Odessa’s Oddities & Curiosities | Week of 9/1/2024

Dear friends,

Happy September!

Oh my. So many things happened in August — trying to keep this newsletter brief. Let’s see, these last three weeks have been filled with a lot of different emotions. I’ve been in the throes of anxiety on whether to take a gap year before grad school even though I have zero idea what I’d do on that potential gap year. The classic senior year of college sort of thoughts (gah! senior year!). Practicing trusting in the universe that it will all work out. My family and I spent one week at this hippie health spa in Baja California (founded by a Hungarian Jewish kabbalist in 1940) where we attended numerous workout classes, lectures (including a particularly enthusiastic lecture on bats), and consumed many a quesadilla (and smoothie).

Oh! THE DEMOCRATIC NATIONAL CONVENTION — where I just unfurled into a sobbing, bleeding-heart liberal. Fuck, it was so good. Highlights: Michelle Obama, Doug Emhoff, Tim Walz (pretty obvious, I guess). And just the joy of gathering as this collective. Feeling pretty damn proud to be from San Francisco. And of our queen, Nancy Pelosi. Great interview with her, here. And many interesting discussions about masculinity at the DNC, including what one writer termed “jock insurance.”

Danya and I realized that I might have been misled by the word “misled” for my entire speaking life. See, I knew “mislead” was a word, but I thought that “misled” was pronounced closer to “mistled” (like mistletoe) or missiled. The universe returning to check my ego 😉

The start of senior year has been laden with all this future nostalgia, but I’m trying my best to direct that energy into the present. Last Shabbat dinner in particular reminded me the joy of the present — 315 people joined us at Slifka for Shabbat dinner, and I was just verklempt.

Lots of recommendations to fill you in on during the lovely month of August.

Narciso told me about this fantastic, snarky website that reviews perfumes: Fragrantica. There’s a real latitude with language that occurs when we try to describe a smell…fascinating. Also, the reviews are cutthroat.

Speaking of transforming the senses, have you ever given any thought to background music? How one might draw together the perfect “vibe”? Well, this long read from The Guardian gave it a lot of thought.

Get terrified by this in-depth exploration of modern drone warfare. And angry by how the eyeglasses industry is ripping you off…I think I’ve come to the age where I’m worried that I need glasses.

Some articles I loved:

One of my favorite sections of the New York Times is the Vows section. I’m a sucker for a love story. Here’s one I loved recently. (I nearly always cry)

I was fascinated by this attempt at a for-profit city.

And of course, Costco was founded by a Jew! A massive food sanctuary with oversized portions…what could be more Jewish?

And my particular passion, why do we divorce mental and physical healthcare when all research is pointing to the fact that they aren’t so different. Articulated very well here in this opinion piece.

My once beloved institution Junior State of America is shutting down after 95 years. I mean, we sort of saw this coming (No other organization would let high schoolers run absolutely everything), but devastating all the same. JSA forged many aspects of my political convictions.

Some poetry recommendations for you. I’m taking another poetry class this semester (more on that next week). First, a poem that Liana shared with me by Jack Gilbert: “The forgotten dialect of the heart” that pries at an earlier theme: what language can’t quite capture. Also on “Pleasure,” a poem by Katie Peterson. I’m also reading Ada Limón poetry collection called “You Are Here; Poetry in the Natural World”, which is superb. I’ve been savoring a few every night before bed, including “You Belong to the World” by Carrie Fountain.

Speaking of verse, we read a sample of the Bhagavad Gita for my Philosophy of Religion class; the scripture is achingly beautiful. But I was tickled by this phrase:

“And so I bow to Thee, prostrate my body, / Crave grace of Thee, [my] Lord adorable”

My lord adorable. I adore it! I’ve decided to give a full overview of my classes next week in an attempt to keep this shorter, but my fun side project while shopping classes has been to pluck phrases from classes that would make good band names. Some examples: Rhetoric of Femininity, Superempirical Reality, The Unseen Order, and Transnatural.

A fun fact for you from Henry: spiral staircases in castles are always built clockwise in order to favor the person coming down the stairs in a swordfight (the ascending attacker is forced to show their vulnerable side) — given of course, that they are right-handed.

Some important dates. My mom has her first big New York solo exhibition on Sept 5th! “You Are Here” will be at the Nancy Hoffman Gallery from Sept 5-Oct 19. You can RSVP here. I’ll be there on opening night! And Ava is now 21!!!! (Also, apple-picking season has begun! Ava and I ended up probably eating more apples/pears than ended up in our bag, but what a pleasure to eat fruit straight from the tree).

We found out last night the names of the six bodies of hostages killed in Gaza.

Carmel Gat

Eden Yerushalmi

Hersh Goldberg-Polin

Alexander Lobanov

Almog Sarusi

Ori Danino

ברוך דיין האמת

May their memories be a blessing. Osah shalom aleinu.

With love & curiosity,

Odessa