Odessa's Oddities & Curiosities | Week of 10/28/2024

Dear friends,

Since I last wrote, I traveled to Acadia, Maine, where we meandered around this gorgeous peak-foliaged pond, ate pizza in a sun-dappled gazebo, binged the new season of Love Is Blind, and wandered between many a gift shop in Bar Harbor. There was a lot of car-time both getting there and back and while there (I was Danya’s passenger court jester). So I have some podcasts and fun facts for you.

We listened to an episode of The Rest is History on the History of Chocolate. Turns out Cadbury was a Quaker! And the Quakers were much more interesting in the 1650s…they were quite taken with disrobing in public. Declaring their commitment to social and gender equality by taking things back to Adam and Eve and getting naked in the public forum. A new argument for public indecency. Also, for much of its early history, chocolate was purely a drink.

And this episode of 99% Invisible on three historical phenomena that are not quite how they appear. Definitely google Dazzle camouflage. And did you know the dashed lines on the highway are often 10ft long!

A car ride trivia game revealed that Thomas Jefferson invented the swivel chair! I also learned from Molly that the Canadian Supreme Court wears an awfully familiar garb…one might call it North-Pole-chic.

I also got to relisten to one of my favorite comedy albums (with people who I knew would enjoy it): The Great Depresh by Gary Gulman — you can listen on Spotify or watch on HBO. 

Noah recommended me this Ezra Klein Interview with Ta-Nehisi Coates. Listen for a searching, honest and respectful conversation about the West Bank and Coates’ new book.

I also recommend this super fascinating article on the potential impact of drugs like Ozempic on addiction. What cool research!

My dad suggested that I start a Spotify playlist with my recommendations for podcasts and songs and such, and I’ve obliged. You will find my recommendations linked here.

I’ve also acquired a new dark red nail polish color that is bringing me a lot of joy.

I’ve been savoring all these small joys of college including the giddiness over my readings, like I get to read about medieval robots and wonder in Medieval Europe! Did you know the word monster comes from the Latin monstrar (to show; to demonstrate)? And also learn that climate change is changing the sex ratio of turtles! Also, Titi monkeys twine together their tails when they’re pair-bonded.

And then I got to read this fantastic book of poetry by Spencer Reece (a poet and an Episcopal priest) and meet him in my class the very next day where we could ask him questions for 2 hours. I want to highlight his poem “Humpty Dumpty” (here’s one version of it, but the ending differs in the physical book). I was plainly delighted by “Humpty Dumpty." The way the poem forced my mouth to take in the expansive bubbles of vowels: “Iowa / in my / owl-eye”. And I’m not normally a fan of these poems with only a word or two to the line, but gosh, the surprise created with each turn was superb.

Reece told us that writing sermons is a very different task than writing poems. He described how he writes sermons for this 10 minute period. This spiritual contraption that has to land in the room and then die. He writes a sermon for one moment. A poem is out there for much longer.

And forgive me, but I’ve been terribly mushy about my last fall in New Haven (part and parcel with some recent mystical experiences). I’m just verklempt knowing that I’ll never be here again to witness these exact trees in all their precise variations and stop in my path to give the trees the marvel they deserve, trace the paths of the fluttering leaves. God, this season stuns me every single time.

Speaking of schmaltzy, I recommend this episode of Modern Love with Andrew Garfield. The essay he reads is gut-wrenching. But the interview between Andrew and the journalist even more so. They go into sadness and wanting and loving and trusting our longing. And in my daydreams, Andrew and this journalist are now happily in love for ever after. I’ve been aggressively marketed Andrew’s new movie: We Live in Time. My algorithm is exceedingly aware that I’m a sucker for a good cry.

My parents have taught me to believe in putting things out into the universe. So I have some more thoughts on this next gap-year/ possibility-year of mine. Some narrowings, if you will. I was considering where I would like to spend some of this one wild and precious life while I am still young with days to waste, and I have decided I would like to be either in Paris or New York City. Paris for the summer. New York for the year? Reversed? Who knows!

As we (hopefully) all know, the election is next week. This will be my very first time voting in a presidential election (I was 17 last time), and I feel grateful I get to vote for a woman for president. Trying to not tie myself into knots about things out of my control but oy vey.

But aside from turning in your ballots, I implore you to keep looking up and pay attention to the trees in their final and ferocious performance.

With love & curiosity,

Odessa