Feeling: A cozy haze of serotonin from spontaneity, live music, and salty air. Yesterday morning I drove down to Rehoboth Beach, Delaware where my bestie Rachel was vacationing with her family. I’d been to nearby Ocean City, Maryland plenty of times, but was pleasantly charmed by my first taste of Rehoboth. It’s a super chill, clean family spot (famously LGBTQ+ welcoming) with sneaky old money energy. Now, most of you know I’m openly “not a beach girl.” The atmosphere is soothing, but I hate sand and I’m terrified of the ocean. HOWEVER, they let me borrow a CHAIR and what a difference! At 30 years old, I finally understand beach appeal, and it’s all because of a goddamn chair. I’m not even embarrassed. Why should I be? We are literally floating on a rock in space and nothing matters. Anyway… we packed turkey sandwiches and ate them with pickles and chips and I wore that thick sunblock with zinc like a cartoon lifeguard and it all felt nostalgic in the best way.
At nighttime, we Ubered to Dewey Beach. Dewey existed in my mind as some distant, gritty, little oasis I knew I’d love, but never got around to visiting. And on a Monday night, it surpassed all expectations. Dewey is a surf rock microcosm of California cool. I now know why everyone in Philly who spends all summer at the Jersey shore is single… because all the vibey young people are in Dewey. And no one’s scheming on love at the Starboard; they’re busy grooving to some psychedelic band for Gen Z kids who stole their parents’ Doors records.
Thinking: About the impact of privilege on art. On my way to Delaware, I was listening to a lot of Deerhunter, which sent me searching for Bradford Cox interviews. In the one I landed on, he examines how money influences art through the story of American composer, Charles Ives. Charles Ives came from generational wealth and built his own through a successful career in insurance. In turn, he was able to produce the discordant, avant-garde music he wanted without regard for commerciality. Cox asserts that only the very poor and the very wealthy can do this; he jokes that his own band, comprised of working class guys from Georgia, falls somewhere in the middle and thus, transitioned from messy garage rock to something more melodic to earn money to live. I instantly connected this notion to Virginia Woolf’s A Room of One’s Own which says, in so many words, that money and privilege are the keys to producing art—such was not afforded to women in the 1920s, notwithstanding Woolf’s own.
It all makes me think about the rich kids I’ve met in my lifetime who lead these feigned bohemian lifestyles and write, make music, paint, and even post on Instagram with blasé attitudes toward palatability. The trustafarian cliché exists for a reason. I love them. They fascinate me. So a fun activity you can keep on deck for when you meet underemployed, offbeat art kids is asking yourself: are they so broke that they don’t care, or so rich that they never did?
Currently Watching: Mad Men. How did it take me this long? Major shout out to Elisabeth Moss for the versatility (I’m a Handmaid’s Tale fan).
Obsessed with: This compilation called So Young but So Cold: Underground French Music 1977-1983, which I got from the aforementioned Bradford Cox interview. Some of it’s on Spotify, some on YouTube. I love the song he spotlights, “Suis-je normale” by Nini Raviolette. I’m a pop queen but don’t tempt me with foreign deep cuts.
Oops of the Week: Signing up for a free trial and forgetting to cancel before the payment goes through is one of the great common denominators of our time. That’s what I did with this diet planning thing called Noom. In an anxious frenzy about my weight, I got sucked into this vague app (I still don’t understand it) and forgot to cancel before it was too late. I was charged $140. Thankfully they understood and refunded me, but I figured I’d share as a reminder to you to cancel that thing you signed up for and forgot about. And, if you’re also worried about your health, just remember it’s not toxic or fatphobic or punitive to say no to certain foods sometimes. I became a yes woman all pandemic and it wasn’t liberating for me. Now I’m returning to a healthy balance of food as fuel, food as celebration, food as cultural homage, etc. rather than just food as comfort for bad feelings.
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