June 13, 2025, 10:08am
We’re celebrating inter-species friendship this week. It’s a season of frogs, toads, raccoons, and genetically engineered extra-terrestrial life forms.
IRL, we’re running on gossip, post-punk, and visions of a strong local government. It’s getting hot out. So we’re skipping town when we can, and burrowing indoors when we can’t. June is apparently the month to get freaky and feel it all.
Molly Odintz has been listening to The Feelies’ “Crazy Rhythms” (1980) and is happy to report that this hypnotic post-punk album is still a banger.
James Folta recommends the latest issue of Protean. The leftie arts and criticism magazine launched its latest with an inaugural hootenanny at the Verso offices last week. “Hanif Abdurraqib, Kyle Carrero Lopez, David Buuck, and Kinsey Cantrell all read, and there were a bunch of tributes to [the late poet] Joshua Clover and readings of his work,” says James. “People should grab a copy of the magazine—it’s a great one.”
Along with the rest of the Rough Draft Books staff, Drew Broussard went to a minor-league baseball game. (Three cheers for the Hudson Valley Renegades, whose cheerful mascots Rookie, Rene, Rascal, Roofus, Rosie form what our colleague Calvin Kasulke calls a “heteronormative raccoon family.”) While Drew is personally on the fence about the church of baseball, “going to a game with a bunch of goofball friends is one of the best experiences summer has to offer.”
Oliver Scialdone took a brother to a birthday dinner this week, creating “a cool, fun, and wholesome family moment!” Brooklyners, take note: Santa Panza of Bushwick apparently reps great wood-fired pizza and craft cocktails. Also, per Oliver, the menu includes “fried squash blossoms like our nonna used to make.”
Jessie Gaynor got happy listening to Sarah Hartshorne’s You Wanna Be on Top? A Memoir of Makeovers, Manipulation, and Not Becoming America’s Next Top Model. This audiobook, read by the author, chronicles Hartshorne’s time on America’s Next Top Model. “It’s wry and gossipy and fun, and Hartshorne is a great narrator.” Adds Jessie, “we’re getting into disgusting weather for running territory where I live, and this book is good motivation to brave the swamp.”
Speaking of audiobooks, Emily Temple traveled a total of 20 hours in the car this past weekend “with a three year old, who neither complained nor slept, but demanded the audiobook of Frog & Toad Are Friends on loop.”
The twist? Those twenty four recurring minutes with master narrator Arnold Lobel were in fact a narrative treat. “‘A Swim‘ is really deep, if you think about it,” says Emily. “Which I have. For many hours.”
And speaking of three year olds, Dan Sheehan took his own triceratops to see Lilo & Stitch, Disney’s latest cash-grab live action remake. “It was, of course, terrible—wildly inferior to the original in every respect—but my daughter was entranced by it,” Dan says. “And the concessions stand, and the posters, and the popcorn. An extremely joyful outing.”
Olivia Rutigliano co-led a screenwriting workshop in Jamaica(!) co-sponsored by the Ministry of Culture and Strike Star Entertainment. Sources say this was an A+ creative adventure, involving fantastic writers and film people. “And my partner and I got to do it together,” Olivia says. Love made the trip extra special.
I, Brittany Allen, have been fleeing the first flickers of summer heat with a big library DVD kick. This week the two person cinema club that forms my household finally got around to watching Mira Nair’s Mississippi Masala, a terrific entry to the star-crossed lovers canon. Following a Uganda-born Indian woman (Sarita Choudhury) and a Black Southern man (Denzel Washington) trying to make it work in, you guessed it, Mississippi, the film is charming and probing. You cry, you laugh, you think. And its leads may be the hottest people to ever play Romeo and Juliet.
It was bonus nice to spend time paying general homage to the filmmaker Mira Nair, who, in addition to giving the world a great cinema canon, gave New Yorkers a great mayoral candidate. Another highlight of my week was watching Zohran Mamdani (Nair’s human son!) own the debate stage. (PS, neighbors, make a voting plan!)
And that’s all there is, folks. It was a pretty bad one out there in the world, but in our hearts of hearts we’re wishing you a weekend of (happily) crazy feelings, adventures enough to force you out of the swamp, and fried squash blossoms. Just like nonna used to make.