Coming soon… The Nice Life

I have some fun news to share today: I’m working on a new book! The Nice Life: How to Elevate the Everyday and Find Joy with What You Have will be hitting shelves next autumn. I’ll be working with Batya Rosenblum, who edited The Art of Showing Up, and who is now at Tarcher, an imprint of Penguin. 

The inspiration for The Nice Life is…the state of things. I think we can all agree that the vibe right now is pretty rotten! Enshittification is everywhere and our biggest institutions are pretty openly and obviously in decline. Generative AI is gobbling up the internet (and the lakes) so it can churn out absolute slop, and even though there’s a widespread obsession with “aesthetics,” things are ugly, in every sense of the word. The world feels extremely coarse—rough, low-quality, mean.

In the midst of all of this, I’m still doing what I can to live a nice life—which I define as one that is creative, joyful, authentic, and connected. For me, that looks like…

• Intentionally seeking out art, music, books, and other forms of culture

• Rejecting the trends and consumerism that leave you feeling insecure and kind of empty inside

• Incorporating elegance, polish, and whimsy into mundane everyday activities

• Creating the things you want to see in the world

• Forming meaningful connections with interesting people who inspire you

• Having memorable experiences and actively participating in your own life 

• Moving through the world with a sense of lightness, humor, purpose, and generosity, even when things are really bleak 

To me, living a nice life has little to do with being rich and everything to do with enrichment. It’s about orienting yourself toward loveliness, pleasure, and fun, and inviting others to be a part of it. 

Speaking of…I’d love to hear about the niceties you’ve been getting into lately! What lovely little things are keeping you going these days? ✨

July library haul

Hi! It’s currently hot and steamy in the city and I’ve got some new reading material to share!

First, updates on June’s books: I ended up quitting Seeds of Murder because I was bored, and I didn’t have time to read Rejection before I had to return it. I’m starting to see a clear pattern with checking out fiction and I think I’m going to stop adding novels (at least non-mysteries) to my wishlist at this point! 

Moving on! Here’s what I got into in July…

No More Tears: The Dark Secrets of Johnson & Johnson. This book is wild. So wild, in fact, that I paused at one point so I could research the author and make sure he’s not some kind of MAHA weirdo—because everything in No More Tears is so appalling, I started to wonder if I was reading straight-up propaganda. The writer appears to be a normal/well-respected journalist who believes in vaccines, but that gives you some insight into what you’re in for with this book. I was shocked and furious basically the entire time I was reading.

The Wishbone Kitchen Cookbook: Seasonal Recipes for Everyday Luxury and Elevated Entertaining. This one was just okay for me, which is a bummer because I really wanted to love it! We made one recipe from it (a tomato pasta) that was good but not really worth making again because it’s a lot of work for what it is. And I felt like maybe I don’t like seafood/alcohol enough to be excited about a lot of the other recipes. On the other hand, I might have gotten more into it if I’d had a bit more time with it and been able to try more things! 

Meanwhile, I read a couple of non-library books this month…

After I finished No More Tears, I wanted to continue down that path, so I bought Empire of Pain: The Secret History of the Sackler Dynasty. (I also discovered it was written by the same person who wrote The Snakehead, which I read in June.) This was a good read—and the books work quite well in conversation with each other—but I think I preferred No More Tears because J&J has a much bigger reach and is considerably more evil (and also played a huge role in the opioid crisis).  

And summer is for Elin Hildebrand novels, so I re-read The Hotel Nantucket a couple weeks ago; it’s silly, fun, and very light. I don’t think it’s as good as The Rumor (one of my all-time faves from Elin), but it has a similar vibe!

Let me know what you’ve been reading recently! 📚

Growing a terrace garden in NYC (part III)

Hello, friends! It’s been a minute! 

I haven’t written much lately because I’ve been out in these streets organizing around housing and traffic safety and out in our garden tending to my crops. But I’m happy to report that across the board, good things are growing! 

