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By the end of 2020, I was incredibly depressed (which is a unique experience I went through), and I found Wallace Shawn’s essays after I read this piece in NYRB. I devoured Night Thoughts and Essays probably in one sitting and I’m obsessed with the Designated Mourner (which is now in podcast form, directed by Andre Gregory). I think he acknowledges the world as it is and has a very empathetic approach to humans and that kind of simple, readable humanity was something I really needed. Because, again, I was going through a personally tough time due to a crazy global pandemic.
Feb 24, 2022
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I recently read Vertigo and now I’m reading Rings of Saturn. They are part travelogue, part memoir and part history book. I find he is really easy to read because he speaks universal truths but with really unique and beautiful language and it feels like you are wandering around thinking about life with him. A big theme is decay. There is a part in Rings of Saturn where he talks about how the memory and expanse of a place turns into a single tiny spot in your mind and I can’t stop thinking about that.
Jan 7, 2025
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🟦Has changed my life. Rarely is social theory so inspirational. He speaks so clearly about how to live a good and ethical life, and it involves depravity!! I now leave social interactions thinking "you just got delaney'd" because it has seeped into my way of being so thoroughly. Also incredible autofiction, snapshot of old new york, work of gay archiving ... !!
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Part memoir, part biography. A peek inside of the great mind of David Lynch. I love being a Lynchian freak and I hope he’s out there in surrealism heaven ⭐️
Top Recs from @broti-gupta
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📚John Swartzwelder is the funniest writer in the world. I don’t know that I could write about him and do him justice, but he was a longtime Simpsons writer and then started self-publishing books that are so incredibly joke dense it will blow your mind. Here’s a quote from The Time Machine Did It, one of his many books following a strange detective named Frank Burly: “When I first became a detective I had tried solving crimes the way mystery writers do: coming up with the solution to the crime first, then working back to the point where you don't know what the hell is going on. But for some reason every time I tried that I ended up locked in a closet.”
Feb 24, 2022
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🐕My dog is the coolest guy around. I highly recommend him. He is a Siberian Husky named Niko, we think he’s roughly a little over 3 years old, he has a really human sense of shame, and he loves babies and kids. He loves holding hands and when you pet his belly he literally pets you back (another human thing… unable to just accept love without paying it back…). Any time he walks into a room or sits down or lies down or buries his head anywhere I clap like he’s a stunt cast guest star of a TV show.
Feb 24, 2022
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🏋My friend recommended strength training to me because I was always in a ton of pain because my muscles (lack thereof actually) did a bad job of holding up my loose (?) bones (I have RA), so I started strength training and it has made sooo much of a difference in terms of my energy and joint pain and general health. It’s also very mentally empowering to not feel extremely feeble and frail at all times of every day, and I think being in a more science-based strength training situation helps me prioritize feeling strong and not worrying so much about an aesthetic result.
Feb 24, 2022