Like many of you, I’m sure, I’ve been having a hard time trying to reconcile everything that’s happened this past week. I was in New Orleans—for the first time—last Friday through Tuesday, and it was wild. I got in really late on Friday, June 1, and spent the next several days exploring, eating, and shopping—oh, yeah, and working, since we were actually there for the annual City and Regional Magazine Association conference. (Our team won the award for best civic journalism in the country for this story about phosphate mining in Florida—so proud.) New Orleans is crazy—it was hot, sticky and everyone was drunk, but the spirit of the city and its people is inspiring.
And then there was Kate Spade’s death by suicide on Tuesday, followed by Anthony Bourdain’s on Friday. I spent a lot of the day on Friday sitting at my desk, staring out the window at the sunshine and trying to blink away the teary pinpricks I felt forming behind my eyes. It all just felt like such a terrible, heavy loss.
I don’t have a lot to add to the many beautiful and important words that have already been written about Spade, Bourdain and mental health, other than that I struggle with anxiety and have watched many of my loved ones do the same with a variety of other mental health issues, and that I resolve to keep talking about it in the hope that I can help others. If this week has taught me anything, through both the news and conversations with others, it’s that you never know what someone else is going through.
Anyway, this feels like a very awkward segue, but if you’re in the mood to escape into some reading today, here are a few links.
Writing
Rob has a new Kickstarter for his latest comic project, Highspot, and we’d love for you to check it out.
“Group of Whale Sharks Spotted Off Anna Maria Island.” This feels hopeful, somehow.
A guide to my hometown (this is an oldie but I don’t think I’ve shared it)
Reading
“Anthony Bourdain and the Power of Telling the Truth.” This is so beautiful, by Helen Rosner at the New Yorker.
I loved Sam Sifton’s tribute to Bourdain, particularly this paragraph: “Also: cook. Please. To cook, after all, is to make yourself and others feel better. I was thinking about that just this morning, before the news, shoulder season in the quiet of dawn, not really summer, not really spring. I found it unsettling. It made me want to light a fire and grill.” (The New York Times)
Heather and Jessica of Go Fug Yourself wrote a lovely and thoughtful piece about Kate Spade and her legacy. (Cosmopolitan)
Summer means tomatoes and tomato sandwiches, and Vivian Howard’s version, with smoked corn mayonnaise, is amazing. (Garden & Gun)
“How Anna Delvey tricked New York.” We talked about this story at the conference, and it is everything I hoped for. (New York Magazine)
Also: “As An Added Bonus, She Paid for Everything.” (Vanity Fair)
The Atlantic proclaims that tiki bars are back, but as a Floridian, I ask: Um, where did they go in the first place? (Also, the history lesson in that piece is delightful.)
As someone who grew up wearing a uniform to school, the idea of a dress code has always appealed. (Buzzfeed)
Speaking of Florida, this book is next on my list and I have high hopes.
On friendship. (Cup of Jo)
Also:
I got this top in New Orleans because I literally sweated through all of my other casual shirts, and I recommend both for comfort and cuteness.
Much to Rob’s chagrin, I keep listening to Weezer’s cover of Toto’s “Africa,” and I love it.
This is lovely and poignant, from Joy’s blog: “I heard a passing news story this week about bird sounds in the Amazon rainforest and how the people that live in the rainforest can tell the time of day, the season, the weather, the everything of their world by the sound of birdcalls. It’s a tangible rhythm, and a reminder of all we have to tune into. It was a simple reminder of something so profound and complex.”
Take care of yourselves, friends. Let’s remember to check in on each other.
Photo of Longboat Key by Tom Roche (@offshoretom)