Backing up a little: At the end of June, right before the mayoral primary (which: LONGEST YEAH BOY EVER), NYC had a nasty heat wave and our plants suffered a bit. The nasturtium had a pretty rough go of it, and there were some nutrient deficiencies all around. Meanwhile, the hanging petunias, which were already having a hard time, got super dry and scraggly, despite the fact that the soil was definitely moist. Erik has been amazingly helpful in terms of how to solve these problems (a little fish fertilizer here, a little hydrogen peroxide solution there!), but his best general advice was to give everything way more water to get it to start growing like crazy. I had him show me exactly how he’d water everything, and…yeah, it was definitely a lot more water than I had been using! Our plants weren’t dry, but I was definitely being too timid with the hose. The extra water has made a huge difference; everything is looking way more colorful and lush. 

The other big change is that we bid farewell to our cooler-weather veggies (the radishes and lettuce) and are now growing bush beans and “bush” cucumbers. I put the latter in quotes because these guys are still extremely viney. After a couple of weeks of them flopping all over the place and wrapping their little fingies around everything, I put in some small trellises; giving them something to cling to really helped and is also doing a lot for the planters aesthetically! The yellow flowers have attracted tons of big fat fuzzy bees, and lots of little cucumbers have started appearing.

The boxes were feeling a bit empty without all of our leafy lettuce plants, so Kiyana and I picked up a hot pink Volcano phlox and a bunch of reddish-pink petunias at the farmers market, and those are all doing very well. I also planted some seeds at the end of May that have now either started to flower or are very close to it—my Thumbelina (!) zinnias popped open last week, and the first of the marigolds I planted literally opened up a couple hours ago. 

Meanwhile, our tomato plants have basically doubled in height since my last update and are now producing lots of fruit. We’ve been able to harvest a ton of the Super Sweet 100s, which are delicious (and I don’t even like cherry tomatoes that much); I think we’ll try to do two of these plants next year because we’re so into this one.

We’ve also picked a few of the Genovese tomatoes, which look like tiny fairy tale pumpkins and turn the most beautiful shades of yellow, orange, and then red as they ripen.

We’ve also got tons of little jalapeños growing, along with several beautiful Italianelle peppers and a few big fat green bell peppers. 

I gotta say…I’ll definitely never love summer, but this garden is making me wish it away less than I have in the past! I’m already sad thinking about a future where I don’t get to come out and water the plants every morning. 

If you’re currently growing anything, I’d love to know how it’s going! 🌼

June library book haul

Hello! I have a new batch of books to share! 

First, some quick thoughts on last month’s library books…

• The Bean Book. I loved this cookbook so much that I went ahead and bought it; the recipes were practical and unfussy but the end product is delicious and feels special, which is generally what I’m aiming for when cooking! I also checked out Cool Beans (another Rancho Gordo joint) a couple weeks later, but I didn’t care for it quite as much. 
  

• The Address Book: What Street Addresses Reveal About Identity, Race, Wealth, and Power. This book started off strong, but just turned out to be kind of…thin. I think it probably should have been a very good podcast episode as opposed to a whole book, because there wasn’t enough information directly related to the subject at hand to sustain 300 pages. I actually quit reading after like 150 pages because it just wasn’t holding my attention and life is too short! That said, I liked what I learned about cholera. (Also, there was a Samuel Pepys appearance. There always is!!!)
  

• How to Seal Your Own Fate. I didn’t get to this one before I had to return it, which was fine. I might try again at some point! 
  

• The Berry Pickers. I also didn’t get to this one! Ah well! 

Moving on! Here’s what I checked out in June: 

City Limits: Infrastructure, Inequality, and the Future of America's Highways. This was a reader recommendation (thank you, Faith!) and it was everything I’d hoped it would be. The main focus is racist highways in Texas. Having lived in Houston for four years, I was very heartened to see just how hard people are fighting to stop the development of even more enormous highways. It was genuinely inspiring and I’m glad I read it! 

