A Legend is Hatched! Winter Recommendations 2024!

The post you've all been waiting for! My recommendations for 2024!

Well, it’s that time again: my annual break from talking about myself to talk about my thoughts on things. I am, indeed, breaking character, which means it is also the time of year where I find out who has been confused about this newsletter being autobiographical or not.

I started doing this a few years ago because winter is my favorite season (yes, even January and February) and because, despite my best efforts to force myself into other people’s holiday plans, the days between Christmas and New Year’s are usually when I reach my capacity for people not paying attention to me.

So below find my recommendations for things to read, watch, do, decorate, and more.

For more recommendations here’s 2023, 2022, and 2021.

As always, we will start with the most important:

All About Me!

In early December, A Legend is Hatched: I Become Famous…in My Own Mind screened as part of Dances with Films. Here are some photos from the screening.

And you can also listen to me talk about ALIH on the podcast The Roundtable with Robert Bannon. Listen to it here. (please note: the credits for the pilot are listed incorrectly in the podcast description. Hopefully it will come as no surprise to anyone who reads this newsletter and/or knows about my love of Barbra Streisand that I wrote and directed ALIH.)

The greatest essay I did not write this year! I very occasionally write essays and this year I had an idea for a great one that I was told was “too niche.” In conjunction with Lincoln Center’s reunion concert of the 2008 production of South Pacific (a production I saw roughly 15 times), I wanted to write a piece that I described as “critical South Pacific essay meets Goodbye to All That.” And, honestly, what better pitch? Because is there an essay in 2008 being a year of fissure and South Pacific being a musical about the loss of innocence; and how, yes, the golden rhythm broke? I think so!

Things to Read!

This year I read a lot of things that, in general, I found to be disappointing—including quite a few things that got very positive reviews (might I suggest more critics and less peer reviewing?). But here are some things I read this year and liked.

Cher: The Memoir, Part One by Cher—Thank god this year gave us another celebrity memoir where word count was totally ignored. Is it well written? Not really. Is it like being on a long car ride with Cher where she doesn’t stop talking the entire time? Absolutely. And, thus, it is terrific because Cher is terrific. I have loved her since I was a child. I used to watch The Sonny & Cher Show on TVLand when I wasn’t at school, which was frequently. For a very long time, I thought “Send in the Clowns” was written by and about Sonny & Cher, and I think this memoir supports that theory.

Born Standing Up by Steve Martin—I read this memoir, about Steve Martin’s stand-up career, in 2008 when it first came out, and then read it again earlier this year after watching the Steve Martin documentary. I’ve always liked that it’s very serious about comedy, but one of the things that stood out to me this time was the attention to the intersection of comic style and time period. A note on the documentary: there was a conspicuous absence of Bernadette Peters and that raises a lot of question for me, personally. Also, I feel like there should be a third Martin and Peters movie.

Grief Is for People by Sloane Crosley—What I liked best about this memoir was its uncertainty. And by that, I mean the uncertainty Crosley admits to about whether her best friend considered her his best—or even good—friend or not. As someone who spends a lot of time reading old text messages to look for proof that the people I think are my friends are actually my friends, I appreciated this.

An Evening of Long Goodbyes by Paul Murray—I wrote about this in my summer recommendations post, and here is what I said: An Evening of Long Goodbyes is what I’d call a melancholy comedic novel that uses a lot of the country house novel tropes in amusing and effective ways. Ostensibly, it’s about a young man who just wants to be a country gentleman of yore and think about old Hollywood, but finances force him to get a job. But what makes it work—beyond balancing a very tricky tone—is that it uses the heightened comedy in service of a larger theme about the mercurialness of reality.

The Daughters of Yalta by Catherine Katz—This book is about how Churchill, Roosevelt, and U.S. Ambassador Averell Harriman brought their daughters along to the Yalta conference. I enjoyed this in the way people enjoy murder mysteries that take place in the British countryside. This could easily have been a book where it felt like the author was searching for a “woman angle” that didn’t really exist, but it managed to support its point.

Monster by John Gregory Dunne—I think we know by now that I like most things about Hollywood. And Joan Didion.

