good things 02.19.26
mira nair profile, walking out of a movie, love story
something terrible happened to me recently (i learned who clavicular was) so i need all the good things i can get.
1. How to Get to Heaven from Belfast (Netflix)
tonally, this show is all over the place. but spiritually, i am loving it. from the creator of ‘derry girls’ lisa mcgee, ‘how to get to heaven from belfast’ is a kind of murder mystery, screwball black comedy. it’s like if ‘bad sisters’ and ‘derry girls’ had a child, and that child was on drugs. for better or worse, i’ll watch anything set in ireland and this mostly scratches the itch, especially because it’s given me a new person to have a crush on: darragh hand who plays a police officer.
2. “The Mayor’s Mother: What Mira Nair taught Zohran Mamdani” by Rebecca Traister for Vulture
behind every great man is the woman (always the woman) who made him great. this profile of mira nair by my personal GOAT, rebecca traister, is my favorite thing i’ve read in a long time. nair is, of course, zohran mamdani’s mother, but first and foremost she is a visionary and an artist, responsible for films like ‘mississippi masala’ and ‘monsoon wedding’. what an extraordinary, delightful, giant of a woman nair seems to be. i relished every small detail in this, from her career and her tenacity to the way she raised her son. everything about who her zohran turned out to be make perfect sense when you understand who his mother is. ashamed to say i’ve seen none of her movies but i will right this wrong.
“This is the woman who joked to the journalist Mehdi Hasan at her son’s Election Night party, “I am the producer of the candidate,” and who said at his inauguration, “I am going to be the mother of New York City.” These proclamations are loving, ebullient, and funny (Nair’s own mother used to tell reporters she was “the producer of the director”), but they also explain a lot about how Mamdani became Mamdani, who, in Nair’s telling, often seems as much her creation as her works of art.
Inadvertently or not, Nair raised her son to be the type of man who believes he could be mayor of America’s largest city despite having few credentials for the job, instilling him with determination, showing by example how to defy and exceed expectations, and swaddling him in layers of adoration. “I believe you have one chance to raise a child,” Nair told me, “and if you can marinate them in love like we have, with the notion that they will be secure and protected in that embrace of love, which is not a small one but a larger one, that gives a lot of strength for the life ahead.”
Another family might have produced a raging narcissist. So far, Mamdani is simply among the most exciting politicians of his generation. Nair added, “I don’t think our son has changed because he is so strongly buffered by this embrace. Really.”’
3. walking out of a movie
i was forced to read ‘wuthering heights’ in AP lit and i remember viscerally hating every minute of it, so i’m not quite sure why i agreed to go see the adaptation.1 but alas, there i was on monday afternoon at BAM, letting out a long sigh at the opening scene of emerald fennell’s latest piece of shock jockery, in which a horned up crowd watches a man get hanged. it got slightly better from there but overall i’d say it was a shiny piece of garbage. jacob elordi kept me in my seat but i can’t say the same for two of my fellow moviegoers who walked out with probably 45 minutes left. i wanted to stand up and salute them because i really respect this move.
4. Love Story: John F. Kennedy Jr. & Carolyn Bessette (Hulu)
i mistakenly thought that being obsessed with the kennedys was like being obsessed with the british royal family (an embarrassing and childish thing you shouldn’t admit to anyone). THAT IS until watching ryan murphy’s dramatic rendering of john f. kennedy jr. and carolyn bessette kennedy’s love affair in this new show. i’m googling every scene. i’m jumping from wikipedia page to wikipedia page, footnote to footnote, foaming at the mouth for any and every detail about the veracity of these events. i’m ordering biographies. i’m searching ‘how to dress like carolyn bessette kennedy’ and ‘did calvin klein really do that’. kennedy obsessives — please send me more stuff to read/watch/listen to.
5. ‘these poems’ by june jordan
“I am a stranger / learning to worship the strangers / around me / whoever you are / whoever I may become.”
short one this week! i’m reading the morning star by karl ove knausgård and i’m only about a third of the way through but i can already tell it’s going to be a favorite.
send me a good thing if you dare!
xo
the reason is of course that if all my friends jumped off a bridge i would do a cannonball