The Snakehead: An Epic Tale of the Chinatown Underworld and the American Dream. This isn’t technically a library book, but I borrowed it from my neighbor, which is spiritually the same. (I also listened to some of it, as the audiobook is available with Spotify Premium.) I enjoyed it, though it was a tad dry! It felt like reading a really long New Yorker article (complimentary), which is to say that it’s good non-fiction, but not great non-fiction. But it taught me a ton about the history of immigration in the US, which was very timely given what’s happening right now. 

Wrestling With Moses: How Jane Jacobs Took On New York's Master Builder and Transformed the American City. I was excited for this one, but I’m currently 230 pages in and kind of disappointed! Nearly everything in the Robert Moses chapters is lifted directly from The Power Broker (which I guess makes it good for people who are never going to read TPB, but it definitely lacks Robert Caro’s wonderful prose); the book is kind of lacking a POV in places where it feels necessary to have one; and I’ve spotted at least four typos/copy errors. I am planning to finish it, but ultimately it’s reading more like a very interesting Wikipedia page than a great non-fiction book. 

Easy Everyday: 100 Recipes and Meal Prep Ideas for Effortless Eats. This is my friend Jess’s newest cookbook, and it didn’t disappoint. (It never does!! She is extremely good at what she does!) The recipes are truly so easy and fast, making them great for weeknights. We will definitely be buying this one!

Vera Wong's Guide to Snooping (on a Dead Man). This is the second book in a new cozy mystery series and I thiiiink I liked it better than the first installment, but they are pretty similar. I haven’t decided how I feel about this series yet; they require a suspension of disbelief that I find excessive even for the genre, and are kind of stupid but are also kind of funny? But also, I read it in about three hours? Perfect library book! 

The Queen of Poisons. This is the third book in the Marlow Murder Club series (not to be confused with the Thursday Murder Club series, which is leagues better). The first two Marlow books were fine enough, but this one was so fatphobic, it honestly calls the whole project into question for me! Disappointing! 

Rejection. This was recommended by a couple of friends with good taste in books! I tend to prefer fictional short stories to fictional novels, so I’m hoping this one is a winner. 

Seeds of Murder. (I keep hearing Alan Cummings read that title in his Traitors voice.) I started this one a couple days ago and it’s truly neutral at the moment; we’ll see if it picks up. I’m finding that cozy mysteries are a dime a dozen, but really good ones are hard to find. (Please send recs!) 

That’s all I got! What are you reading right now? 📚

Growing a terrace garden in NYC (part II)

So much has been happening in our terrace garden over the past eight weeks! 

First, Erik came back in mid-May for our second round of planting! This time around, we added white hanging petunias, a mini skirt hosta, and a peachy climbing rose; planted peppers, jalapeños, and basil; and transplanted the tomatoes into their forever homes. About a week later, I took a trip to the farmers market and picked up some additional pepper plants, zinnias, and marigolds, along with a lavender stream plant. Kiyana and I also added some easy-to-install decking from IKEA to half of the terrace, along with a box that serves as a flower stand/extra seating, all of which has made a huge difference aesthetically.

Also pictured here: pizza dough focaccia and the best hummus, topped with parsley from our garden. Also, the tomato plant in this photo from May 25 is now as tall as the railing!

We’ve also been able to start harvesting! I picked a ton of chive blossoms and turned them into chive blossom vinegar. We’ve had several nice radishes, which we’ve been pickling. Kiyana used thyme, oregano, and rosemary a couple times when roasting a whole chicken, and I’ve been drying bunches of herbs to save.

The nasturtium has become the goldendoodle of the planter box. It’s very nice but it’s also….too enthusiastic? Borderline badly behaved? It’s growing at an incredibly fast pace and in every direction. (“Leave her alone!!!!” I thought as I pulled a huge branch off the zinnias, which it was fully pawing.) I keep cutting it back and it just keeps going. The last time Erik came by, he suggested leaning one of the plants fully to the left (it was already moving in that direction) to see if we can get it to sort of grow toward the far edge of the planter as opposed to over everything else. Then he brought some of the stems of the other nasturtium around the front so see if it could essentially becoming more of a cascading plant, which is working well. (You can see some of the tendrils creeping over the front in the photo of the snapdragon below. Those tendrils are now reaching the ground.)

