Open tabs, new year edition

What to read across art, design, and culture

10th Avenue on a clear day from Manhattan Plaza

The last few weeks have been a blur. I had the flu during Thanksgiving, and I’m in a state of transition career-wise. Can’t really share much yet but January is once again a month of starting over for me.

ain’t that the truth via marbleblack

Anyway, I am grateful to have had a whole week of downtime after the holidays with family. I barely did anything and it was glorious. One of the few revelations I had during this slushy time was a two-hour spiral trying to remember what song I had pinned to my xanga page back in the early aughts. Why this was important, I couldn’t explain, but the quest was real and frantic. I knew the title was one word by a rock band and I checked through the entire discographies of Fuel, The Verve Pipe, Tonic, Counting Crows, Ben Folds, Incubus. I tried logging into my old xanga (nope), and livejournal (confusingly now owned by Russians?), before scouring my spotify account in case Past Me knew this moment would happen and had banked it on a playlist somewhere.

Reader, it was “Run” by Collective Soul. And I’m happy to report I still love this fucking song — somehow the lyrics feel more resonant now in our internet age (“Is there a cure among us? From this processed sanity”). Here’s my 90s playlist in case you too need a reminder that your youthful tastes are still good.

Posts I enjoyed writing in 2025

Thanks for sticking with me this past year as I’ve rediscovered my writing voice. I started my career on a journalist track, but when I pivoted over to corporate research, I stopped writing for a public audience. The whys are not important now, but that creative malnourishment drained me for years. It’s been challenging (in a good way) to exercise those intellectual muscles again, to take all my swirling Aquarius mercury energy and pull my disparate threads into coherent thoughts that others might understand. And I’ve made some new friends (both irl and on Substack) along the way, for which I am grateful. Here are some posts that I really enjoyed writing (no particular order):

• On industry collapse and Singin’ in the Rain

• A unified theory of Carrie Bradshaw’s breakup outfits

• What do we wear to the revolution?

• Ranking the office parties of Mad Men

• The killer interior design in Hitchcock’s Rope

• Fashion symbolism in the Sound of Music

• The haunting of Florence Welch

• The use of ribbons in Jane Austen’s work

• What are men to art and mountains?

Some recent reads

• Happy Medium, the art cafe franchise in NYC, now has a Substack. One recent post I liked: “We have art in order to not die of the truth.”

• Katelyn’s 2025 culture roundup was so fun. On a light note, I completely forgot “You know I’m Sussex now” and “Get me to God’s country” happened in the same year.

• On Tom Holland, Zendaya, and enthusiastic courtship. I still watch his Lip Sync Battle performance as a pick-me-up sometimes :)

• I gasped when I saw the stunning photos from this Rama Duwaji profile.

• A very good essay on Taylor Swift, Sylvia Plath, and bad cultural criticism.

• An interactive about the use of the word ‘fuck’ in movies, and the balance of getting a PG-13/R rating.

• Why everything is ugly these days: “Ugliness has infiltrated our every sphere as a byproduct of convenience and irony. It replaced beauty because beauty became too privileged, or too pretentious, or too elitist. When in reality, beauty could humble us all!”

• Tech-y things I’m keeping an eye on: The emotional labor behind AI intimacy, why women aren’t using AI as much as men.

• I’m rounding out my first year on Substack; I’m still forming my thoughts on being here, but I really appreciated Sema’s essay on the ups and downs of using this platform.

• Blackbird Spyplane on Proust, cameraphones, and reclaiming attention: “The problem is that the cameraphone, connected as it is to our online lives, doesn’t just serve the creative impulse and stop there. It risks cannibalizing that impulse, co-opting it, colonizing it, and ultimately thwarting it.”

• Parties are a public service (something I have to remind myself when I try to host more in 2026).

• I want to be Marlowe Granados’ friend — she seems so glamorous, that is all. Her book Happy Hour reminded me of my internship summer, except with more champagne and charisma.

• I admire the moody and cozy portraits of artist Cathy Cullis and how she explores different formats – especially the embroidered ones.

