Algorithm-Free Reco List, No. 24

Making friends, learning things, hyper-fixating on food textures, etc.

Hello!

Back with another collection of things and/or ideas to evangelize.

Here’s a hike I did last week. Was very grumpy because it was too hot and too steep (not this part, I’m not that big of a baby). But unfortunately, I did feel great after.

Not Here to Make Friends S3

If you like reality television, cultural criticism, and physical media, it is my sacred duty to inform you that there is a new issue of Not Here to Make Friends available for purchase. I did not edit this issue (the one I did edit is here), but the writer line up is bananas. If you’re in NYC, you should also go to the launch party on September 22, 7pm, at Honey’s in Brooklyn. Be a literary citizen! Eat free cake! Say hi to Elena for me! You might even make a friend!

Amy Sillman’s Ten Pieces of Advice in BOMB

I also really like #12: “don’t be LAZY. (be intense about it, whatever that means.)” Sillman’s full list is here and you can read all of the advice lists from other artists here.

via BOMB

Squeezing the grapes through the bag

This does not work at Trader Joe’s where they sell grapes in those evil, destined-to-cut-you plastic clamshells. But everywhere else, you can and should use the existing grape bag as a barrier and squeeze the damn grapes! Do not buy the non-crunchy grapes! I watched someone just grab a bag of grapes without squeezing first the other day and I wanted to stage an intervention. (They were not crunchy! Doomed to goo-ify within mere hours! Trust me, I checked!) Relatedly, do not be that guy who touches all the grapes bare-handed. Have some decorum.

If this entire topic has you lost, I love this for you, and please tell me in the comments what it’s like to live a life free from beefs with specific food textures. < 3

Gretchen Rubin’s The Four Tendencies

I have not read this book, and I’m not sure I will. If you have read it, though, and think it’s worth it, please tell me! But I saw Rubin’s Four Tendencies concept mentioned as a brief aside in

Delia Cai

’s “publishing doc” (separately highly rec!) as a way to figure out what motivates you. Personality tests are not usually my thing, but I took the quiz and poked around the website, and a lot clicked into place for me. The biggest takeaway being to reframe any and all writing/routine/discipline advice through the lens of my “tendency.”

Before this, I never knew how to answer when someone asks how I complete a longform project, like a novel draft. Now, instead of making a joke about mental illness and being plagued by concepts, I can tell them that I’m highly motivated by both internal and external expectations, which is impossibly helpful for writing a novel—but unfortunately less helpful for being fun and spontaneous and chill to be around. Or just point them to Delia’s doc/Gretchen’s website/the Scrivener download page.

This quote from Lynn Steger Strong

All criticism is crypto autobiography...All gossip is us telling on ourselves.

I heard it on the podcast, Otherppl with Brad Listi, and haven’t been able to stop thinking about it since. (Here’s the specific interview.)

Taking an in-person class

Last week, I took an in-person Introduction to Tatreez (Palestinian embroidery) workshop at Pot LA with Weekend Threads. Could I have watched a bunch of YouTube videos and taught myself at home? Sure, probably. But it wouldn’t have been anywhere near as enriching or meaningful, especially for a cultural tradition that’s not my own. It was beyond worth the haul from Eagle Rock to West Adams to learn and focus and be steeped in the magic of being a beginner with other beginners. A big reminder to myself that if you want community, you have to be in community!

Peelerz Candy

My devotion to snack food innovations has been well documented (I stand by those cursed Post Malone OREOs), but there’s something about peelable candy that previously freaked me out.

Then yesterday at CVS, I fell victim to an on-sale display of “Peelerz Gummy Mummy.” I would not necessarily call this a quality endorsement, more so a call to sample the novelty. It’s kind of like how I believe everyone should do certain things—like an escape room or mushrooms—once before they die. If only to see what’s revealed in the process. There are a ton of flavors to track down here.

Elizabeth Gilbert discourse

I can’t get enough about all of this mess, and I mean mess. If you’re someone who minds their own business, basically Elizabeth Gilbert (Eat, Pray, Love; Big Magic; etc.) has a new memoir out about that one time she left her marriage to run off with her bestie, who then gets cancer, so the two of them ditch their sobrieties to do a ton of opiates and cocaine, etc. Oh, and also Gilbert admits to plotting to murder aforementioned bestie/lover?

I’d recommend starting with Jia Tolentino’s New Yorker book review and moving onto this excerpt in The Cut should you want more. Also, if you read this wild tale in full, please report back!

This newsletter brought to you by:

• Everything mentioned above.

• Teddy Grahams, honey flavor.

• The album EURO-COUNTRY by CMAT.