Lauren Oyler is a West Virginia-born, Berlin-based writer. Her work has appeared in publications including The New York Times, The Baffler, and Harper’s, among many others. Outside of her own releases, she’s known for her well-argued and often viral criticisms of works by authors like Roxanne Gay and Jia Tolento, and The Sunday Times named Lauren “the pre-eminent and most widely read critic of her generation.” Her debut novel Fake Accounts came out in 2021 and follows a young woman who discovers that her boyfriend is behind a popular conspiracy Instagram account, and her brand new essay collection No Judgement was released back in March. Lucky for us, Lauren’s here to tell us what she’s been into.
This novel from 1992 is being reissued by New Directions in May, and it is hilarious, very sad, and constantly teetering on the brink of being genuinely offensive. But it isn’t offensive! It depicts the fraught, competitive, and co-dependent relationship between gay men and women in a way that not many writers of either group have been able to pull off. I don’t know that many writers at all have attempted to depict this relationship as a primary goal in their texts—it does come up as a consequence of other plots and themes—but that’s what this book is “about.” I was going to add one of my favorite lines from the book here, but out of context it does indeed seem offensive, even if I promise it’s narrated from the perspective of an Emma Bovary character, so you just have to get the book and see for yourself.
These are the most French perfumes you can possibly imagine: niche and completely over-the-top in terms of scent, price, and packaging (sorry, flacons). They have a collection of perfumes inspired by paintings, which are printed on the bottle. For other scents, you can replace the cap—which I think must always come with a tassel around the neck—with a small classical bust, which I believe is also theoretically aligned with the perfume’s notes. This costs an additional 100+ euros or something, so I did not do it on my bottle of Invasion Barbare, which I bought only partly for the name. It makes you smell like George Clooney and stays on for about 20 hours.
This is a West German ensemble film about a loosely connected group of travelers who are stranded at West Berlin’s Tempelhof airport one night in 1962 due to fog. While obviously an allegory for the city’s experience of being suddenly surrounded by East Germany—which, if we pursue the analogy, here is presented as professional and personal annoyance that allows our characters to indulge in industry-specific narcissisms—the movie can also be enjoyed on the level of script and character. What happens when you suddenly have a stretch of free time? You often squander it. There’s a great talking-past-each-other adultery scene, and the musical numbers at the end are joyous and lightly surreal. When I saw it in the theater everyone was smiling and laughing, which is not typical of Germans. I’m able to access it on YouTube with English subtitles from Germany (for now).
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Made from “immature pine cones”—great phrase—this is just what it sounds like. I encountered it for the first time in Tbilisi, and it seems like it’s sort of hard to find outside the region (as far as I’ve tried), but it’s worth it. I’d never thought about immature pine cones before, but they’re delightful in texture and size.
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Even if you’re not a huge fan of lap swimming, indoor pools are often really special examples of national architecture—my favorites are from the first half of the twentieth century—and it’s surprisingly interesting to observe the pool etiquette of different cultures. Italians, while somewhat impatient and in-your-face on land, are incredibly courteous and respectful of relative speed in the water; they’re gracious and accommodating if you need to pass them. In Milan I always make a point to go to Piscina Cozzi, which had a huge Maurizio Cattelan mural on the back wall featuring a tacky Ophelia in red lipstick. It was there in October of last year, but I think they’ve since taken it down, which is a shame, but apparently he swims there, too.
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