lapvona, by ottessa moshfegh (spoilers ahead)

**warning, i do use the term "moshfeghian" often in this review**

ottessa moshfegh quickly became one of my favorite writers this year, after reading death in her hands, my year of rest (and even relaxation), and many of her captivating short, and i mean short and CONCISE!! in an impressive way, stories. 

so i was very excited when she announced her new novel, lapvona, which was released june this year. i spent months leading up to june trying to get a pre-released copy that only reviewers/book stores had access to, failed to get it, and then forgot about the book until last month, lol. 

after borrowing copies from two different friends, i finished lapvona and i'm here to give it a 7/10. it was very moshfeghian, in the sense that she dives deep into the disgusting parts of human nature we often tend to ignore. i respect moshfegh for entering this new world of medieval times, proving she is a well-rounded writer. the world she created was lovely, the poor medieval town with a massive castle on a hill with a lord overlooking them, purposefully starving his kingdom. and we focus on a motherless boy and his journey dealing with his family, insecurities, and desire to be loved.

i think moshfegh's structure/timing of the plot points were pretty messy. i felt like we reached a climax and i was properly satisfied, only to realize we had 100 pages left. the final 100 pages added nothing, besides a shock ending where it's insinuated that the boy throws his baby brother off a cliff, that i thought worked well and was not totally out of character, but could have been put earlier. 

i think she bit off more than she can chew... she had a great moshfeghian storyline with the inbred boy, searching for his mother and dealing with his own guilt (and often lack thereof) of accidentally murdering his friend. (yeahhhh different from his baby brudda) and i was ready to ride that wave... but the book went all over the place when we went super deep into the lord's storyline. in the end, learning so much about the lord did not pay off. i really did not care about him. he was super gross and moshfegh was so descriptive about him that i hated envisioning him. also, the lord had a crazy 180 spin in his personality that she addresses plainly, but i don't think it was deserved.

anyway i love moshfegh but maybe i need a break... 

i want to read more from elena ferrante, was super impressed with "lying life of adults" and apparently thats not even her best work! woohoo!

recommend books in the comments below. :)

moving and aubrey plaza and sports

i moved to carroll gardens today. with jack.

when i first moved to new york, i went straight to bushwick. bushwick was a good place for a newcomer like me. fun, young, and a million different comedy open mics to go to. 

have i grown out of it? not sure. im 25 now, which is very young. i have never felt like i am old, even when i tell someone younger than me that i am 25 and they go, "oh wow!" every year i get older, the younger i feel. because when i was 7, being 25 meant i was married, i carried a briefcase, and i had solved all of the life's mysteries, and boy was i wrong! i'm not married, i do not own a briefcase, (but i will admit i have solved all of life's mysteries)

i have never felt fully secure, calm, and at home in a place i have lived. with my amazing decorating skills and jack's kindness, i think this place could be the first time i feel that. 

also by the way it is ok to be vulnerable on blogs that's why we have them

i was in someone's tiktok and many people commented "that girl gives aubrey plaza vibes" and then i did a roast battle recently and she compared me to aubrey plaza... how do we feel about this? i know exactly why they are saying this (i think i speak in monotone/no facial expressions often) and i literally remember the moment in my life when this changed it's so weird. this is so embarrassing whatever. i used to smile a lot with everything i said so the person knew i was being nice and then one day my face literally hurt like my face was sore and i was like oh my god this is annoying and not worth going through all this im just gonna relax and then i just started speaking normally (in my opinion) and plainly. anyway i only think i do this when im around new people or im nervous or on stage which is good. 

i say this every year but i want to get into football. how cool would that be to get happiness just from a team winning? i'll update you guys on what team i pick/if they are doing well. right now i'm thinking the jets/bills/49ers... i like all of those. teams i will never like: patriots/rams/saints/cardinals 

where do the giants fall? i have no idea about them. 

it would be cool to follow through with an idea. (this blog is making me very happy)

your profile by ai, a new project

 dall-e has intrigued me since its launch. the AI program allows you to type in a description of anything, and it will spit out its visual rendering of what you typed. i've been using it for my own personal use for months before coming up with an idea today where everyone could get a taste of dall-e.

it's called your profile by ai, and the gist is, i look at someone's instagram profile, and i type into dall-e a description of the vibe i get from the profile, using specific references to photos, and overall aesthetic. dall-e takes that description and makes four pictures from it!

this idea excites me because i love the collaboration of humans and AI. it's like a piece of art going through multiple rounds of edits. the art, let's say, is the photos this user posts on their instagram. the first round is the user editing and curating their photos, locking into an aesthetic they potentially see in their head. the second round is me observing their profile for a couple minutes, and picking up on little patterns i see, and things that stand out to me that i specifically like. and third, maybe the most important round, is the AI interpreting what i've described, often times leaving out many things i write, and opting to hone in on one thing. for example, i'll type into dall-e "woman brown hair on film travels a lot rome red dress reflection soccer play" and then dall-e will spit back a stunning portrait of a woman in a red dress looking at herself longingly in the mirror. dall-e knows what it wants to focus on. just like me. just like the user.

