Fangirling + secret cities + cults
May I recommend
Fangirling, Hard.
I was a a bit of a weird kid — not a ton of friends, thick glasses, love of reading… I think you get the picture. My passions were odd and I knew enough to understand that, so I made sure not to advertise my deep love of Little Shop of Horrors, my intense devotion to the music of Stan Rogers (well, that slipped out a bit) and my fanatical commitment to reading the entire Agatha Christie oeuvre.
Unlike my hidden and shameful interests, I have recently experienced unadulterated, unselfconscious teenage girl devotion to a thing, and let me tell you, it was a wonderful sight to behold. Yes, I went to a Taylor Swift concert, and yes it was transformative.
Firstly, it was fun. Not only does Tay Tay put on an incredible show featuring sets, costumes, dances and pyrotechnics, but most fans are in some sort of costume or outfit featuring something glittery. As an added bonus the music is very good. More than that, however, was watching the girls I was with and the 70,000 who surrounded me, just fucking LOVE Taylor.
Taylor isn’t cool or edgy or alternative. She’s like your big sister, but a nice one rather than one who sits on you and farts. She’s kind of dorky. She’s kind of basic. Her best friend is Blake Lively not Aubrey Plaza. She named her cats after characters from Law and Order and Scandal. One of her most well-known attributes is how much she really loves the fall.
There is something safe and comfortable about Taylor, which when I came of age in the late 80s, early 90s, would have made her an object of sneering and disdain. Another mark against her from that time is that most of her devotees are women. Back in the day, anything girls liked was automatically lame. Now, thankfully, the times are changing. There were very few men in the audience at Ford Field in Detroit. Instead, there were thousands of be-jeweled, be-glittered and be-pinked girls and young women, many (myself included) in white cowboy hats.
Rather than be ashamed of their love of this basic white lady and her songs about heartbreak and friendship, they unapologetically gave in to their full-throated, tear-stained joy at seeing their idol, and she, like the nice big sister she is, returned the favour. It was a very public and very loud love-in between an artist and her fans, and for one shy little nerd who really would have liked to be open about just how much Suddenly Seymour spoke to her, it was a healing experience.
Sixty Years Ago a Lost City Was Discovered
A Man Knocked Down a Wall and Found a City
This is wild and fascinating
The ancient city, Derinkuyu, lay abandoned for decades until, in the 1960s, a local man noticed his chickens were disappearing through a gap in his basement that had opened up during renovations, the BBC reported. After knocking down a wall, he found a tunnel — and accidentally rediscovered the sprawling, subterranean city.
Cults abound
The Upper West Side Cult that Hid in Plain Sight
I was recently having dinner with a new friend and she mentioned Mastermind groups and how she’d like to invite me to one. Not knowing what it was, I agreed enthusiastically. Only after reading this article did it occur to me that maybe it’s a cult? Long story short, it isn’t a cult, but it is Tony- Robbins adjacent. Anyway, this is a good article.
The Sullivanians adhered to the same principles and traditions as many of the ashrams and rural intentional communities of the era: polyamory, communal living, group parenting, socialist politics. But they came to their belief system through the gateway of psychoanalysis, the self-actualization tool of the urbane intellectual. And they enacted their beliefs on a crowded concrete island of nearly eight million people, often while holding down high-status jobs as physicians, attorneys, computer programmers, and academics.
More Taylor
Taylor Swift has Rocked my Psychiatry Practice
I started writing this week’s newsletter, and then discovered this lady said everything I wanted to say, but even better and in the New York Times.
Teenagerhood taunts you to explore and perform who you might be, on repeat, and the “Eras” theme of her current tour electrifies this process. MetLife Stadium was a bacchanal of mass identification, a celebration of that ubiquitous girl who felt somewhat invisible until there were 83,000 of her, sparkling from miniskirt to concert bracelet, lighting up the night sky.
Book Stuff
Guess what? I snooped around my spam folder and discovered that THE HONEYBEE EMERALDS was a finalist in the Indy Book Awards, best Debut Novel. Yay! Unfortunately, by the time I had figured it out, the winners had already been announced and Honeybee was not one of them. Still, an honour to be nominated, etc etc.
Also, it means I can put this fun sticker on the cover, though the gold kind of blends.
As a reminder, THE FOULEST THINGS was also a finalist in the Crime Writers of Canada Best Novel Set in Canada and it now sports a snazzy sticker.
All my little books are getting accessories. Huzzah!
Buy my books!
TikTok
Happy Father’s Day
The hip check went wrong
Ronnie and the Zipline
An excuse for Arrested Development clips
Little lady
Crazy footage
Her little look at her reflection after is the best
That face
Speaking of big sisters
Possibly TV’s greatest villain
A pretty dangerous crew
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