Time’s Echo: Music, Memory, and the Second World War by Jeremey Eichler—This is about the way for four composers chose to memorialize the Second World War and the complications of that (both the pieces and the creators). It also touches on the specifics of form and the challenges of a musical memorial rather than a poem or a statue. Reading it I was reminded of something I once heard a curator at the Jewish Museum say, which is we can look at a painting, but we can’t know what people saw when it was originally displayed.

Wagnerism by Alex Ross—This had been sitting on my shelf for a while and I finally decided to read it. I have no interest in Wagner—or even really in opera—and mostly just knew him as an antisemite (which he was!). There were definitely some sections that were very full of proper nouns in a way I found exhausting, but what I think makes this book interesting is the case it makes for how so much art is in response to other works of art. And how, in some cases, the art vs artist debate is nullified by influence.

Things to Read (with reservation)!

Didion & Babitz by Lili Anolik—I really debated including this one because in many ways I think this book is bad. I was hesitant to read this because I’d read Anolik’s Eve Babitz book, Hollywood’s Eve, when it first came out and found her writing sophomoric and a lot of her interpretations felt very off. But the one thing I found intriguing about that book was that Eve Babitz and Joan Didion were friends. Actually, that so many of those LA people all knew each other and all socialized together. In hindsight, this should have been incredibly obvious, but it had simply never occurred to me. So, I picked up Didion & Babitz hoping that maybe Anolik’s writing had improved. I almost put it right back down when on page ten she used the old Hemingway chestnut “gradually/suddenly.” But then two pages later she quotes an unsent letter from Babitz to Didion that includes, “Could you write what you write if you weren’t so tiny, Joan? Would you be allowed to if you weren’t physically so unthreatening?” It’s a great letter. And that’s sort of how the book is. The writing is bad (way too cutesy) and I still find Anolik’s interpretations to be way off (a lot of simplistic conjecture, way too cutesy), but if you’re interested in the book’s two protagonists, which I am, it’s worth it for the first-person material (the letters, interviews).

Other Things to Read!

Tina Brown’s Substack—I have loved Tina Brown since I was a child and am happy to read her thoughts on anything. I enjoy the newsletter format for her since she can pontificate on whatever enters her head. When I was in high school, she had a short-lived TV show on CNBC called Topic A with Tina Brown and it’s still one of the best talk shows I’ve ever seen (I just googled and it appears most people thought this show was pretty bad. But I think it’s entirely plausible that I am right and everyone else is wrong).

Puck—For people looking for a news publication, I think Puck is a standout. It’s a cross between analysis and hard reporting (with a heavy emphasis on reporting behind analysis). I think they do an excellent job of putting different beats in conversation with one another in a way that physical magazines and newspapers used to but has become very difficult with the internet. The other thing I like about Puck is their writers aren’t very online, and when there’s such an issue with journalists wanting to be influencers more than they want to be journalists, I am glad for that (as a reader, I do not want to see your reporters fighting about chicken nuggets on social media—this does not give me confidence). Speaking of, they also do a great job in covering the media. If you’re more of a podcast person, they have a daily one which is worth a listen.

Art Books!

The Battle of Versailles – The Battle of Versailles was a famous 1973 fashion show that was French vs American (yes, this is both real and something that sounds like the plot of a musical I would try and pitch). This book features lots of behind-the-scenes photos by Bill Cunningham and an introduction by Liza Minnelli.

Beautiful People of the Café Society: Scrapbooks by the Baron de Cabrol—This is, indeed, a reproduction of a scrapbook (a very involved scrapbook with paintings and collages) kept by a member of the European aristocracy. I find it both pretty and eccentric, which means I find it endlessly charming.

New York: High Life/Low Life by Dafydd Jones—'90s NYC decadence (speaking of Tina Brown). Need I say more?

(This reminds me a clip that’s been floating around social media of Joan Rivers talking about ladies who lunch that I found unexpectedly moving.)

Things to Watch!

This section feels weirdly thin this year, so for other suggestions, check out past years’ lists.

Nolly—I usually try and avoid including anything recent on this list, but Nolly is British and therefore I am including it. Helena Bonham Carter playing a soap opera star in the 1980s. What is not to love?

Paddington 2—You know what? It’s good. It features some amazing production design and an amazing production number starring Hugh Grant.