the artist is dead. the user tries to curate a look, i observe what they try and give my interpretation, and then the AI decides their viewpoint on it. there's even a fourth round. the viewer, looking at the AI rendering I posted and interpreting whatever the hell the AI created. ALL FOUR ARTISTS ARE DEAD!

it's also interesting to look at a visual representation of our online personas... because who are we online versus offline? on paper, instagram should be a proper rendering of our real life. on most of our profiles, we are ripping pictures straight from the events we go to, the friends we hang out with, vacations we take. yet, often with these dall-e renderings of my descriptions, it is so vastly different from who this person is in real life. granted, i know this because, i'm currently only doing dall-e renderings of my good friends. so i know, my friend miso is not just gibberish text with a microphone. yet, my friend matthew, may be a red page with poetry on it.. sometimes dall-e gets it right. or maybe i described them the way i know them to be in person... i'm excited to experiment on strangers (ok scary scientiest)

for now, you can check out what dall-e and i have made so far here. 

a memory unleashes itself

when i was young i heard my parents talk about how little they remember their childhood. they would tell the same 2-3 stories and struggled to conjure up anything else about what they did every day during those young ages. i told myself i would remember everything. i would remember the bullies, my friends, what i did on april 17th, 2003, i mean, how could i forget? 

well, i did, like we all do. but we don't really... the memories are just stored elsewhere, in the "back" of our brains. and it is such a delight for one of those memories to crawl its way to the front and say hello. this happened to me today.

my friend was talking about ikea, and how when he used to visit when he was little, his parents never let him go into the little kids playpen, where a supervisor would watch the kids while the parents shopped.

this sparked something inside me... wait, i have been a kid, and i have been in a children's playpen... but not at ikea. from the ages of around 4-9, whenever my parents shopped at this one supermarket, big y, they placed me into the section called "little y", a place for all the little kids to hang out. it's crazy that such a core part of my childhood, seemingly once a week for five years, could slip out of my memory, and then suddenly come flooding back.

i recalled the exact pattern of the play mats inside the space (multi-colored puzzle), the window overlooking the beautiful parking lot, the crayons resting in a plastic box on the table, and most importantly to me: the computers. 

i remember for the first couple minutes after my parents dropped me off, i would charm them by playing with the crayons and drawing, just in case they were watching still. and then when i thought the coast was clear, i would run to the computer and spend the next 40 minutes there. 

after reminiscing to my friend who probably didn't care too much about all these details, although he kindly smiled, i googled the little y club. oddly enough, a woman in 2004 made a blog post about how much she loved the little y in our town, and posted pictures of it. 

my memory didn't lie to me, because there i saw the multi colored puzzle play mats, the window overlooking the not as beautiful as i remembered parking lot, the crayons in the box, and a photo of me, playing on the computer.

just kidding it was another kid but you never know.

barbarian at home (slight spoilers)

we set up the living room like a movie theater, because although the theater was a 3 minute walk from our lower east side apartment, we opted for staying in.

we purchased microwavable popcorn, m&m's, sour straws, and even picked up a big bottle of soda and two cups with ice. 

to perfect our movie theater living room, we put our phones on silent and threw them into the bedroom. we also only allowed each other ONE visit to the bathroom (one foot away), and no pausing allowed. yes, we updated each other when we came back on what we missed. we are not animals.

barbarian played. we laughed, and jumped. i'm sure others watching barbarian in their homes at the same time also laughed and jumped. that's what i missed most about the movie theater. encouragement from others to laugh and scream.

as a horror movie fanatic, i was very excited to see a movie put a twist on classic tropes in a non-ironic, wink at you type of way. it felt like a movie made by a horror fan, that respected the craft and the journey the horror genre has had, but isn't about to show you yet another jump scare every 5 minutes movie.

barbarian's theme is listening to your instincts, specifically as a woman. women are often on high alert, protecting their safety. an instinct can be a very powerful, beautiful, and even animalistic feeling. although many try to downplay our instincts, which even i do.. how do you listen and trust your instincts, but also make sure not to live your life in fear? 

i am constantly trying to balance that, as sometimes my instincts fully overtake me and hinder my behavior, but once i feel that, i immediately drop any sense of fear, in order to "live my life" like others do. 

watching barbarian, i think i learned a thing or two. when you know you know. i may be a little too hyperaware and too critical of my male uber drivers. but if i ever entered an airbnb and there was a man there, i would assume there's a monster in a basement and run.