inexplicable love for... disaster films?!
+ a bookseller walks into a newsletter, another gazpacho, and a prompt for you...
hey-ho!
Last week we had the kind of visit with beloved family friends that you simply cannot plan in advance. One minute we were on a call, an impromptu invitation delivered, and boom 💥, they were knocking on the front door!
During the visit we went on a mini-vacation to Astoria, where we ate well, laughed, walked on the beach, hiked, read, and, had a brief obsession with disaster films! I know! So not my jam, but I’d read an article about Twister being a comfort film and we decided to watch.
The movie, if you’ve not seen it, is about a ragtag bunch of cheerful weirdos, obsessed with storm chasing, fighting outsized, uncontrollable forces, and lo, a ruptured marriage is repaired. What’s not to love? Twister was the gateway drug to more…
We watched: The Poseidon Adventure, a tidal wave, a luxury liner flipped upside down, Gene Hackman as a reverend, yelling at the terrified passengers. “God loves tryers!” The Day After Tomorrow, in which a huge ice sheet shears off in Antartica, triggering a massive climate shift. The north freezes over… wolves roam NYC, people seek shelter in the library and burn books to stay alive. Twisters, more wind, more cows, another couple falls in love. And finally, we turned to Arrival, which was more about a disaster averted, as Amy Adams, a linguist, learns to communicate with peaceful aliens who come to earth to seek help and to teach us about the circularity of time, as well as the pain we are capable of not only surviving, but also of noting the beauty in the in-between moments.
Disaster films? Moi! I fell briefly in love. Maybe it was watching humans strive against something insurmountable and coming together to survive. Do you have a disaster film you love that I shouldn’t miss?
Honestly, I think I was able to watch these films now because I’m feeling more hopeful about our current situation than I have in a long time. The shift in political winds has lifted me up and energized me. Yes we can prevail over insurmountable threats. Go Kamala!
I hope my project, this newsletter, gives you a boost. Books to read. A writing prompt if you’re into it. A recipe. A cute dog! Boom! Here’s to the small things that lift us up.
read:
A lovely human, a wonderful writer, and a very good friend… Elyse Chambers checks all the boxes. She’s writing a gorgeous memoir. She has an adorable family, a terrific sense of humor, exquisite taste, and in her newsletter project, Field Blend, she shares all the things that catch her eye—books, kids clothing and toys, housewares you’ll definitely want in your own home, and her own funny and fun insights into life in Napa Valley. She’s the friend you turn too if you need to know the best face cream, protein powder, pink wine, table lamp, pizza place, or swimsuit.
And now Elyse is a bookseller! She’s opened a charming independent bookshop in St Helena, Wild Plum Books! I tapped Elyse to share with us 3 favorite historical fiction novels. And she delivered!
NORTH WOODS, by Daniel Mason: What a brilliant book and easily one of the best things I read last year. It is storytelling at its most magical. The entire novel centers around a single house in the woods of New England, starting with two young lovers escaping a Puritan colony, all the way through modern day. What a concept! It was startlingly original and made me think about history, language, nature and humanity in new, surprising ways.
HOMEGOING, by Yaa Gyasi: This is one of my favorite books of all time. Two half sisters in 18th century Ghana are born in separate villages. One sister marries an Englishman and the other is captured and sold into slavery. The book follows the sisters and eight generations of their descendants from the Gold Coast all the way through Harlem during the Jazz Age. It is so deftly told — there’s a lot to cover in 300ish pages — and I fell so hard for each character. If only history class had been half as interesting!
MATRIX: by Lauren Groff, who in my book can do no wrong, so imagine my delight when she turned from FATES AND FURIES — a ruthless examination of a marriage — to the realm of Eleanor of Aquitaine. Based loosely on the poet Marie de France who Groff imagines to be the unrequited lover of the queen, Marie is exiled from court and sent to a nunnery. Visions of the Virgin Mary validate Marie’s earthly ambitions and she transforms her small abbey of sick, starving women into a sprawling Vatican-esque wonderland hidden in the Arthurian forest. I am forever drawn to stories of female ambition and appetite and I practically devoured this book whole.