Meanwhile, the pink snapdragon emerged as the star of the show. About a week after we first planted everything in April, we had a terribly windy day; everything outside was whipping around like crazy as I watched in horror. Everything came through unharmed, except for the pink snapdragon; the stem broke about four inches from the top. Erik told me to leave it and it would probably be OK, so I did…and, like a gorgeous hydra, it came back so much stronger and more beautiful. It’s actually doing better than the yellow snapdragon, which initially fared well in the wind. Feels like a metaphor! Don’t peak in high school!!

Other good things are happening: There are currently dozens of tiny green tomatoes on the Super Sweet 100 plant, which has gotten so tall, and little baby jalapeños have appeared. The beardtongue got super tall and then finally bloomed lavender flowers, immediately attracting BFFBs (big fat fuzzy/fucking bees). The nemesia is thriving—just really solid/consistent/pretty. The rose has also been quite consistent; we’ve had a lot of beautiful blooms so far. And three mushrooms have popped up, which Erik says is a sign of a healthy ecosystem. 

There have also been some losses. The ranunculus was doing well for a while and then just…decided it had had enough. Some of the radishes bolted (meaning they went to seed too quickly, probably because the soil got too hot), and the carrots, green onions, and cilantro seeds we planted have been a little hit or miss, though I think everything now is ultimately on track now. 

We also had a petunia disaster a few weeks ago. The first time I watered them, I did a half-gallon of water + a half portion of fertilizer. Everything went well, so the next time, I decided I’d do a full gallon so I didn’t have to water them again so soon. (Erik had said I could go either route with the fert.) About 15 minutes later, I heard a loud thud.

All the extra water had made the soil really heavy (duh, in hindsight, but it hadn’t occurred to me); the planter’s bottom fully broke from the extra weight, and the petunia came crashing down. It actually survived the fall so I gently transferred it to a bucket until a replacement planter arrived. It’s currently doing…okay. It’s not exactly mounting a snapdragon-style comeback just yet and looks, well…like it got bashed on one side! Overall, I’d say that the petunias have been the most fussy/hands-on plant so far, at least relative to everything else. 

Now we’re meaningfully thinking about summer plants; Erik dropped by last week and planted beans and cucumbers. I’m very excited to see how things start to change now that it’s getting warmer!

If you’re tending to plants or a garden, I’d love to hear how it’s all growing! Also if you have any suggestions for what to make with copious amounts of parsley…hit me up. 🌿

How I’m thinking about politics and despair right now

I saw someone say on BlueSky the other day that it looks like we’re heading toward another “Summer of _____.” And…yeah: Things are fucking shit in the U.S. right now, and are likely going to be bad for a while. It’s all extremely overwhelming and demoralizing, but the best course of action is, of course, to try and do something about it.

The idea of doing something can also be overwhelming! Like, what can I personally do about the likes of someone as rotten and powerful as RFK Jr.? This is why I always return to the idea of taking action at the local/state level, as that’s where so much of what meaningfully affects our day-to-day lives (not to mention actual state/federal policy, eventually) actually happens. As I wrote back in 2020: “Change isn’t limited to general election years; it happens at city council and school board meetings and late-night legislative sessions. It happens when state supreme courts decide which cases to hear and police budgets are allocated. It happens no matter who the president is, or what party controls Congress. Now is a great time to learn the names of your reps, follow local organizers and reporters, sign up for a few relevant newsletters (and make a habit of reading them), start regularly consuming your local news, and set up a few recurring donations.” 

I stand by this…but I’m very aware that focusing on your county or state can also be overwhelming, or at least just super confusing. Local politics can feel impenetrable to anyone who hasn’t been doing this full-time for the past 20 years, and there’s just so much bad stuff happening right now—everywhere, all the time, and it’s all worthy of our attention.  