Two Judy Garland Movies (also from my summer recommendations)— Presenting Lily Mars (1943), about a small-town girl who wants to be an actress. This movie features a lot of Judy harassing people to get what she wants, so, naturally, I really like it. It’s a much more interesting and subversive movie than it’s given credit for, in no small part due to Garland’s performance. The Clock (1945), directed by Vincente Minnelli, is Garland’s first starring role in a non-musical. The film takes place over 48 hours in New York City, and even though it was filmed entirely on studio backlots in Hollywood, Minnelli manages to capture the feel of the city using techniques that, at the time, weren’t really associated with American directors. There’s a lot in this film that’s carefully calibrated, and, again, much more sophisticated than the description lets on.

Younger— I remember sometime when Younger was still airing (post-2016 election) saying to a friend that I would not have predicted that thing we’d all be wanting was longer episodes of Younger, and, yet, we did. And here we are again. It might have a very loose relationship with things like reality and math, but it is delightful. Also, I once had a therapist who hated Sutton Foster and when I told people about my therapist’s dislike of her, everyone said I should fire the therapist. And you know what? They were right— she was a bad therapist.

TV Shows with Seasons—this year I found myself rewatching things more than watching new things. I rewatched (parts of) Will & Grace, 30 Rock, The Nanny, and The West Wing. One of the things I find pleasant about rewatching these shows is that they have seasons over the course of a season—as in fall, winter, spring, summer. This is something that’s largely been lost with streaming (and with climate change!). They use time in a way that’s very different than a lot of current television shows, and sometimes it’s just nice to see the gradual progression of coats. The other thing I noticed with Will & Grace, 30 Rock, and The Nanny—and, in part, why I keep rewatching them—was how they related to NYC (even though two out of the three were filmed in LA and all were mostly filmed on a soundstage). I think, at heart, they all present very nice versions of the city because they all have a communal feel (different than ensemble), and that’s the idolized NYC (more than money or fame) that feels increasingly rare.

Other things!

Caviar on everything! Caviar seems to be everywhere these days, and I do worry about oversaturation wrecking the specialness of it, especially when it seems like there are less and less special things, but I also love caviar. Caviar on latkes? A classic (it was only a few years ago that I was informed this was not the traditional way to eat them—okay, so I guess it was hard to get caviar on a shtetl). Caviar on pasta? Sounds great. Dessert caviar? Also, a great idea. I don’t like ice cream, but I am intrigued by ice cream with caviar. I do draw the line at caviar on bagels. The other thing about caviar—going back to the specialness thing—is that there are lots of variations. So even if you get the flu and caviar is the only thing you can eat while you recover, there can still be special occasion caviar. Also, I am in favor of expanding the definition of what counts as a “special occasion.”

My favorite caviar preparation is still traditional (blinis, although no crème fraîche) or with potato chips. Or straight out of the tin!

Speaking of caviar, these caviar spoons from Gohar World are super fun (Gohar has lots of great stuff). And for tableware and other decorative objects I like browsing here and here (these are great cocktail glasses). I think there are lots of ways to use vintage tableware—for example, I have a silver breadbasket that I use for potato chips and a toast holder that I use for paper napkins.

I love going out to breakfast. I think people should do this more. Meet people for breakfast instead of only lunch or dinner. For those in NYC, breakfast at Café Sabarsky is a great cure for depression.

Also, for those in NYC, dinner at Le Veau d’Or, of course, but if you’re looking for a reliable neighborhood spot that still feels like Truman Capote could walk in any minute, I’d recommend Antonucci Café on East 81st. For a lunch with great people watching, try Fleming on East 62nd. And for when you just want a cocktail and a plate of French fries, Hi-Life on Amsterdam and 83rd.

The score to Little Women (the 1994 one directed by Gillian Armstrong) is one of my favorite film scores and is great for winter.

