watched from my roof. It paled in comparison to the show going on right next to us: a random guy lighting a bunch on his own. What was he thinking?! It had to be the loudest roof in Bushwick.

IX. Of course, I saw Barbie. My friends know that nothing gets me more wistful than reflecting on Greta Gerwig as cultural arbiter of truth. “We are just so lucky,” I will say, laughing at my inability to articulate. That girls our age got to have Lady Bird right before our senior year and Little Women during college is almost disgustingly perfect. Movies about growing up while growing up are what make growing up bearable. So you can imagine my excitement that we’d been gifted Barbie as newbie real adults. I certainly had a fun time, but I felt pretty hollow after watching the film. It didn’t nourish me like the others do. All I left thinking was, “damn, we really need America Ferrara in her own indie drama.”

X. I didn’t realize that a proper whiskey sour has an egg white in it that makes me way less inclined to want to order it at a bar which is always what I order when I’m at a bar which is seldom

XI. Grocery shopping with Crugg: “Well, let’s just say I’ve got dinner for the next 5 days, back to DoorDashing for about two months, then I’ll return to Whole Foods.” We could do an hour set on the comedy of DoorDash. The other night we were lying in bed watching TV and I whispered, “I think that’s your Dasher. I heard a car door slam.” Sure enough.

XII. When an actor in a TV series directs a single episode in the series and the cast and crew take to Instagram for congratulatory posts like they climbed Mount Everest (saying this as someone who wishes that was me)

XIII. “I slept through July / While you made lines in the heather,” a favorite lyric in “Lorelai” by the Fleet Foxes. Encapsulated when Jessica went to London for 8 days and I got winged carpenter ants in my living room for 12. Wondercide smells terrible despite what the bottle says. I want to go somewhere. There’s a poster of Finland on my bedroom wall. It’s 67 degrees in Helsinki today, I bet it’s lovely.

XIV. Picture of Alice Phoebe Lou:

XV. Had to tell the 5-year-old girl I babysit to stop watching Late Night with Seth Meyers interviews on my phone at the park and go play in the sprinkler. “We can do that all afternoon, but we only have two hours at Van Voorhees.” Perfect kid.

XVI. Rereading A Tree Grows in Brooklyn for the first time since seventh grade. I went around telling everyone it was my favorite book for a few years, and I’d forgotten everything. The craziest part so far is reading all the street names that were the same in 1912, and are now subway stops and where my favorite stores are. The Nolans lived on Bogart, Lorimer, and Grand Streets.

XVII. https://jacobin.com/2023/07/rob-delaney-interview-hollywood-strikes-uk-sag-aftra-wga

XVIII. Each year my illnesses are timed almost to the day. I wake up one morning in February, July, and November with swollen lymph nodes and spend the next three days doing everything in my power to stop a cold from coming on. Sometimes it works (like this week), and others it doesn’t (Thanksgiving all the way through New Year’s last year.) And I always spend a few days before knowing it’s coming. Am I a hypochondriac, or just insanely in tune with my body?

XIX. The graphics in Heartstopper!!!!!

XX. Three summers ago I was writing for an online fashion magazine called CR Fashion Book, which has since undergone a massive rebrand and removed all stories prior to 2021 from its site. My byline is literally nowhere to be found. Not that the articles I was assigned were very interesting or unique (“Dinnerware on the Runway” being one of the hardest and stupidest tasks I’ve ever had to complete), but I wonder…is that legal? It’s certainly not kosher. I pretty much hated the unpaid internship except for one reason– it helped me realize I did not want to be a fashion journalist. I made friends with the only other intern who felt the same way. The two of us were given every long-form/profile piece that summer. We pitched almost exclusively research-based originals. Neither of us knew exactly what we were doing there; we just knew we liked the story that clothes could tell. This was also the summer that Man Repeller, a women’s media company specializing in stories about fashion and culture, folded after accusations of racism, fatphobia, and a general lack of privilege awareness amongst its staff, namely founder and CEO Leandra Medine. I used to worship the Man Repeller girls in college. My friend Miranda and I dreamed about working there when we graduated. I even attended an in-person event there in summer 2019. I was so excited to be at their headquarters in Soho and was so disappointed when the environment was beyond intimidating and hostile. This is starting to feel like a bigger story so maybe I’ll save this for a future RR. Takeaway: the fashion industry is messed up and I’m glad it’s begun to shift systemically in the past few years. I never felt like I really belonged.

XXI. Everyone needs a go-to bodega candy. Mine are the Haribo Smurf’s Gummis, but strictly the sour.

XXII. In a week, I’m taking a trip home and then going upstate for a weekend. What am I most excited about? Driving. I already have a 5+ hour playlist for the journey upstate and can’t wait to roll the windows down.

XXIII. My next reads are going to be Cassandra at the Wedding by Dorothy Baker and Run Towards the Danger by Sarah Polley. Two delights, I suspect!