It Should Itch
A Christmas Outfit Theory and my favorite books I read all year
This year marked the 59th anniversary of A Charlie Brown Christmas. To me that seems way too young. Namely because I can’t imagine a time before it. Nor can I picture it being created by human hands (this, though it’s sooo cute and I wish the little boy that voiced Linus was my baby, feels sacrilegious). Instead I imagine it spontaneously generating — Snoopy ascending fully formed from the primordial soup. I shudder to think of the slouching hominids of 1964, unaware that a prophet with a single squiggle line for hair would next year change the timbre of Christmas forever.
I watched it with Isabel last Tuesday, the same date as its premiere, kicking my feet with glee for all twenty-five glorious minutes and trying my best to say every line in unison with its respective Peanut. Yeah yeah that is insufferable but it brings me indescribable joy and it is one of the externalities of getting very close to me. I will do the same thing with A Knight’s Tale and Grease and It’s A Wonderful Life. I cannot help but say “Zuzu’s petals!!” or “my own dog, gone commercial” any more than my mom can help cleaning my bathroom sink every time she visits. (It is not dirty to me).
For a piece of mass culture made for children A Charlie Brown Christmas has a pretty heady pitch: a pre-adolescent depressive boy who no one likes not even his dog reckons with the inherent corruption of capitalism and a national crisis of faith. But its unapologetic existentialism is exactly what makes it eternal. Charlie Brown’s insistence that Christmas shouldn’t be easy, that nothing can be special without somber, wet-blanket devotion is an essential truth. The Magic of Christmas must be earned in first doing things that are stuffy, serious and boring.
This is the same philosophy inherent in my theory of holiday dressing. To me, the specific gravity of the season necessitates discomfort. There is no formality without chafe — an itchy collar or bunchy layers or that feeling with the crotch of your tights falls halfway down your thighs and you have to pull it up inch by inch starting all the way down at your ankles…!!!
All of my Christmases are tied to sense memories of the smell of mothballs and my sleeves being too tight. Of standing stiffly in the kitchen with my big brothers and little sister, all embarrassed to be wearing velvet and tweed, looking at each other like strangers while we waited for my mom to come down. Obviously no one wanted to go to church and when we kneeled I couldn’t raise my arms high enough to gesture prayer. But that’s how I knew it was Christmas. When everyone’s having too much frictionless fun, dancing and playing the upright bass without any inconvenience in contrast, how can you know true, transcendent joy? Lucy says “look, Charlie Brown, what do you want?” and he answers, “The proper mood.” I don’t want uncomplicated beauty. I want to have a wedgie.
We went to see The Nutcracker at Lincoln Center this week and it was the perfect case in point. Everyone was doing their best impression of what someone would wear to the ballet, and every outfit boasted all the constriction of a straight jacket. Women wore furs and high heels and what I can only assume were their alternate, more formal glasses for special occasions. I saw one man in a tux and tails. Practicality be damned. I know those furs itch and reek.
I wore my favorite dress. One I found in a vintage shop in London while freeloading on a business trip of my mom’s. It has the sexiest (!?) low back and a handkerchief hem. I was freezing cold and the velvet seats chafed my spine and the straps kept slipping off my shoulders during “The Dance Of The Sugar Plum Fairy.” But every inconvenience was a reminder of how special it was. What’s ceremony without a little self-flagellation?
Three Outfits For Itchy Christmas
Can y’all imagine if I started wearing opera gloves. Would you recognize me? I wouldn’t. But that’s what’s exciting. I want to hold a coup and wear opera gloves ughhh.
This one’s my favorite I think. I love how mermaid it is and I love how I’d absolutely be riddled with small cuts on the inside of my biceps, from the sequins. I bought these socks.
I tried on the pictured Prada top at my friend
’s store Club Vintage, which is my favorite store. It is unbelievably beautiful and I could not lift my arms above my head. Check and check!My Favorite Books I Read All Year In The Order That I Read Them
I read more this year than I have since I had to read to graduate college and it’s made me a 20% happier person. My life never feels so full as when I’m reading a really good book, and I read a lot of really good books this year. Books like:
1. Life After Life by Kate Atkinson
My Aunt Helen is one of the top three smartest people I know, and she’d been recommending I read Kate Atkinson for years before I finally picked up “Life After Life” this February. You’d be a damned fool to bet against Aunt Helen and this book was just as unbelievable as she’d promised. The narrative construction is wholly distinct and deftly drawn, practically investigating the Butterfly Effect and what it would look like for a girl to save the world from Hitler if she had the chance(s). And the main character has my birthday which I love.
2. Band of Brothers by Stephen Ambrose
The source material for a show to which I devoted as much time and attention as a part time job. I read “Band of Brothers" in February, too, just after watching the show for the second time while also simultaneously listening to the companion podcast to fall asleep each night. No one could have made a more willing audience for this book than me at that moment, except for maybe my dad, whenever. I cannot recommend it highly enough. It is a harrowing, sensitive, absolutely batshit account of heroism and love and the human spirit. I thought also it could be the perfect book to read on the subway lest a gorgeous, sensitive and intelligent boy should like to approach me to discuss Bastogne for example. That didn’t happen but I don’t hold that against Stephen Ambrose.