Thank you, Elyse! I’m in.
For our next r.w.e. book group we will be reading and discussing GOD OF THE WOODS, by Liz Moore, described as “…riveting .. an epic mystery, a family saga and a survival guide.” I’m in! If you’ve not read any Liz Moore, do check it out. Also check HEFT, which I loved.
We meet on Zoom, 18 August from 9:30 - 11a PT. The book group is a perk for paid subscribers and let me tell you we are a lively bunch! Do consider joining us. A paid subscription is a mere $1.25 per week! Far less than the cost of one coffee. Go ahead, upgrade to paid and let me know if you’re in. I hope so!
Check my read.write.eat. Bookshop Store, where you will find many of the books I've recommended in the newsletter. Buying books from my shop is a way you can be a friend to the newsletter.
write:
I’ve been leading a month long generative writing class, Summer Seedlings. Each week terrific writers gather on zoom and we write together to prompts I provide. The stakes are so low we have freedom to explore and laugh and mess up and… frankly to play.
If you’re a paid subscriber, you’ll have access at the end of this note to a prompt that you won’t want to miss! If you’re not yet a paid subscriber you can become one right here:
Being with writers writing, our heads bowed in the little zoom dioramas which appear on screen, is a happy place for me.
I’ve also been a student in a six week personal essay writing class. It was terrific to have deadlines, to throw down on the page and see what turns up. Which is what I’ve come to talk about today. Throwing things down.
It’s the third act of summer. August, when the weather can be putrid hot, plants are withered, and soon things will get serious again… school, schedules, elections. August is the perfect month to challenge yourself to simply write. Get up a bit earlier. Stay up a little later. Commit to forty-five minutes, maybe an hour. Pretend you’ve got an editor breathing down your neck and you have to punch out 750 words on eggplant, or baseball, or the time you knew it was over, or a trip you took that was full of mishaps. Write three pages of your novel, or start an essay about reading out loud. Don’t fret over words, don’t get precious, just get it down. I swear to you, it is so satisfying!
In fact, maybe we should do it together! Drop me a note and we’ll get a little accountability group going. Nothing formal, just a little check-done! Maybe we can have an online sesh at the end of the month to share something we’re proud of!
The prompts now live in the P.S. (Paid Subscriber/Post Script 🥳) section at the bottom of this newsletter.
To gain access, consider upgrading to paid. You will be supporting the work I do to bring this spot of sunshine to you each week…
eat:
After we kissed our pals goodbye, we had a day of catching-up—work, laundry, contending with the let down of an empty house. Luckily we had this delicious gazpacho leftover. I whipped up a quick cucumber and tomato salad, served some focaccia, and, voila!
Sweet Corn Gazpacho
3 ears corn, kernels and juices, reserve ⅓ cup for garnish
1 pint yellow cherry tomatoes, chopped
1 yellow pepper, stemmed, seeded, and chopped
1c cucumber, peeled and chopped
¼c extra-virgin olive oil
2T sherry vinegar
½ to 1t sea salt
freshly ground black pepper, to taste
Garnish:
reserved corn kernels
½c sliced cherry tomatoes
chopped basil
In a blender, combine the corn, tomato, pepper, cucumber, olive oil, sherry vinegar, salt, and pepper and blend until smooth. Season to taste.
Serve with the reserved corn kernels, cherry tomatoes, and herbs.
And here’s Stanley!
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Tell your people you love them, and take good care of your skin.
xN
PS. Your prompt, a moment of creative oomph!
Love this, love you!!!
Thanks for the disaster film recs. I added The Day After Tomorrow to our watch list. Hot summer night...freezing apocalypse. Yes, please. And yes, please to an accountability group. Thank you!