Odessa’s Oddities & Curiosities | Week of 7/22/2024

Dear friends,

Let me officially declare my love for East Coast summer. I’ve been reflecting that it can be easy to forget it's summer in California (Northern California, in particular). The fog rolls in. People still work. The year-round afternoon sunshine throws us off. But on the East Coast, you can never forget that it’s summer. And sure, sometimes I wish the blanket of muggy heat would disappear, but I’ve been charmed by its stubborn resistance. The heat forces you to slow down, to find water and shade, tries to reprimand you for going to lab in business casual attire. On the East Coast, you must live summer — or sweat trying. That’s not to mention the fireflies that make me wide-eyed like a kid in the courtyard, trying to catch a glimmer. Or the warm nights where really anything is possible because the air is cooler and the sidewalk is primed for skipping. Or the beach towns (looking at you, Block Island) where you brush away the frenetic energy of onward onward onward, and just get to eavesdrop fervently on the beach. Or the long summer dresses and the watermelon and board games and trivia and reality TV and meeting strangers on trains. Anyway, I love summer on the East Coast.

The last three weekends have been pretty glorious.

Danya and I had the perfect Americana day in Rhode Island, where we witnessed not one but TWO fist fights break out among drunk teenagers on the ferry, soaked in the joyful small-town parade, people-watched on the beach, sung in the waves, went to a baseball game for $5 on a warm summer evening (Go Newport Gulls!), then saw the fireworks. Then we came home to a Slifka-reunion Shabbat.

I got to spend the best 24 hours in Charleston with Thea (thank you Avelo Airlines for making it so freaking easy!). I tried some Southern classics (boiled peanuts, fried okra, buttermilk biscuits, a peach), listened to a DJ attempt to mash pop hits with country (rarely successfully), and saw some damn good art. Highly highly recommend the Reynier Llanes' exhibition at the Gibbes Museum; my favorite pieces included “Letters from Home” and “Espresso Courtship”. Also, shout out to Thea’s article in The Post and Courier about a new exhibition in Charleston, where “dozens of artists [are] set to display their interpretations of historic Charleston views alongside 150-year-old prints.” The best part of course was getting to hang out with Thea.

And on Saturday, Sarai, my Anne-of-Green-Gables-level-kindred-spirit AND the newest member of the Wash U Board of Trustees (!!!), and I got to spend the most wonderful day in Manhattan together. We went to the Whitney Biennial which was spectacular. I haven’t laughed so hard in a museum in a while — highly recommend Pippa Garner’s “Imaginary Inventions”. Her t-shirt suggestions included: “God’s on my shitlist.” And Kiyan Williams’s “Ruins of Empire II”, for as they said: “earth carries history.” And this interactive exhibit where you laid down and the floor shook beneath you. I really think every museum needs a room where you can just lay down for a moment (Constantina Zavitsanos’s installation “All the time and Call to Post (Violet)”. Not to mention, we left the museum to enter Edward Hopper’s paintings — a super cool interactive photo space to commemorate Hopper’s birthday.

Moving on to recommendations…lots of favorites to catch you all up on.

Articles

I was gripped by this essay (I couldn’t look away) — a fascinating dive into trauma and how it reverberates into our lives.

And while I’m usually interested in Jewish magic, I was delighted by this article on the book about Jewish contributions to magic (as in, magic tricks).

Wondering how they designed anxiety in Inside Out 2? I was fascinated by this process, especially because they initially imagined anxiety as a shapeshifter.

And an ode to romance bookstores — do you know how badly I’m tempted to ditch research to open up a store like this? But I’m again reinspired by research, especially this paper about physiological synchrony and music — a person appears to enter the same physiological state each time they listen to the same music. And this study on song melodies…and how they may be getting simpler over time. And this fMRI study on psilocybin (pretty pictures, but not sure we needed an fMRI study to prove that psilocybin has an effect on your brain).

And if you’re a nosy motherfucker like me, NYT revealed the grocery receipts of 27 different people.

And for this article, I only read the first paragraph before I texted it to three different people captioned: “you must read”. This was a book review of WRITE LIKE A MAN: Jewish Masculinity and the New York Intellectuals. I will be buying this book (or rather, I will be hosting a reading group at Slifka so hopefully Slifka will buy me the book).

Podcasts

The latest season of the podcast Articles of Interest is only three episodes, but damn, they are three good episodes on “Nudity”, “Modesty”, and “Clergy”. Want to learn about the politics of vestments? Or how humans really look like baby monkeys? Why do we wear clothes? What does being naked mean? A cross-cultural historical deep dive — delicious! What does modesty mean across religions? What does modesty mean to individuals?

Do you know the backstory behind the “Teddy Bear”? Because I definitely didn’t! We call our stuffed animals teddy bears because of young Teddy Roosevelt’s encounter with a black bear! Talk about forgotten history. This Decoder Ring episode on stuffed animals wandered in lots of wonderful directions. Another interesting observation is that the rise of having to have a unique username coincided with the rise of unique baby names.

And I highly recommend this open and raw interview with a researcher in the twilight in his career: Robert Putnam. I cried listening. I was left reflecting on how we build social lives as adults, which I’ve been thinking of as an active skill. More thoughts on this to come.

And finally, with the Olympics starting in five days, this epic story from the Olympics and what competition and good faith effort really means. I also learned from this episode that it’s sorta weird we give medals? Why just three medals? Did you know that there used to be two: bronze for first and silver for second. They thought it would be tacky to have a gold medal — so interesting. Also, Simone Biles documentary on Netflix is top-notch.

Regarding television, My Lady Jane may be my new favorite TV show of all time — in the way that I don’t necessarily recommend it broadly, but specifically for me. And I may be starting Love Island USA…I’ve held off this long.

I hope you are relishing summer wherever you are right now.

With love & curiosity,
Odessa

p.s. I wrote this newsletter before the news broke yesterday. Feeling giddy & hopeful! Kamala 2024!