This Week
It feels like we’re winding down towards the holidays and the end of the year earlier than usual this year, which makes perfect sense. If we ever deserved an end-of-year break, it’s this year. I hope you have some opportunity to take a deep breath.
Next Friday is Christmas and I will be taking myself on a winter hike, so we’ll press pause on the newsletter for then. I’ll be back for New Year’s.
If you follow me on Twitter, you’ll probably see some new stuff from me in the next couple of weeks. I’m almost ready to launch a new version of my website, which I redesigned to encourage more regular posting and to focus more on my current projects. I also have a new piece of published fiction coming. And, since it’s the end of the year, I’ll be wrapping up my 2020 media log and beginning a new one.
If you don’t follow me on Twitter (a not unwise choice), I’ll catch up with you here on January 1, 2021, in a shiny, brand-new year.
Links
The last Zodiac cipher has just been cracked, fifty-one years after the fact.
The forgotten history of cinema’s first pandemic.
The Baby-Sitters Club was the most quietly subversive show of 2020.
We may not be able to go to the Art Institute, but we can peek at the miniature rooms decorated for the holidays.
An ode to going for a walk, the definitive 2020 activity.
Reading/Watching/Listening
As a Billie Holiday devotee, I would love to point you in the direction of the new documentary Billie. While some of its framing (based around the biographer who started but never finished her book) seemed unnecessary, the Lady Day-centric content and immediate context is stellar. A solid documentary is the very least her legacy deserves.
I finally watched the third and final season of The Deuce, which was uneven but still managed to move me. Maybe I was just going through some things (who isn’t). I guess if you feel like crying over the inexorable march of time that turns us all into human refuse, go to town.
If you want a Christmas movie to watch, let me recommend, possibly for not the first time, A Midwinter’s Tale (titled In the Bleak Midwinter in the UK). I’m pretty sure I’ve written about this film before, but I can’t find it now in the shifting sands of the internet. It’s a slice of indie 90s British comedy with a heart made of the earnest conviction that art matters and that misfits can find their people. I can’t imagine a better film for a lonely Christmas (available to rent most places I can see).
I hope you’ve given yourself a great gift. If not, there’s still time.
Love,
Jen
Connections
Substack archive: https://jenmyers.substack.com/archive
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Essay archive: http://modernadventuress.com/
Website: http://jenmyers.net
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Email: hello@jenmyers.net
Post: P.O. Box 13114 Chicago, IL 60613
This week’s quote is from Jane Austen.