• I will admit that I don’t understand everything in Sol Thompson’s on-the-ground fashion trend writing (even being in the same city!), but I do enjoy reading these lists.

• The future of film is texture.

• I have a love/hate with gift guides – love to read them, but dislike how algo/revenue-tied many of them are. With that said, this was my favorite that I will be using as a guide for upcoming birthdays: a gift guide for culture lovers.

• I really loved this essay on Keri Russell’s hair in The Diplomat and what it symbolizes. I remember when she cut her hair for Felicity season 2 and it was SUCH A BIG DEAL.

• Rebecca Solnit on what to look forward to in 2026: “This clown car has to crash, somehow.”

What I watched (one-sentence reviews)

• Bugonia: Emma Stone’s corporate gaslighting = A+.

• Stranger Things, S5: I wasn’t a fan of the last couple seasons, but I did shed a tear or two during the epilogue, and then immediately watched the very first episode again.

• Wicked For Good: Saw this with my close friend Shannon before the holidays – liked the amount of action but the songs were not my favorite. I did actually like Elphaba’s sex sweater, it made sense for the setting.

• Emily in Paris: This show works if you just turn off your brain for a bit — and I think Emily’s outfits got really good in season 5.

• But I’m a Cheerleader: I’ve never seen this movie and found all of the “before they were huge” moments delightful – Melanie Lynskey!

• The Eras Tour docuseries: Came for the Florence Welch appearance, stayed to watch the big machine (heh) of it all.

• The Red Shoes: I’ve mentioned this movie before but never watched in full until the holidays — its visuals are haunting and beautiful.

• The American Revolution (the newest Ken Burns doc): I’ve turned into my dead father and I’m okay with it.

What I read offline

• Ex-Wife by Ursula Parrott: I highly recommend McNally Editions’ imprint, which focuses on reviving out-of-print titles. This 1929 novel tells the tale of Patricia, an advertising copy chief who, upon realizing her open marriage doesn’t benefit anyone but her husband, embarks on becoming a divorcee in Jazz Age New York, and all its late-night temptations and early-morning revelations. The book was originally published anonymously and became a quick bestseller. I really liked the day-to-day of 1920s Manhattan landmarks and the minute descriptions of Patricia’s expenditures — on coffees, dinner tabs, Poirot dresses and perfume. If you’re a F. Scott Fitzgerald or Frank O’Hara fan, I think you’ll like this. Also the author was a fascinating person. Grade: 4.5 out of 5 cigarettes

• The Mad Wife by Meagan Church: I was lured into this being a Barnes & Noble book club pick. Lulu Mayfield, a 1950s newly post-partum housewife, notices something odd about the neighbors across the street. I thought the first half was great at world-building in this small constrictive neighborhood, but the twisty narrative in the second half felt a bit predictable and flat for me. I’d describe this as Sylvia Plath x Stepford Wives. Grade: 3 out of 5 gelatin salads

• The one 2025 read that has stayed with me: Passage to India by E.M. Forster. I first read Forster’s A Room with a View before a trip to Italy, and everything I’ve read by him has been so good. Forster was a master at understanding societal changes of class and race through very imperceptible, ephemeral gestures: a missed handshake, a stolen kiss, etc. This book looks at 1920s British-colonial India, and the story of an Indian doctor arranging a field trip for some new British white friends. I won’t spoil the details, but I ugly-cried when I got to the last page in a way that I haven’t since seeing The Fox and the Hound.

• Up next: I have a few non-fiction art world picks – The Private Lives of the Impressionists, Paris in Ruins, and All the Beauty in the World. Oh and it wouldn’t be me without another Woolf book to devour, this time Night and Day.

What I saw

• Various reunions - with family, old college friends for Shannon’s wedding, and with Elizabeth. Also, dance floor time.

• The Viktor & Rolf fashion exhibit at the High Museum in Atlanta

• Surprising J with Duke tickets for Christmas

• A cheese board for a collage party I threw last month

• A very fashionable dog at Chipotle

Bye for now!