Odessa’s Oddities & Curiosities | Week of 4/15/2024

Dear friends,

I turn 21 on Friday — cue nostalgia tsunami as I spend many late-night hours reflecting on whether I’m ready to shed off these last restrictions of childhood. 21! I’ll let you know next week if it feels any more real. Friday is also when Taylor’s new album comes out.

This has been my semester of lip gloss — heavily influenced by my social media feed. But I’ve been running through these Nyx Fat Oil Lip Drip Lip Gloss (say that ten times) like there’s no tomorrow. They are much lower maintenance than a red lip, and there’s something satisfying about the application and the skin-feel. But I learned that I may just be subject to an economic trend. An Instagram Reel taught me about the Lipstick Effect — which I first classified as Algorithm Bullshit. But a quick Google search revealed that this is an actual economics term. Lipstick sales rise in times of economic stress (eg. inflation), because they are a joyful discretionary good that doesn’t cost that much. Here’s to glossy-lipped economics.

I’m reading/finished two new novels. One is the first book in Olivia Wildenstein’s newish series House of Beating Wings. The book had an admittedly slow start (and a sorta slow plot) but I loved the Venetian fantasy setting. The second is a book I’ve been looking forward to for years (!!): The Familiar by Leigh Bardugo — a Spanish Golden Age novel with Jewish magic!!! A great review of the novel in the NYT. I’m finding the beginning a bit slow, but I’m just relishing her Jewish magic system.

Now get ready for a lot of poetry…

I want to highlight Allen Ginsberg’s “Poem Rocket” and “Lysergic Acid” (difficult to find links), as well as Adrienne Rich’s “Yom Kippur 1984”. Also this great letter from Ginsberg to the Paris Review re his views on LSD.

Speaking of psychedelics, the tragedy of Nova music festival may shape our understanding of how psychedelics affect moments of extreme trauma.

One more poem! I always love these NYT interactive poems — this one on Frank O’Hara’s “Having a Coke with You”.

In regard to podcasts, check out this episode on how the Congolese transformed the suit, the style of Belgium colonizers, into their own form of self-expression (the Sapeurs).

The Jewish Women’s Conference was last weekend, and it was so so wonderful to have my mom in town. I needed some mom-snuggles.

I was just beaming at the opportunity to hear from such brilliant Jewish women like Natalie Ginsberg, R’Jill Hammer, Lexi Kohanski, Abby Stein, Meghan Adler, Debbie Millman, Vanessa Hidary, and many more.

I want to shout out R’Jill Hammer in particular. R’Jill Hammer (who I talked about in a newsletter weeks ago) founded the Hebrew Priestess Institute which practices an embodied, Earth-based Judaism. We had a lovely conversation about Jews and our relationship to space and land. And I was unprepared for the radical joy of choosing feminine-address to the divine during the Renewal services she co-led with her brilliant wife, Shoshana Jedwab. I’m determined to learn the feminine prayers this summer — to come closer to the divine feminine through language.

Also, shout out to this Hasidic DJ that Isa recommended — who self-identifies as a heimish-hippie (which is also what I will be going by from now on).

I went down a little rabbit hole on the architecture of playgrounds. And apparently, I grew up with a Bob Leathers playground (shout out Sycamore Park) — I totally didn’t realize that there were playground design movements but it makes so much sense. The Chicago Tribune referred to Bob Leather as the “guru of contemporary playground design.”

As I type, many students occupy Beinecke Plaza to demand that the Yale Administration divest from military weapons manufacturers. They will be camping out on the plaza all week long. Their message: invest in books, not bombs.

Books, not bombs.

With love & curiosity,

Odessa