Happy Halloween!

Didn’t try too much new stuff this week but did appear at Long Island City izakaya spot Takumen. They have really fun paint-splattered glasses and bowls that truly evoke art class, which really fit with the Sunday lunchtime family crowd sat amongst. The four of us got ramen, and I chose the ban ban chicken. I’m terrible at eating noodle soups and spaghetti because they take me forever to eat, so I get full with a lot of food still left. I still really enjoyed a cheeky noodle on a cozy day but wish I ordered Meera’s spicy goma miso, which had better broth but I was too afraid its spiciness would be too much and taint my whole dish. Our other guests thought their ramen was meh, but I liked mine. Randomly, they also do soft serve ice cream. The flavor swirl is usually vanilla and matcha, but for Halloween they had a vanilla and chocolate swirl — but the chocolate was black because there’s charcoal in it (but didn’t taste weird). I don’t usually spend $7 on soft serve, but I’m happy I did even though the charcoal temporarily stained my teeth.

Work has been stressing me out, and reggaeton is the only antidote. I’ve just been shuffling my playlist and have revived “Nada” by a bunch of different artists. It’s a quieter, slower song but still has a great groove for gyrating or shoulder-shimmying in your seat while cranking out support tickets. The chorus also has a bit of a whininess that relates to how I feel about technology right now.

Had an awesome sighting at the Halsey L stop: TikToker crazyfrogfan42069, who makes a bunch of songs mostly comprised of the lyrics Jake Paul, Logan Paul making out, yeah. This is humor for children, probably, but I love it. He only appears on my FYP late at night, and I see his face and know what I’m going to get. I gave him some sort of a cringe compliment that I don’t remember because I was starstruck. The TikToks on their own aren’t super funny (Paul brothers incest is chuckle-worthy but nothing crazy), but his repetitiveness is what makes me laugh.

Wouldst thou like to live deliciously? If you haven’t seen The Witch, I really recommend it. My friend Anaïs, the reason why this section tends to be horror movies, showed this to me in college, so we just watched it again in IMAX. The movie is almost 10 years old and was Anya Taylor-Joy’s breakout role. It follows a family that probably came to America soon after the Mayflower, and weird, witchy stuff starts happening. It’s Robert Eggers, so you know it’s going to have a staccato-y score and slow treads into disturbing scenes. It’s about religion, family, and how annoying it is to be a teenage girl. This was my first IMAX movie in over a decade, and it was really worth the hype. The screen is huge, and the sound truly envelops and immerses you. I felt like I was able to pick up on so many subtleties I didn’t the first time I watched, but that’s also to be expected.

Two more New York mag things, of course. First is “Can the Media Survive?” interviewing tons of journalism and media power players, which is obviously of interest to me. It’s always nice to hear that everyone else is struggling and stumped by what the future of the field could be, but it’s also frustrating to hear from out-of-touch CEOs about how they think young journalists are lazy, DEI doesn’t matter, or AI is the future. I wasn’t surprised to hear anything, though, and I think it’s a great piece even though I think it legitimizes some dumb ideas. Next — I’m famously a slow reader, but I always love to read the often biting book reviews from Andrea Long Chu. Chuheads must unite under this book review you don’t even need to know about the book for: “In Praise of Bad Readers” about a lecture-turned-book from Palestinian novelist Isabella Hammad. She talks about the contradictions of being a Palestinian in academic spaces and having to deal with how other people take in her existence. Chu takes this to such a smart level that I think is beyond politics about gatekeeping knowledge and preventing real conversation that brings people to understanding.

I went to a trivia night this week (actually going to gatekeep the place) where the only teams there were my friends, two teams of the trivia host’s friends, and a bartender. We still got third place because we beat out the bartender who thought the Livestrong bracelet athlete was Michael Phelps. Anyway, it was the host’s birthday that week, so when she went out to smoke, the whole room got a gorgeous chocolate cake all candled up and dimmed the lights for us all to sing for her upon her return. They even offered us cake even though we don’t know them at all (and it was delicious). I felt like we stumbled in on a secret, and it was the best time.