Death By Consumption #1: 5/6/24 - 5/12/24
Hello. If you're getting this in your email, it's because, years ago, you were foolish enough to hit "subscribe" on something called DannyLetter, an infrequent and stupid newsletter I was publishing until the pandemic killed my will to do anything.
I'm happy to report my will to do stuff is back, so I'm rebooting it, on a new non-Substack platform because Substack is kind of evil. This new thing is called Death by Consumption, a non-exhaustive weekly look (we'll see if I can keep that up LOLLLLLL good luck to us all) at what I consumed. I simply love consuming, don't you? It's what we were born to do!
Hopefully, you'll find some new things to consume through this. Or maybe you'll wonder why I'm doing this or who this is for (the answers to those questions are: so that my consumption feels 2% less mindless and/or to see if public scrutiny of my consumption habits make me be more thoughtful about what I put my money and energy towards, and it's for no one!). Or maybe you'll have consumed all the same things as me, which would be a little creepy, in which case I would love to hear if you agree or disagree with my opinions. I love consumption and I love opinions. :) Well, here we go:
The Insider — on Criterion
Had one of those rainy Friday nights where we couldn’t decide if we wanted to go out or be lazy, but popping an edible and scrolling Criterion is always the best option, if you really think about it. Neither Justin nor I had seen this film, but it has a cast you really can’t resist (if Debi Mazar shows up in a trailer, I will be hitting play on that film, know that), and, for a nearly 3 hour movie about corporate espionage, this movie really MOVES. It's a potential example of what the writer Max Read has termed "halogencore" — though I don't think it technically qualifies — and it was especially jarring watching Russell Crowe play a whistleblower worrying if his family is safe, in light of the fact that Boeing, like, casually assassinated a couple dudes recently. I hate sequel culture but we NEED The Insider 2 about the Boeing dudes getting offed.
“Survivor 46” — on CBS
This season has been all over the place. The cast is mostly wackos, which has been fun in the past (Gabon, San Juan Del Sur), and they’ve been the most openly angry and bitter cast in years, but they’re just not hitting the way they should. I think it’s a combo of feeling fatigued at the stale format Jeff has kept us all hostage in for 6 seasons, no one doing anything of strategic value except for Maria and Charlie who are two of the least dynamic characters on screen, and what I can only describe as the “extreme Survivor superfan loser energy” emanating from everyone on the show these days. And I say that as someone who can be accused of making Survivor 50% of my personality (at minimum)! Anyway, the season had finally been very good the past two weeks, but this week it started to show the old signs of flagging energy again, which has me worried for the endgame. But I’ll keep watching literally no matter how bad it gets, so I guess who cares what I think. Jeff Probst remains my king and tormenter in equal measure.
“Love Is Blind” Season 6 — on Netflix
I finally finished this, weeks after anyone in my life had, which is always a problem with the show. Since it all evaporates from your brain the moment the reunion is done, it’s impossible to talk about with anyone if you finish it late. I try to talk about AD and Clay with my friends — who just watched it last month! — and they’re like, “Who?” Oh well! As always, it was fun to suffer through, it made me feel like I have never made an actually stupid decision in my life in comparison to these people, and I desperately need Netflix to go back to weekly episode release schedules.
“Ripley” — on Netflix
SPEAKING OF, nothing deserved weekly releases more than “Ripley,” which Justin and I watched as slowly as possible, giving ourselves each episode as a perfect little treat every few nights. As a minor Ripleyhead and a major Highsmithhead I was skeptical of another adaptation (especially on Netflix), but I loved how different the show was from the movie, and yet they’re both in conversation with each other and with the novel. To me, this was also the first truly beautifully shot thing on Netflix. The light and shadows! Wow. Also, Dakota Fanning? I just love her! There’s a tiny moment near the end where she’s asleep on a gondola in Venice and Tom wakes her up and it's hard to explain, but let's just say it's possibly the best just-waking-up acting I’ve ever seen in my life. Anyway, it’s made me want to finally read all the rest of the (maybe not good?) Ripley novels. The best writing I’ve found on the show is from this Vulture article which has an infuriatingly reductive headline that has almost nothing to do with the actual article, so please look past that.
Three Californias by Kim Stanley Robinson — paperback
Picked this up while I was in California, which is a very cool thing to do, I know. Every time I think I’ve reached the end of Kim Stanley’s bibliography, I find another, which is great. This was actually a compilation of three novels, written over a span of decades, each offering a different potential future for California (Orange County, in particular). As always with his books, I loved it, even the very sciencey sections, though he’s probably the main writer whose books I mostly always love but almost never recommend to other people. I can’t be responsible for making someone read 3 dense pages on atmospheric science immediately followed by a clunky sex scene, you know?
“The Shoah After Gaza” by Panjak Mishra — in the London Review of Books
I found this essay incredibly compelling, well-argued, informative, and important, and have sent it to many friends as a way to help explain my frustration and fury as a Jewish person with how the Holocaust has been used to justify the atrocities in Gaza. It also showed me that I need to read more more more on the early days of Israel because that shit is dark.
Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey — on PS4
When my brain is too tired to read and too frantic to watch, I pick up a controller and a vape pen and enter a stupid little video game world. Not the best habit, I know, but shut up. I have zero interest in shooter games or anything too complicated (Elden Ring — more like Elden Boring!!), so Assassin’s Creed has been kind of perfect. I loved Origins, running around Ancient Egypt with my little character in a silly little diaper, and Odyssey is just more of that, but in Ancient Greece, which means my character has a lot more gay sex. Yay! I’m sure the gamergate guys were so annoying about this game when it came out but I refuse to look up anything about it. Who cares! You’ll never catch me actually caring about gaming culture. It’s too depressing out there. Games are for children, grow up! My only real complaint with the game is that the story is so twisty-turny I’m like… relax, guys. No one’s following all this. Just let me explore Mykonos and slit the throats of a bunch of bandits who killed a guy’s wife so he’ll fuck me as a show of thanks.
The ramp martini — at Locanda Vini e Olii
Met friends on Saturday for dinner at this spot, which is becoming one of our old reliable restaurants, mostly because it's the perfect location for when South Brooklyn and Williamsburg friends are gathering — everyone has to spend an equal amount of time on our beloved G train, everyone wins and loses. I always regret ordering a restaurant's twist on the martini, but I love onions so their ramp-infused martini seemed like the way to go. It's spring, I thought, ramps are in season, this will be fresh and lovely! But it was not. The flavor was vaguely medicinal and sharp, with an onion-y aftertaste that I claimed I enjoyed in the moment to not feel the shame of ordering a worse drink than everyone else, but the more the aftertaste lingered the more it made me feel like I just had a bad case of onion breath. Anyway, this was followed up with a dirty gin martini and an espresso martini, after which we went to a drag show and drank more, so this was just one in a series of bad decisions that evening. I'm too old to be doing a three-martini evening, and yet!
Gochujang Steak Lettuce Wraps — at home
I’ve been bad about cooking lately, but Tuesday was absolutely breathtakingly beautiful in the city and a mercifully light workday for me, so I took a very long walk and ended at our local food co-op (which I finally joined this year after discovering there’s NO work requirement, a huge plus to lazy comrades like me). Ribeyes were on sale for members, so I got two, fried them in the cast iron, sliced them, and doused it all in a gochujang/garlic/lemon sauce, which we used with rice and scallions to make lettuce wraps. It was insanely good, took less than an hour from start to finish, and left me feeling disgustingly pleased with myself. You’d think I would learn something from this, but the next night I ate out, and the night after we ordered Thai, so I guess not.