Entertaining at home! This is something I am trying to do more. I love restaurants, but I think people interact differently when they’re in someone’s home. And parties don’t have to be large. Entertaining can take many different forms. One of the things I’m always struck by when I read non-fiction about artistic people of yore is how much people entertained at home. It feels like this has largely been replaced by “work events” and “networking opportunities.” I find it notable that this change has happened simultaneously to a lot of talk about inclusion and community and so on, since by cutting out organic socializing it tends to do the opposite. And the thing with entertaining at home is it provides opportunities to be generous with your guest lists; to include all sorts of people. When there are fewer and fewer opportunities for real socializing, this feels like it can fill a void. The thing that always stops me from throwing parties is fear that no one will show up (I think this is true for a lot of people), especially during busy times of year (the holidays), because I am “not important enough” (see “networking opportunities”) . But I think there are ways to be creative about this. My next plan is to throw a party for a fake holiday.

I drink a lot of tea and definitely have my preferences. Two of my favorites are by Harney & Sons: Paris and Victorian London Fog.

A few years ago I discovered that I should never have cocktails at a party unless I also have someone to mix them. But cocktails go with my décor in a way wine does not (plus, I don’t really like wine) so for my Caviar for Kamala party I thought I’d try gin and tonics, since people can easily make those themselves. And that’s how I discovered Fever-Tree Elderflower Tonic, which is also great by itself. As someone who doesn’t like seltzer, it’s a great alternative. And also might prevent malaria!

My signature robe that I use when I’m getting ready for events is a plaid monogramed one from LL Bean. And, of course, I have an amazing striped one that I got for ALIH (the pilot) and then was not allowed to wear on camera. But for winter, these robes from Skin are basically like wearable quilts.

I take a lot of baths and have tried a number of different bath salts/oil. I read about Olverum bath oil in Wives Like Us, which is very full of product placement for items women that rich probably would not buy (no one is wearing Loro Piana; no mention of Phoebe Philo) but that the demographic reading the book very much would. And that included me for this bath oil. The scent reminds me of a gin and tonic (keep in mind that I’m not sure I actually know what a gin and tonic smells like). I think in the book it’s described as smelling like Switzerland? When I first opened the bottle, I was iffy about the smell, but when you actually put it in the bath water, I think it’s lovely. I also like the bath salts from Santa Maria Novella. Although, the smell is very strong. But great packaging!

I bought Earthen Instant Peel face exfoliator at Zitomer’s because I felt badly saying no to the sales associate, and it turned out to be one of the best skin care products I’ve ever bought. It looks like it was made in someone’s basement in Brighton Beach, which I think might add to its appeal. It’s amazing.

Winter is a great season for lip color. I tend to default to Armani lipsticks, but I also like to try new things. I really like Victoria Beckham’s tinted lip balm which is, amazingly, called Posh Lip Balm. I got the one in fleur and I’ve found myself wearing it a lot. I think the temptation is to stick with bold color during the winter, but I’ve been surprised how much I’ve liked this light pink for winter. For bold color, I recently tried this Chanel lip lacquer, and really liked it. It’s tricky to apply—needs a lot of blotting—but stayed on through me eating 5 mini potatoes with caviar at the Lincoln Center South Pacific party. Violette also makes a lacquer that is very intense.

This Max Mara cat sweater is obviously a tribute to my cat. I also really like these British/‘70s inspired sweaters.

I think this coat is fantastic.

These gloves are ridiculous in all the right ways.

Dressing for the theatre! I usually stay away from talking about anything to do with the theatre, but I think it’s time to bring back dressing for the theatre. Going to the theatre isn’t going to the movies—yes, exactly. It is supposed to be an experience. Why make something drab that doesn’t need to be? Personally, I think people want more occasions to dress as if it’s an occasion, to feel like they’re actually attending something; to have the nice part of being an adult not be limited to the ability to have cereal for dinner, if you feel like it. I remember, years ago, I had a friend who was mocking some teen girls from out of town for wearing what looked to be their homecoming dresses to a Broadway musical. Were they overdressed? Yes. But would I rather that than someone wearing yoga pants? Yes. And, you know, those girls in their homecoming dresses were really excited to be going to a Broadway show. And don’t get me started on theatre events—openings, galas—but there is really no excuse for turning up looking like you’re there to fix car while the unpaid intern has enlisted three of her friends to help her find something to wear. There’s nothing more privileged than feeling like you get to be blasé about something that is exciting to someone else. I also find this to be one of those things that’s gatekeeping and exclusion in the disguise of looking democratic. Plus, dressing up is fun!