May 2026
I'm finally done with my first year of grad school, everyone say yayy Cammi!
June is here, summer is here, school has finished, and I feel a giant metaphorical weight lifted off my shoulders. I can’t wait for three months of reading what I want and watching a lot of movies. I am famously a summer hater to my core, but this year I am trying to embrace the freedom and sweaty humid heat of it all. I’m a cancer, after all. <33
New Boards of Canada is really spooky and exciting.
I’m on the Slayyter train, this album is so fresh and fun. Crank it!!!!
Summer means Sister Nancy on repeat also.
The Last One for the Road (2025) - Francesco Sossai (4)
Incredibly charming and fun to watch. A rare movie where nothing bad really happens and the vibe is the main allure.Gods of Time Square (1999) - Richard Sandler (4)
A documentary about the religious groups who hung out in Times Square in the 90s. Could’ve easily been mean spirited but it was not in the slightest— felt honest and real and empathetic and curious.Maya, Give Me a Title (2024) - Michel Gondry (<3)
Just the most charming thing I’ve seen in a minute. I’m such a sucker. I miss my future daughter.The Beaches of Agnes (2008) - Agnes Varda (5)
Agnes Varda my beloved the way she looks at life and relationships and love with curiosity and whimsy— my true hero and icon in how to live and work. Exceptionally beautiful.Tribute to the Teachers (1977), Breaktime (1972), So Can I (1975), Orderly or Disorderly? (1981), The Colours (1976) - Abbas Kiarostami
I saw a screening of Kiarostami shorts on a rainy day, the theater was small and cozy and it felt so right. Orderly or Disorderly? was my favorite of the five.The Young Girls of Rochefort (1967) - Jacques Demy (4.5)
Perfect summer movie, so playful and fun and silly. Colors are beautiful, was pleasantly surprised when Cary Grant popped on screen.Final Destination 3 (2006) - James Wong (2)
Tanning booth scene engrained in my brain… I love these dumb movies.
The Hill by Harriet Clark (4/5)
An extremely impressive debut, sent to me by FSG. The Hill tells a story of a young girl’s life as she continuously visits her mom in prison after her mom is arrested for robbing a bank. Some really interesting and tender sentiments about aging and how to live a Life that is yours— the grandmother is a particularly brash and abrasive character, who I grew to like and appreciate. It took me so long to get through, and I savored every moment with our characters. It’s rare I like a current release so much as this one, but I really did enjoy it!If Only by Vigdis Hjorth (3/5)
A story of obsession and rejection and unrequited love and then mutual destruction. I found this reading experience exhausting and repetitive, much like the characters’ relationship. Although it wasn’t the most enjoyable, it was thought provoking for me and I found myself thinking a lot about cyclical abusive relationships and the way they can be quite insidious.
In
Triple dates
Finally done with the longest semester of my life
Rolo’s pork chop
Wholesome train interactions
When I wake up in the morning and put my glasses on and the first thing I see is my cats just staring at me
Guilt free summer
Trying really hard
Out
I took Nyquil and slept for 11 hours and was so groggy the entire next day
Office politics… why am I beefing with someone’s dad
Started and stopped multiple books this month
I got really sick
And Milo got sick too
My coworkers keep leaving me (getting promoted lol) and it’s horrible
Impromptu grocery shopping with no reusable bag
Wanted to mention three events I went to this month! I am always going to screenings, and often the films screened are hit or miss, but both of these events were such hits. I left full of feeling and thoughts, so inspired. I’m going to start putting events I go to in my Substack, just to keep a track record of all the cool artists’ work I get to see!
The first screening was at Nowadays hosted by ditchers eddy, and the second screening was hosted by The Gallery, which is (was, I think their lease is up) an art collective in this random office building in Crown Heights. The third event was a program of music videos directed and edited by Loretta Fahrenholz, in conjunction with Kim Gordon’s solo exhibit, Count Your Chickens, at Amant. Aside from the exhibit being cool, the space itself is beautiful (and not for profit!)
In this Miranda July story, it’s erotic and subversive and strange the way all her stories tend to be, but there is this specific metaphor she uses about two people in a relationship digging tunnels to try and meet each other in the middle, and how sometimes the tunnels go up or down or stall or veer and I thought it was an interesting concept. I sort of thought about it all day at work and then I started read If Only by Vigdis Hjorth on the train ride back from work, where the narrator falls in love with this emotionally unavailable man, and it says, “He hasn’t been where she had been, he wasn’t where she was. Perhaps they were never in the same place at the same time.” I felt these two storylines really intersected in their descriptions of these complicated and unbalanced relationships where one person yearns to be understood so deeply yet keeps themselves at a distance. I think nobody can understand another person completely and a relationship is about closing that gap as much as possible.
The Fairy-Tale Hour by Sanford Schwartz
”An exhibition of Paul Klee’s late works focuses on his depictions of the atmosphere of violence and intimidation in Germany after the Nazis came to power.”
Milo has a NYRB subscription, and this article particularly caught my eye because although I love Paul Klee’s work, I actually did not know much about him as a person and his political views (he was a socialist) and how his art was influenced by the political climate at the time.