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I’ve been working on adapting Meet Me in the Bathroom into a scripted series – a fictionalized rendering of this world and the lives we lived in it as 20-something ambitious, insecure kids trying to find our way in the city we adored. Figuring out how to tell a coming-of-age story that is both obsessively allegiant to the sounds, sights, smells, tastes and feel of a particular world (NYC circa 2001 for me) but also delivers a universal story about being young and searching is … you know, hard. I wasn’t sure it could be done in the way I wanted until I saw the Bear. The show has been rightly celebrated for getting so uniquely right a world that is so notoriously hard to render onscreen (the restaurant world) but also for nailing what is ultimately a coming-of-age story about grief and loss and family. You can do both! It is possible! And now I have a model to point to.
Nov 2, 2022
Related Recs
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The best $25 I spend every month. Literally pays for itself if you see one movie
plus if I see a bad movie I don’t feel like I wasted money
Jan 30, 2024
I recently watched The Monkey for free at Chicago's Music Box Theatre — and even stuck around for Perkin's Q&A session. I have to say, it was the best movie-going experience I've ever had. An organist played the score with diabolical cymbals in the background — come on! And the movie was hilarious and equal parts gory!
Feb 11, 2025
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Going to the movies rocks. this was honestly such a hard question. This isn’t exactly the ~best~ movie but it is a great movie to see in a theater
From like 19-20 going to the Landmark in Westwood to see the Room with my friends rocked. The Room is such a funny bad movie and it’s even better at this theater because of all the canned responses the audience has to the shit happening on screen. its similar to how campy people get with Rocky Horror Picture Show. People throw plastic spoons and loudly jeer at the movie. occasionally Tommy Wiseau and maybe Greg Sestero will show up and you can take a pic. Highly recommend pregaming and then going with your friends at least once
sometimes a specific audience for it will suck but overall it was always pretty fun.
May 1, 2024
Top Recs from @lizzy-goodman
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I’ve been deliberately reading a lot of New York fiction these days, thinking about the city as a character, the city as the ultimate backdrop for coming-of-age stories, the city as a source, in general, of inspiration. What have New York stories looked like throughout time? What do Rear Window and American Psycho and Catcher in the Rye and the Basketball Diaries and Cruel Intentions all have in common? This novel by Dawn Powell is one of those books every New York lit nerd with taste tells you read, but I never had. It’s currently blowing my mind.
Nov 2, 2022
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I was obsessed with this show when S1 first aired in 2020 year. S2 is finally (finally!) coming out later this year and I’m re-watching S1 to prepare. The show was co-created by the actress (and former teen pop star) Billie Piper and the playwright Lucy Prebble (who is also a co-executive producer and writer on Succession … so yeah, she’s hot shit). They’ve been collaborating for years (see also: Secret Diary of a Call Girl). I’m not going to spoil the show by explaining the premise, but I will say that it has a really tight, super high-concept structure. The result is a series of tense, fraught, hyper-immersive mini-film-ish episodes that drop you directly into the show’s world. On the podcast I host, Difficult Artist, we talk a lot about the power of structure. I’m obsessed with structure because I struggle so mightily with it. I’m dying to have these two on so they can tell me how they pulled this off. It’s also worth pointing out the obvious, which is that women are never seen like this on TV. The lead character is just this magnetic, flawed human being working through a mess of her own making. She happens to be female and the show is undeniably feminist, but it's not about being female or conveying an explicitly feminist message. A++
Nov 2, 2022
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I, like so many, adore Stacey Abrams. She’s so inspiring. This brilliant powerhouse of informed optimism, whose faith in and commitment to the power of organizing has reminded many Americans that fighting for your rights and the rights of others is the definition of patriotism. If you are a fan, you’ve heard her speak, and perhaps you’ve noticed that between the steady stream of thoughtful, cheery-yet-steely determination exists the occasional glimpse of deep nerdiness. I mean, she’s a Trekkie who’s written a bunch of romance novels under the pen name Selena Montgomery. (So charming!) But until I read her latest, the thriller While Justice Sleeps, (published under her own name) I had no idea the extent of Ms. Abrams’ geekiness. A major plot element hinges on secret communications in online chess message boards. We need our leaders to be people, first. People with real lives. People who understand joy and humor and sex and who have hobbies and interests and obsessions with, for example, chess moves and the sci-fi-ish implications of DNA-sequencing (another major plot point). I can’t wait to vote for this woman for president one day.
Nov 2, 2022