When I said this newsletter was going to be biweekly, I didn’t drive on the highway. It is truly astounding to me how much my quality of life has plummeted since I started being part of rush hour traffic every day. Why is everyone so angry? Where are these people going that they need to get there at 80 mph? Did F9 really rock that many worlds this summer? What is playing high risk Mario Kart doing to my body in the long term? If I get truck nuts for our PT Cruiser, do you think people will respect me more or less?
Anyway, since the highlight of my last three months definitely wasn’t steering a ton of metal during my daily hellride, then I think it’s safe to say it was probably Eric LaRocca’s new novella, Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke.
This horrifying gem was published by Weirdpunk Books, a local press that I later realized was co-founded by a friend of mine, which demonstrates both evidence of how truly minuscule the world can feel and some real ‘birds of a feather’- style behavior. Things Have Gotten Worse... is reminiscent of Dennis Cooper’s The Sluts in the sense that the internet is a dependable resource for connecting with everyone’s darkest sides as fast as possible. It delves into the obsessive, sadomasochistic relationship between two women who meet in a chat room, and then somehow (probably the perfect writing), requires only 120 pages to deliver some of the sickest body horror I’ve ever read. I really, sincerely cannot wait to read everything else Eric LaRocca writes in the future. And he has perfect eyebrows.
Note: Just finished Bunny by Mona Awad, started White Tears by Hari Kunzru, and the new Grady Hendrix book is out today.
I realize I’m only 33 years old, and that’s not that old (even though I’m straight up waiting for a rheumatology referral right now), but holy shit, do kids have it good these days. I only got to read one Fear Street book (The Hitchhiker), my mom flipped through it and declared it too horny, and now there’s an entire movie trilogy?! And now kids are mostly unsupervised and/or desensitized and can watch whatever they want?! What the heck. We watched the first two parts last weekend and were surprised to see some pretty gnarly death scenes, just enough supernatural elements to not be too cheesy, and Gillian Jacobs. If you’ve already watched the first one, just know that I used to work in a bakery and would lie about keeping loaves fresh so I could sell them whole and unsliced.
Note: I watched False Positive by myself a couple weeks ago. It felt like I was watching a bunch of high schoolers perform the world’s worst one act play. I really wish they would have spent some of their massive corn syrup budget on whatever would have made it… not that way.
Lastly, Willy’s Wonderland is on Hulu now, and it sure is a movie! Is this an actual recommendation? Couldn’t tell ya, honestly.