Maybe it’s because I spent so many years serving Mimosas during brunch shifts to pay my rent, but I’m not so good at taking Friday and the promise of a relaxing weekend seriously. I tend to find Friday evening is good for a cocktail with my wife and maybe a long dinner, otherwise I don’t put too much stock in Saturday and Sunday being a time for relaxing, but maybe just doing less.
That’s me. Like Charles Barkley, I am not a role model. You are hopefully a person that gets a few days to not work and you grab hold of it. Maybe you say you don’t want to spend time surfin’ the old web and hearing about the troubles of the world. I appreciate and respect that.
And since Friday tends to be a time for dipping out a little early, I’ve been saying for a bit I was going to use it as a chance to tell you, my dear friends, about some of the stuff I enjoyed reading. Going forward, I’m going to be moving a lot of the Jason Diamond Experience (Trademark pending) over here to the newsletter, so you can expect this sort of roundup on Fridays, the normal weekly newsletter, and coming soon…more!
The writer Peter Straub passed away last September. Straub was one of those writers I read when I was a wee Jason and then years later I became friends with his daughter. His daughter, of course, is Emma Straub. And I love Emma’s fiction, but every now and then she drops an essay and I stop everything I’m doing to read it. This latest is a jaw-dropper and one of the truly best things I’ve ever read on the connection we have to clothes, especially the clothes that are passed down from the ones we love and the deeper meaning those things might take. Also, good lord, Peter Straub was a good dresser. Great taste.
Read: “My Father’s Rolex” by Emma Straub at GQ
Charles Portis is one of those writers that either a person doesn’t know or they do and when his name comes up they say something like “One of the greatest American writers ever.” No joke. I’ve said it. He only wrote five novels and there are plenty of other Portis writings out there to find, and thanks to a new Library of America edition of his work and this loving look at his life and career by Casey Cep, I think his reputation is only going to grow hopefully to the heights it deserves.
Read: “The Oddballs and Odysseys of Charles Portis” by Casey Cep at The New Yorker
There’s this one part early on in Roberto José Andrade Franco’s report on the Joel Diaz Training Camp in a Coachella Valley desert town that stuck with me. It’s simple, but it says so much: “Instructions are yelled in four languages; English, Spanish, Uzbek and Russian.”
Boxing and the literature about it sum up America in so many ways to me, but the interesting and engaging looks at it are becoming fewer each year. This is one of the best I’ve read in a bit.
Honestly could not have put it better than the headline for this article does, but I really can’t stand H&H Bagels anymore. They’re basically Lender’s except as a store. You may as well just buy frozen bagels is what I’m saying. They have this terrible, awful, piece of crap stuffed bagel that’s a soulless lump of crap and I’m glad the brave folks at Hell Gate took this stand. And if you click the link, I highly implore you to subscribe because it’s free and the Hell Gate folks are doing good work.
Some shameless promotion, I suppose. I showed up in my friend Jami Attenberg’s Craft Talk this week. She calls me “As hungry a writer as I know,” which feels pretty accurate in all respects and maybe a good life blurb for me. But like everything Jami sends out, there’s a lot of wisdom in there. Except this time there’s also a pic of the two of us and I’m drinking a frozen peach and Hennessy cocktail.
thanks, buddy. <3
On another topic, I'd absolutely read a deep dive into the cover art of '90s ('80s?) Vintage Contemporaries Paperbacks. I have a bunch of Raymond Carver and Richard Ford ones I picked up in second hand shops. I can't totally describe the cover art aesthetic, but it's bright and weird and cheesy in a way I find delightful.