So this spring, I took a similar-but-different approach that I’ve been finding quite helpful: I chose a “major” and a “minor” for myself with regard to city politics. The idea is that I’m pushing myself to go really deep on those two issues for the next several years (which is how long it takes to get anything done anyway) so that I can be truly effective. I’m still generally aware of other issues—taking my general ed classes, so to speak, which isn’t hard because everything is so interconnected—but I’m putting the bulk of my time and energy into organizing that’s happening around two core issues. 

My major is housing. If you don’t have a safe, affordable place to live, you don’t have much of anything. Housing is connected to other things I care about (public health, literacy, incarceration, homelessness, art/culture, inequality…the list goes on) so it feels like the obvious choice to me. And because there’s so much going on with housing in NYC—we need 100,000 new units, according to one estimate I read, and building them won’t be fast or cheap—I think this will keep me busy for a very long time. 

My minor is street safety. I’m a huge fan of safety in general (lol but also…it’s true) and I feel quite passionate about making New York City’s streets less deadly for pedestrians and cyclists. (This also has the added bonus of fighting climate change!) Honestly, this might turn out to be my major; I simply love to see protected bike lanes, low speed limits for vehicles, congestion pricing, Open Streets, and accessible sidewalks! And because there are a lot of members of the Seething Dork Community actively trying to shut down anything that even remotely undermines what they see as their fundamental right to mow down an elderly person with their car, there are a lot of opportunities for action here! 

I’ve joined organizing groups for each of these issues, which is helping me stay on top of what’s happening week to week and making me aware of what I can be doing in a given moment. I’m also getting an education in how things happen on a very technical level, along with what’s been going on for the past decade (or more because…everything takes so long). It’s been a very good time for this; because of the upcoming Democratic primary/mayoral election (please, for the love of god, don’t rank Cuomo!!!), lots of people are just casually chatting about, say, the specific, nitty-gritty ways a city council candidate has blocked affordable housing in their district. 

Anyway, I’ve been trudging to my community board meetings, Zooming in to City Council hearings, talking to my neighbors, and doing so much reading. (I recently learned, for example, that Community Board 1—an entirely unelected group of people—bought itself a car using a City Council grant a few years ago??? And nothing was ever really done about it? Honestly, this is one of the wildest stories I’ve heard in a minute!!!) 

I think we all know, intellectually, that getting involved is both an effective way to build the world we want to live in and a potent antidote to despair…but it’s still so easy to freeze when confronted with the sheer amount of reactionary wreckage we’re dealing with. Breaking it down into “major/minor” has been a useful practical approach for me, and is helping me feel a little bit less bad. 🕊️

Related: Where I’m getting my news these days

My go-to source for custom frames

Hanging shit on your walls is one of the easiest/most effective ways to make your space feel homey, cozy, and nice. It’s also kiiiiind of a pain to do and can quickly get very expensive. 

For a while, I was using Framebridge, which was effective but also…not cheap. The price (and overall onerous process) meant framing multiple prints was taking a while, which isn’t ideal. When Kiyana and I moved into our new apartment last year—with a lot more wall space to fill—I knew it was time to find a better option. After poking around a bit, I decided to give Frame It Easy a try. I figured I’d order one frame and see how I liked it before committing to any more. Now, 12 (!!) frames later, I’m here to sing the brand’s praises. 

All the frames on this wall except for “New York Ain’t Perfect” are from Frame It Easy

The frames on the right and the left above the desk are from Frame It Easy

You can order frames to your exact specifications, and there’s a nice selection in terms of styles, mats, and clear covers. The prices are very doable (for example, one 11 x 17” frame cost me $56) and the products are made in the U.S. And when I had to contact customer service at one point—because I was assembling everything while sitting at our kitchen bar, and I accidentally knocked a crucial piece of hardware between the counter and the stove and that thing is not coming back until we get a new stove—they were great! They accidentally sent me the wrong replacement piece the first time, but were just extremely lovely and human in terms of getting me the right one, and it was an all-around extremely pleasant experience. 

