I feel like shit!

on depression and summer reading

Jul 08, 2021

Greetings,

I intended to send this newsletter a few weeks ago. But then I started to feel like shit. I’m not apologizing for my tardiness because literally 👏 nobody 👏 asked 👏 for 👏 this 👏 newsletter 👏; I’m simply stating a fact.

I wanted to send this newsletter after I first watched Bo Burnham’s special, Inside. Nothing I’d consumed during the Year(+) From Hell spoke to my soul as directly as Inside.

As a friend recently pointed out, it feels strange and, I’d argue, almost unseemly to make content (this newsletter) around Burnham’s content, a subject he repeatedly addresses in the special, but here we are.

A musical commentary on our collective isolation and a critique of the internet, influencer performativity, and, most pointedly, itself, the Netflix special addresses mental illness both through the songs’ lyrics and the special’s structure. Around the halfway point, the tone changes drastically. Burnham’s appearance grows increasingly disheveled, and he acknowledges his (or his comic persona’s) deteriorating mental health, stating: “So, uhm, uh, my current mental health is, is rapidly approaching uhm, an ATL, which is, uhm, that's an all-time low. Not, not Atlanta.”

Though this summer feels markedly different from last summer, at least where I live, in terms of vaccination rates and what is open vs. closed, I find Inside’s approach to acknowledging mental health and illness to be evergreen. I’m not sure who needs to hear this (🙋‍♀️), but even once the pandemic “ends,” many struggling with mental illness will still be struggling with mental illness.

I wrote about my own mental hellscape during the pandemic for Bon Appétit, and I’m curious to see how other writers and creators engage with the intersection of mental illness and the pandemic in the coming weeks/months/years. What will the art of the pandemic look, feel, and sound like? One example is this darkly humorous story by my friend, Jeremy Mann. I’m looking for more stories that fall into this category, so please share any recommendations for this sort of thing in the comments 😘

Thanks for reading!

Watching: Bo Burnham: Inside too many times to disclose here. | Schitt’s Creek, finally. | Lupin: Part 2.

Reading: Up close and personal with Cousin Greg. | The art of the celebrity apology. | “Beaver are nature's firefighters. So why is California killing them?” (sidebar: plural of beaver is beaver?) | Millennial aesthetics as scam. | The rise of historical fiction in today’s literary marketplace. | How to write about eating disorders without glamorizing them. | The benefits of journaling. (Ugh, I know, but science!) | “The Subversive Joy of Lil Nas X’s Gay Pop Stardom”.

Headline of the Week: “Women Are Having Fewer Babies Because They Have More Choices”.

Recommended Summer Reading: According to some sources, it’s currently summer, though this statement cannot be confirmed from my current location in foggy San Francisco. Nevertheless, the following books are my fiction recommendations for summer, organized by micro-mood.

* Note: My recommendations are mine alone, but if you do purchase the via the links below, I make a small commission via bookshop.org. Even better, buy them from your local independent book store. *

For When You Just Need a Good Cry™️ — Hanya Yanagihara’s A Little Life
For When You’re Questioning Everything In Your Life, Even Your Own Questions — Monica West’s debut, Revival Season
For When It’s Foggy As F*ck in San Francisco — Vendela Vida’s We Run the Tides
For When It’s Foggy As F*ck in San Francisco And You Wish Someone With a Pool On The East Coast Would Invite You To Stay At Their House— Marcy Dermansky’s Very Nice
For When You’re Craving That Thrilling Sense of Schadenfreude That Only Comes From Hearing About a Honeymoon Gone Terribly Wrong — Catherine Steadman’s Something in the Water