3. Born to Run by Bruce Springsteen
I tried to read this years ago and kind of cringed at how lyrical and poetic Bruce’s (let me call him that) writing style was. But then I grew up and got over myself and the earnest nature of his prose absolutely makes the book. Beyond its undeniable appeal as the story of how he Made The Big TIme, it’s completely fascinating to be privy to the thought processes and rationalizations of a man who’s been elevated to god status. He grapples with it humbly and thoughtfully and he made me fall in love with him, dammit. Also it was so fun to read about the writing of “The Ghost of Tom Joad” or whatever and then be able to put the book down and put the album on. “The Promised Land” was number 4 on my most-played songs of the year.
4. The Bee Sting by Paul Murray
A recommendation from another one of the top three smartest people I know (hi Kristin!!). This is a book about an Irish family of four grappling with financial ruin and secrets and lies. The narrative passes between characters and the writing style shifts dramatically, immersing you fully in each distinct psyche and voice and sometimes losing punctuation completely (eat your heart out, Sally Rooney), I think to signal true mental break. It’s so wholly immersive and sweeping and ambitious and funny and sad. The kind of book that you think about every second you’re not reading it because you can’t wait to start reading it again.
5. A Prayer For Owen Meany by John Irving
I don’t like to be sad but I’d like to cry more. So when a book or a movie is quite sad I try to really capitalize on the opportunity. Crying doesn’t come easily to me, which I find annoying because crying is so cool and dramatic. But this book made me absolutely weep. It’s coming of age, it’s religious philosophy, it’s fate and baseball and human sacrifice. It’s one of my mom’s favorite books. It’s one that, when I finished, made me want to be a better person.
6. The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett
There is so much sand in the spine of this book that it sits ajar at like a 30 degree angle. Which is how you can tell I was loving it as my summer read!!! And that it was windy that day. It asks how much agency we can take in shaping our identities and what credence do we owe to our origins and how especially loaded that process is when passing. It’s heartbreaking and beautiful and there’s such a good love story when you least expect it.
7. My Antonia by Willa Cather
I read this in the summertime, mostly on weekend trains to Rockaway or Cold Spring or Connecticut. It’s a wonderful book to read in proximity to wide open vistas, especially when New York City is at its smelliest and most stifling. I can barely remember the plot, but I’d be so bold as to say that what happens isn’t the point. What’s stuck with me is vivid scenes of gold grass and gold hair and blushed skin and strong arms. And love that lasts forever obviously.
8. The English Understand Wool by Helen DeWitt
Another recommendation from Aunt Helen that laid me flat out on my ass. This one’s a novella that I read in one sitting. On a porch. Helen DeWitt writes in a way that makes me feel sure she’d think I was the stupidest sack of crap ever, which I love. It investigates the difference between wealth and class in a very interesting and nuanced way, and the twist made me slap my hand to my mouth soooo drama.
9. Wellness by Nathan Hill
This was my #1 favorite book I read all year. It doesn’t make sense that it took me so long to read it, because Nathan Hill’s first book “The Nix” is I think my favorite book of the last decade. But who cares, get off my back. I read it and I loved it. It brought tears to my eyes not from sadness, just from awe. It’s an amazingly thoughtful critique of our modern preoccupation with optimization, and the ways in which Wellness Culture permeates every aspect of our lives, and about the dissolution of a marriage between two people who once swore they were soulmates. And will those two crazy kids just work it out?? It’s amazing and not to brag but everyone I’ve forced to read it has agreed and I want to read it again right now.
10. Skippy Dies by Paul Murray
Another slam dunk from Paul Murray! I think I liked this one even better than the Bee Sting. His writing makes me want to write fiction which I so never want to do (too busy being real, I guess.) But the characters he creates are so funny and complicated that I feel inspired to build my own. Again in this book Paul Murray marries humor and pathos in an insane, whiplash-y way that at turns made me snort-laugh and wholly devastated me. The book is called “Skippy Dies” and still you can’t believe he does.
11. The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt
Y’all what the helllll with this one seriously. Donna Tartt is a freak. I felt like she had me on a leash. A critique of a system that lets vulnerable people fall through the cracks. Oliver Twist with a drug habit. Really good New York stuff, too.
12. East of Eden by John Steinbeck
This more than anything is me being like “wait have you tried Reese’s cups? No they’re sooo good you have to try it, it's like chocolate and” … But you have to let me be like that right now and then I’m done. I love this book for a million reasons. It’s another one of my mom’s favorites. And it’s a book that unabashedly sets out to tackle the theme of like, Good vs. Evil. And are we born inherently good or bad and do we have the chance to change it if we are and maybe is it better if we have to work towards goodness rather than believe it comes baked in. Reading it feels like being spooned. It also made me weep almost as hard as Meany.
Please talk to me about all that! Love you xx.
Bruce!
I'm flattered to be in the top 3 although I debate the validity of the ranking. And love that Prada top! And this newsletter!