My biggest/only complaint is that there aren’t more frame styles available, and that you can’t get very small things framed (5” x 5” is the smallest option). That means that I’ll still use other sources from time to time, particularly if I want to frame something super unique or special. But when it comes to, say, buying white square frames for a couple of prints that are going to go on a gallery wall, Frame It Easy is definitely my guy. 🖼️

A flower quilt for my mom

After finishing my first and second quilt, I knew I wanted to make a quilt for my mom. My plan was to make it for Mother’s Day, and because I appreciate when the gift aligns with the theme of the holiday, I wanted to find a pattern that represented flowers in some way. I looked at a ton of different options (some of which I loved, but were not beginner friendly) before eventually settling on Then Came June’s flower tile quilt. I knew my mom (who retired from her job as an elementary school art teacher last year) would really like the bold, graphic style, and I was excited to make something that felt completely different from the two shoofly quilts I’d already made. 

Before I started making it, I ordered a lot of fabric to try and find the perfect colors that all worked well together. Kiyana suggested using blue for the flower centers, binding, and backing to make the quilt feel less Eastery, and I think it was the right choice. 

This is the first quilt I made where I truly enjoyed the entire process. Even though I had to redo several things (the diagonal corners that form the squares required a new-to-me technique, and it’s kind of fussy in terms of making sure the blocks are the correct size), I found myself surprisingly unbothered by it all. It was ultimately a very low-stress quilt, which is a huge win to me! And my mom was impressed, which is the main thing that matters. 🌼

I read all 1,200 pages of ‘The Power Broker’ and now I have beef with a dead man

You know how they say you’re never more than six feet from a spider? In New York City, I feel like you’re never more than six feet from Robert Moses.

I mean this both literally and figuratively. Here, for example, is Curbed deep dive about a project in my neighborhood that I read yesterday, where the infamous city planner comes up repeatedly. He’s also name-checked in a recent Atlantic article about abundance politics. I’ve also literally read the document Moses wrote making the case to build the apartment building I now live in. And looking at important, timely topics like congestion pricing, Open Streets, the MTA, and the current mayoral election, let me just tell you…the ghost of Robert Moses is everywhere. (If this guy had been obsessed with trains and tunnels instead of bridges and cars, we’d be living in a very different America right now!)

In both New York and across the U.S., we’re still dealing with* the negative effects of his 40-year (unelected!!!) reign, which is why The Power Broker—Robert Caro’s 1200-page Pulitzer Prize–winning accounting of Robert Moses’s life and work—was such a fascinating and infuriating read. 

I had often heard people talk about The Power Broker because of how long it is, but…no one ever really talks about how good it is! And not just good in the sense of, like, “I’m learning so much from this, it is Important,” though that is also true. But it’s really, really readable. It’s juicy! The stakes are so high and there’s endless drama, gossip, humor, and pettiness, coupled with the kind of epic narrative arcs that feel more like fiction—it really doesn’t feel like reading a history book. (My jaw actually dropped at times.) Robert Caro does an incredible job of making the case for why we all need to know this bastard’s name, and laying out just how destructive, nasty, cruel, and prolific Moses was. One of the worst people to ever do it! I initially decided to just read the intro to see if I wanted to fully commit to the book, and by the time I finished that, I was…panting. I truly couldn’t put it down. (And before you ask: Yes, Moses has replaced Samuel Pepys as my #1 historical enemy.)

Because 2024 was the fiftieth anniversary of the book’s publication, there’s been a ton of renewed interest and media coverage in it. 99% Invisible (a podcast I love!) did a multipart series on The Power Broker last year, which is definitely a worth a listen if you know in your heart that you’re never going to read the whole book. It’s very light/fun (one of the co-hosts for this miniseries used to write for The Daily Show), and does a great job of communicating the key takeaways. (At minimum, you should definitely listen to the interview they did with AOC, wherein she talks about why the federal government…is the way it is. Her interview starts at 1:51:16 and is so good and will also make you want to scream.)

One of my biggest takeaways from The Power Broker is just how much impact a single person can have. Even in a city as big and as complicated as New York, it’s increasingly evident to me that a few loud NIMBYs with a bone to pick can stall progress for years. And yeah, Robert Moses didn’t do what he did alone…but the book was just a stark reminder that, for better or for worse, people built the world we live in, and people can change it. 

