Odessa's Oddities & Curiosities | Week of 3/24/2025

Dear friends,

Salut mes amis! Cough cough — if you see me whispering urgently into my phone in French, know that I am trying to speed-run the French Duolingo course before spending time in Paris this summer (eeeeeeeeeeeeh!)

I got to spend luxurious amounts of time on the beach in San Juan, Puerto Rico—half getting jostled by the waves, half trying to make my way through Swann’s Way. (Boy, does Proust love a comma.)

I’ve been writing my thesis, and I’m just taking a moment to note how full circle it feels to be citing Robert Sapolsky in my senior thesis. For those who don’t know, Robert Sapolsky instigated my love of studying human behavior. Behave: The Biology of Humans at Our Best and Worst by Robert Sapolsky changed my life. Full stop. It revived my love of science. I wrote one of my Yale applications about that book. I work in a lab that studies stress, and now I’m getting to cite him (!!!) in my senior thesis. Gah, life is fantastic.

Side note: For a high school graduation present, my dad harangued Sapolsky to send me an email (through the academic grapevine). I received said email while getting my nails done before graduation. I promptly burst into tears. Loud, uncontrollable sobs. Needless to say, the ladies at the nail salon were extremely concerned. My academic hero just emailed me, I got out through the sobs.

Side note to the side note: a long time ago, my mom recommended that I start a Google Doc full of good things: good news, nice notes, life high points. I called it For A Smile on a Rainy Day. I add screenshots in there occasionally, then when I’m feeling particularly down, I get to relive all these wonderful joys like that email from Sapolsky. Cannot recommend enough.

Within all my eagerness for summer, a monster emerges. My inner shopping monster, characterized by a voluminous need to accumulate new clothes and hitch onto the latest trends. She’s capitalism’s bastard child, and she’s only satisfied by more and more. She tends to retreat in the winter time, but then extends her greedy wings as summer approaches. I find it helpful to personify those desires, separate them out from my other wants and needs, because I know all my technologies, all my social medias are hellbent on feeding that monster. I am most vulnerable when I scroll on Instagram, lying in bed, pre-coffee. See, the monster is particularly susceptible to a good sale.

I used to loathe shopping for clothes. I dressed extremely functionally. To my mom’s chagrin, I wore black Merrell shoes every day for years. Blooma would still say that my closet embarrasses her. But I do love clothes, or rather, I love how clothes make me feel. The perfect outfit for the perfect occasion is a joy in itself.

Moving onto recommendations…

There’s a great X/Twitter account called Quite Interesting (if you’re still on that site, that is). Fun, delicious tidbits such as: “The phrases ‘shut up’, ‘dirt cheap’, ‘dog tired’, ‘dinner-party’ and ‘brace yourself’ were all first recorded in the works of Jane Austen.”

A beautiful essay on the shame of bad handwriting, Parkinson’s, and how to draw a line that is not stupid in the LRB from Anne Carson.

An essay on the ascendance of psychedelic Judaism from David Zvi Kalman’s Substack. He outlines four modes of engaging with psychedelic Judaism: 1) Is there an ancient Jewish tradition of psychoactive drugs? Probably not. 2) Can we understand our Jewish ancestors better on shrooms? (Zalman Schacter Shalomi via former Jews & Psychedelics speaker: Dr. Sam Shonkoff) 3. How can we connect with the Jewish history of altered states of consciousness? (by far, the most interesting to me — Kalman highlights my recent obsession: ba’alei shem). 4. The modern history of Jewish psychedelic use.

This led me down this whole rabbithole of his Substack, which led me to this debate on Jewish AI (!!) — apparently this will be a theme at the Yale Divinity’s School conference: AI and the Ends of Humanity (I registered — anyone want to join me?). Jewish questions on ensouled beings (my dad has long been on the golem-robot intersection) and psak and the nature of intelligence. Then, I read the Yitzhak Grossman piece on the halakhic status of large language models.

On the theme of reality and unreality, this fantastic folio from the Yale Review that I got to see at various stages. Also, from TYR, this delightful piece on the handbag theory of evolution, which my grandfather would have gotten a kick out of.

I’ve been listening to the Jewitches podcast (low production value, but very interesting), and they have a great store where you can buy Jewish amulets.

For some absurdity, the minor but very very serious changes to The New Yorker’s style guide and the seaside coup led by the founder of Pirate’s Booty.

For delight, this excerpt from Fresh Air in 1986 is highlighted in Letters of Note on Instagram from Maurice Sendak, where he recounts how he received a “charming card” from a little boy. In return, Sendak sent him a postcard. “Then I got a letter back from his mother and she said ‘Jim loved your card so much he ate it.’ That to me was one of the highest compliments I’ve ever received. He didn’t care that it was an original drawing or anything. He saw it, he loved it, he ate it.”

Also for delight, the original stars of Hadestown (Orpheus & Eurydice) got engaged.

And two nonfiction books that let you submerge into strange new worlds (and satisfy all your eavesdropping, fly-on-the-wall desires). One of my favorite nonfiction writers, Sarah Thornton, wrote a book called Tits Up: What Sex Workers, Milk Bankers, Plastic Surgeons, Bra Designers, and Witches Tell Us about Breasts —needless to say, I’ll be ordering immediately. And I’ve been reading Very Important People: Status and Beauty in the Global Party Circuit. I think the book would have been better served as a long essay, but it’s still fascinating.

For all those waiting with bated breath after I bemoaned my failing eyes, I was not going crazy—I do indeed have a minor astigmatism in both eyes. And after much back-and-forth, I have a pair of prescription glasses en route. No more squinting at my computer screen. (The ophthalmologist told me that I have very strong “focusing muscles” which is why it hasn’t been too bad. And let me tell you, I’ve been preening over my ciliary muscles all week.)

Spring break ends today, and I’m feeling all too aware that I’m entering my final stretch of college. Surreal. I can’t pick at it too much. I’m focusing on looking forward (with my very strong ciliary muscles, of course.)

With love & curiosity,

Odessa