Open Tabs #44
04.05.26 -- reading, watching, listening, googling
Welcome to this week’s edition of Open Tabs, where I share my recent reads, current curiosities, and media consumptions every(ish) Sunday!
Some things that have been on my mind the last couple of months: my relationship with social media/the internet, financial literacy, the future of my career, what it means to truly take care of myself, education and enrichment. I’ve been asking myself what I actually want in life. I am learning how to let go of fear. So I feel a little different lately. Good, I think. Winter was rough, and Spring (though it has only just arrived) is already giving me a sense of renewal.
So I have all these things on my mind, but still haven’t quite reached a state of clarity. I struggle to put anything into the outer world when my internal world is fuzzy. It feels like the answer is on the tip of my tongue, and I can’t do anything else until I’ve figured it out. But I know that putting energy out into the world (creating, doing, existing) is part of the journey towards clarity.
So hello, I am back for a bit. Here is some of what I consumed in February and March.
Reading [Books]
Amulet by Roberto Bolano
This novella feels like a dedication to the memory of those murdered in the Tlatelolco massacre; to all the students of that generation who fought against the tyranny of their government(s); and to all the poets/writers/artists who came after them, who carried the burden of such an atrocity in their work.
(I realized quite late in this novella that it features characters from Savage Detectives, which I have not read.)
Screen Tests by Kate Zambreno
This collection of micro-essays & stories has been following me around for ages, but I finally finished it. I was a little bored by the first half to be honest, but really liked the longer pieces.
Three Women by Lisa Taddeo
I was disappointed by this one. The framing (the thesis, if you will) was unclear. Instead of saying this book is about women’s desire, I think we should say it is about the erasure of women’s desire. It shows how invisible and meaningless Female desire is to our culture, unless it is being used against us. It seems like detailing each woman’s sexual acts was meant to be revelatory or freeing, but I didn’t get a sense of agency from these stories. Everything was flattened to fit into this vague thesis. But the author didn’t make it clear why these 3 stories, specifically, were being told together. I understand why this book was published and popularized when it was. But it felt lazy and sensationalist if I’m being really honest.
The Vanity Fair Diaries: 1983-1992 by Tina Brown
The diaries of a former EIC of Vanity Fair. She recounts her years reviving the magazine in the ‘80s and ‘90s. I listened to the audiobook, read by the author. I want more diaries and memoirs from editors/writers/media people.
Care and Feeding by Laurie Woolever
Another memoir! Woolever is a chef and food writer, and the former assistant of Anthony Bourdain. I very much enjoyed reading about her early years in New York, trying to figure out where she fit in the food world. Like many people, I was/am also a bit in awe of Bourdain, so I appreciated the glimpse of his world from her perspective.
This is not everything I read the last 2 months, but it is a good portion of it. I didn’t have the most active reading life for a while there, and I wasn’t all that invested in most of what I read. Hoping to be more engaged with my reading from now on.
Reading [Online]
Louise Brooks Tells All (The New Yorker)
In Screen Tests, Kate Zambreno wrote about this profile of Louise Brooks by Kenneth Tynan, published in 1979. I immediately bookmarked it to read myself. It’s a thorough synopsis of her on-screen career, and a raw portrait of a post-career film star.
Politics and the English Language (George Orwell)
My desire for clarity creeps into every facet of my life—and especially my writing life!
“What is above all needed is to let the meaning choose the word, and not the other way about. In prose, the worst thing one can do with words is to surrender to them. When you think of a concrete object, you think wordlessly, and then, if you want to describe the thing you have been visualising, you probably hunt about till you find the exact words that seem to fit it. When you think of something abstract you are more inclined to use words from the start, and unless you make a conscious effort to prevent it, the existing dialect will come rushing in and do the job for you, at the expense of blurring or even changing your meaning. Probably it is better to put off using words as long as possible and get one’s meanings as clear as one can…”
Reading [Short Story]
The Precipice by Nell Freudenberger (Harper’s Magazine)
“It seemed to me that the adults around us were often confused about our ages, as we were ourselves. We wore hair ribbons and saddle shoes; we were driven to sports practice and music lessons by our mothers (who seemed to spend their lives in their station wagons); we were expected to produce calculus problem sets, college-level lab reports, and ten- to fifteen-page papers on the Peloponnesian War.”
“Much later, I developed a superstition related to writing about my fears. It stemmed from something my mother had said when I was very young, in an attempt to be comforting: that if you have a “good imagination,” you might see things that aren’t really there. That terrifying idea recurred after the birth of my own children, when I had bizarre daydreams about the harm I could do to them—putting my infant child in the dryer with the laundry, for example. Applied to writing, the anxiety was grandiose: that if I set something down on paper, it might actually materialize in the world. It did sometimes happen—not because of any magical capacity on my part, but because we all imagine our fears and have some ability to predict the future.”
Reading [Substack]
why do some women become fascists? - a case for marxist feminism (Sarochka)
gothic surrealism (surrealist covens)
Watching [TV]
Vladimir (2026)
Limited series based on the novel by Julia May Jonas. I really thought this was going to be good. I thought it would hit where the novel missed. Unfortunately, this was also a bit boring.
Watching [Movies]
People We Meet on Vacation (2026)
I’ve never read anything by Emily Henry, but I wanted to watch the movie anyway. I really enjoyed it, in all its cheesiness.
Oh, Hi (2025)
A good watch, but could have been more unhinged imo
Watching [YouTube]
I finally watched Girls… (Princess Weekes)
work (pagemelt)
why consistency isn’t natural for us (Zoe Winter)
if you wish you felt more creative this is for you (Nina Montagne)
how to enter your discipline era (Michela Allocca)
TikTok feminism is not your friend (Broey Deschanel)
Listening [Music]
Nothing’s About to Happen to Me (Mistki)
Listening [Podcast]
overthinking about workaholism (Magical Overthinking)
the mysteries of Udolpho (In Walks a Woman)
the em dash (99% invisible)
Madeline Cash on Lost Lambs (Poured Over)
who are we to fight the alchemy? (Unexplainable)
is culture stuck? (Decoder Ring)
Googling
Goya’s paintings
CMoS
digital archiving
divination systems
sprezzatura
Infrarealism
previously…
Open Tabs #43
Welcome to this week’s edition of Open Tabs, where I share my recent reads, current curiosities, and media consumptions every(ish) Sunday!
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