Some related content:

• I’ve really been enjoying The War on Cars podcast. (I loved the free parking, Tesla, and Rick Steves episodes!) 

• I recently picked up City Limits: Infrastructure, Inequality, and the Future of America's Highways from the library. I also have Jane Jacobs and Wrestling With Moses in the queue.

• “Can Andy Byford Save the Subways?” I remember reading this in the New Yorker when it was published, but I re-read it after finishing TPB. And now, just this week…Andy Byford is back! 

• “The Most Expensive Mile of Subway Track on Earth,” from a three-part Times series on the failures of the MTA. 

• Streetsblog is a great resource if you care about what’s happening in terms of transportation policy; I read the NYC edition daily and it’s very in the weeds (in a good way!) about what is currently happening. 🛣️

*Here’s a very salient example: The Second Avenue Subway comes up a few times in 'The Power Broker;' it was first proposed in 1920 and is mentioned toward the end of the book as something that the city still “desperately” needs (so, in the 1970s). I was curious what ever happened with it so I decided to look it up…and discovered that only the first three stations and two miles of track on the line have been completed to date, and this only happened in…2017.

‘Death Becomes Her’ is everything I want in a Broadway musical

Our friend Ryan came to stay with us last week, and one of the items on the agenda for her visit was the Death Becomes Her musical on Broadway. It was my second time seeing the show, and I already want to see it again. If you’re in New York City—or just near enough to take a weekend trip here—I highly, highly recommend it! It’s campy, stupid (in the best way!), and just a really goddamn good time. 

I saw the show for the first time right before New Year’s, when I won the ticket lottery. I had seen the movie, but I went in knowing literally nothing about the musical or what to expect. And I was surprised and delighted at every bit of it. 

The music? Fantastic, catchy, so funny. The stunts and staging? Excellent, clever, perfect. The cast? Well, this is actually a Megan Hilty stan account now, and I just loved Christopher Sieber in it. (His Act II solo is probably my favorite number in the show, but it’s honestly very hard to choose a favorite.) 

Death Becomes Her is the rare adaptation that a) is extremely faithful to the source material, b) somehow manages to improve on the source material, and c) stands on its own as a unique and complete piece of media. (The Devil Wears Prada movie is the only other thing I can think of that completed this triumvirate.) 

You really don’t need to have seen the movie to have a good time, but if you’re not familiar with the story, the (very) basic plot is that two lifelong frenemies drink a potion that promises eternal youth and beauty, and makes them immortal…but it doesn’t protect them from, say, sustaining catastrophic injuries (without actually dying), so they essentially turn into hot, falling-apart zombies. 

It was really interesting to see Death Becomes Her right around the same time I saw The Substance and the Sunset Boulevard revival; it felt like the three were in conversation with each other (the theme being “woman turns 50, develops psychosis”). 

Like, here’s Megan Hilty singing a song that contains the lyrics “I gotta nip, and tuck, and fill, and freeze / And Restylane the lips and Juvederm the knees / Fix the bits, lift the tits, try to hard the scaaaaaars” and “Wrinkled, wrinkled little star / Remind them who the FUCK you are,” fully belting and sounding like a villain during Disney’s golden era (compliment!!!): 

I really can’t say enough great things about Megan Hilty’s performance—she’s so good. (When we saw she show last week, we found out once we were in our seats that her understudy was actually going on, and it was, respectfully…not the same show without Megan!) I loved her so much in this, in fact, that I went back and watched the first season of Smash, the truly awful 2012 TV series about the making of a fictional musical about Marilyn Monroe (that was recently adapted for Broadway…it’s honestly all too meta, I can’t even get into it here). 

While we’re on the topic of the thea-tuh, here are some stray thoughts on other shows:

• The Cabaret revival is very good; I thought Orville Peck was great in it!

• I saw Oh, Mary! twice before it transferred to Broadway and hope it sweeps the Tonys. Absolutely loved it.

• Yeah, I’m planning to see BOOP! at some point! So sue me!!! 🎭