On Reading Chelsea Girls

Desperately seeking fresh entertainment.

Hi friends.

I’m having a hate-hate relationship with the streaming sites right now. I hate that I am being force-fed GLP-1 weight loss ads. I hate that I have to watch all of these people in the commercials repeatedly shoot themselves up with weight loss medication anytime I want to relax (disassociate) with some television programming. Is anyone else freaking out about how many times a day we have to watch these injections if we just want to watch an episode or two of “Abbott Elementary” or whatever the fuck? It’s ruining my brain and slowly corrupting my self-esteem even though I know better. (Or maybe I did.)

So I’m seeking entertainment mostly from books. I mean, I read a lot anyway, but now I might have to start reading more.

I haven’t been wanting to read anything current or contemporary lately, but I still wanted that feeling of reading a book that feels fresh and of the moment even if that moment was thirty, forty, or fifty years ago. So I’ve been re-reading Chelsea Girls by Eileen Myles, which came out in 1994. It reads as if it were all written in a rush but also like nothing is an accident. It sounds to my ear like both a poem and a novel. It tastes like a splash of something cool and delicious.