Let people enjoy things

I ate GOOD this week. I want to put you onto what I consider a hidden gem, Larry’s Cà Phê. It sits alone on an unusually curvy road at the northern end of East Williamsburg (sigh) near Greenpoint. My friend Ria and I were walking around the neighborhood and saw its vibrant green awning and minimalist interior beckoning us across the street. The little Vietnamese coffeeshop was mostly empty when Ria ordered her coffee, and had the kind of interior you’d like to lounge around as a cat, specifically on a sunny day. I mooched some sips of her salted Vietnamese coffee and properly ascended. I did some research today (a.k.a. just looked at their website) and learned the owner is a Vietnamese guy who named it in honor of his since-passed adopted dad. They had lots of inventive drinks on their menu that I forget and these cute matcha/chocolate cookies along with other conventional coffeeshop pastries. There is no better feeling than stumbling upon something that ends up making your day.

Between Chappell Roan’s new single, Kehlani’s new song, and Jojo Siwa’s *sigh* music video, we are seeing a lot of new, popular gay girl music. But what if I told you there’s a whole album of new queer music to queen out to? I might have mentioned my love for Young Miko here before, the little blonde gay rapper taking over reggaeton. Unlike the treatment a lot of gay pop girlies get, everyone is collaborating with Young Miko, even mainstream reggaetoneros. Her second album att. showcases more sides of her than her first, where most of her songs are about how cool she is and that every girl wants her (true). This album gets a bit more vulnerable lyrically and experiments with different production styles. My current fave is gay clubby anthem “MADRE” because I just want to dance, but I think some of the other songs have more longevity. I just like hearing her voice.

My friends are re/watching Sex and the City, which is (unsurprisingly) one of my favorite shows. It seems a lot of the internet has the show on their minds as well, and I’m adoring these Big is moving to Paris memes. Someone on Twitter creates dialogue between the four women about a current popular point of discourse, and it ends with Carrie saying Big is moving to Paris. All watchers know how central and annoying Carrie/Big’s relationship is and how Carrie always makes it a point of conversation, especially when Big tells her he’s moving to Paris. The meme format is so popular that people are now just adding that line after any conversation, even between characters outside of the SATC universe. I’ll always laugh with anyone poking fun at Carrie, plus I enjoy how easy it is to postulate how the characters would react to current events.

I was excited to watch Oscar darling The Zone of Interest, especially after watching Sandra Hüller slay once before in Anatomy of a Fall. I’m a big Holocaust movie watcher (even took a class on it), and I didn’t know anything else about the movie aside from Oscar speech-related controversy. I’m not sure how I feel about this movie. Spoilers abound, by the way. I watched this with three friends, and they did not like it. They didn’t understand why the story of an Auschwitz C-Suite monster and his family living next to the camp needed to be told. I am always down for an IRL villain story if we don’t leave the movie rooting for them, and this movie garners no sympathy for Nazis. The sound design is the best part of the movie. You’re always a little on edge, and there are a few scenes that fade into solid colors with extremely disturbing music or death audio. You never see dying Jews, only hear them, which I think is perfectly enough to understand the magnitude. This movie is a lot about what they don’t show, but in that, the plot is almost nonexistent. It feels more like a slice of life type of movie, which I usually loathe. I was definitely affected by it, just seeing their beautiful home and carefree lifestyle with gas chamber smoke in the background. I also knew beforehand that the ending was apparently crazy and made people physically ill. The movie ends with a flash forward clip of Auschwitz museum workers cleaning the space, then back to the main guy walking around, then ending with another solid black screen with loud, scary music. I can imagine this making me feel ill in a movie theater, but I just wasn’t as immersed from home. Since there wasn’t much of a plot, there was not much resolution to any of the character’s journeys (which didn’t really exist anyway) and this was frustrating as a viewer. I don’t really feel like I learned anything from this movie, but I am happy I saw it. It was interesting to feel so unsettled the whole time with sound as its primary vehicle. I’ve since seen very polarized reviews, from people saying it’s the best movie of the year to others deeply hating it. Would I recommend this movie? Maybe to other Jews just to get their takes on it.

Another week, another Code Switch episode to recommend. In exploring “WTF does race have to do with taxes?” they interviewed one of the coolest ladies I’ve listened to lately, author and tax expert Dorothy A. Brown. When becoming a lawyer, she chose to specialize in tax law because she wanted to focus on an area that had nothing to do with racism. Turns out, she ended up being one of the pioneers of exposing how taxes can, in fact, be racist. Despite the IRS not collecting racial information on taxpayers, they  do factor in zip codes, and housing discrimination/segregation made it easier for Brown to study possible disparities. I don’t want to say too much because I’d like you to listen. Her findings actually have pushed the IRS into studying if they discriminate, but her research already shows that they do. Time for a federal agency to be slow again.

One perk of gentrification: oodles of cute dogs prancing about. Ria and I lounged on a bench in Greenpoint’s picturesque McGolrick Park, basking in the afternoon sun and watching creatures run about (children, skaters, and dogs). In the abundance of animals, Ria noticed the cutest little spaniel strutting about with a tiny top hat. Its owner was a chic long hair/long coat combo woman probably in her 30s. Both of them were the coolest parkgoers, completely unbothered in their quest for a sublime stroll. The dog looked so dignified, unphased by his unorthodox headgear. I love them. Do we all really want to be mothers, or do we just want a little lifeform to dress up?