Category: Inspiration // Cool

Seven things I’m loving this month

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Smarter Living by The New York Times

I’m loathe to sign up for more newsletters, considering how inundated my inbox has become with sales pitches, unlimited LIMITED TIME ONLYs, press releases, and political provocations to a mystery woman named “Janet Manty.”

Some Smarter Living stories.

The Smarter Living series by the Times hooked me, though, with its consistently interesting roundup of how-to articles and service-based news you can actually use. Peruse its most recent stories here and sign up for the newsletter, if your inbox dares, here.

Unpublished Black History by The New York Times

The Times again with the win! The paper’s interactive digital project, titled Unpublished Black History, tells stories that deserve telling but didn’t get their due when they happened. Because America. Recommended reading: “Looking Again at James Baldwin” and “A Newark at War with Itself.”

“The 2000s” on Netflix

Huzzah! The CNN documentary miniseries has reached the new millennium. For “The 2000s,” eight episodes examine TV, music, pop culture, political upheaval, and, of course, war in the first decade of the 21st century. It’s worth a watch for a refresher course on history you lived, history you missed, and history that’s hard to believe now falls under the category of “history.”

This panel about pitching as a freelance writer

The Pulitzer Center’s Student Fellow Weekend 2018 panel featured journalists and editors from a range of media outlets. It’s a long conversation—an hour and a half—and I recommend skipping the introductions. But give it a listen for some helpful nuggets on how to make your article or essay pitches standout.

I learned what to and what not to include (ie. don’t include more than one story pitch if you haven’t worked with that editor before… oops), how to format a subject line (ie. put “PITCH:” in all caps and follow it with a headline that would work for your proposed piece), and much more.

Financial Planning for Creative Careers

Related: This free course from Kadenze. It’s pretty high-level, as free online courses are wont to be, but there’s some helpful goodies in here on budgeting, tax basics, financial goal setting, and Excel best practices. Bonus: It’s taught by Columbus College of Art & Design’s super, duper smart Elaine Grogan Luttrull, whom I’ve had the pleasure of interviewing before.

Malcolm-Jamal Warner in “The Resident”

My medical drama binge-watching continues. I’m obsessed with Mina on “The Resident” (played by Shaunette Renee Wilson) and the raptor doc I hope becomes her bff mentor lover, AJ Austin.

THE RESIDENT: L-R: Malcolm Jamal Warner and Shaunette Renee Wilson in the “About Time” episode of THE RESIDENT airing Monday, Oct. 15 (8:00-9:00 PM ET/PT) on FOX. ©2018 Fox Broadcasting Co. Cr: Guy D’AlemaFOX.

Malcolm-Jamal Warner is so excellent at playing the doc whose outrageous arrogance is matched only by his unexpected tenderness. And, of course, by Mina.

“Venom” by Little Simz

Just wait for that beat to drop. So venomous it burns. This new song is perfect for all your feminist musical needs—from a workout playlist to a protest march. 🔥

To do: Three cavernous Chicago hideaways

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This winter’s cold has been unrelenting. But I still want to go out, even if it means wearing three layers underneath my heavy-duty winter jacket. Same? These three activities offer a cozy and cavernous getaway while we count down the days to spring.

Go deep inside: The Palmer House

The OG brownie is at The Palmer House, a historic Chicago hotel that Rudyard Kipling long ago described as “a gilded mirror rabbit warren crammed with barbarians.”

Today, I recommend going barbaric on the hotel’s OG brownie. It’s as decadent and rich as the golden drapery and as opulent as the soaring ceilings. The confection was concocted in the late 19th century under the direction of Bertha Palmer (watch the video below for more) for the Columbian Exposition World’s Fair in 1893. Pro tip: Get dinner at the burritos and bowls quick-service spot right outside the hotel so you don’t feel totally gluttonous after downing the whole dessert by yourself. Because you will.

https://vimeo.com/241074022

Go behind walls: Dorian’s

On a recent round of The 10 to 10, we rolled into Bucktown and ended up walking to Wicker Park. We passed a boutique record shop that seemed worthy of a step inside.

It was more than a record shop, though. Hidden behind an unsuspecting “secret” doorway was Dorian’s, a midcentury mod-style restaurant, tucked away with tiki-themed drinks (and a mocktails option!), jazz spinning on the sound system, and a charcuterie board complete with pickled grapes.

Go underground: Three Dots and A Dash

At Three Dots and a Dash, go on a warm adventure beneath the city. Located in the River North neighborhood, no treasure map is required to find it: Just look for the sign in the alleyway off Hubbard and head down the dramatically lit stairwell to a dreamy tiki hideaway. At the grass-skirted bar or a cozy booth, surrounded by chic wooden fixtures and sunset lighting, order up some small bites, a cold pressed juice or handcrafted cock(or mock)tail. The team of mixologists makes its own syrups, such as falernum and allspice, to keep things fresh. The exotic combinations are designed to give even the most well-traveled tongue an exciting new taste.

‘Till a Mexican beach and a flute of sparkling juice and I meet again…


Introducing: Zero Proof Podcast

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Zero Proof is a brand new biweekly podcast featuring me and my forever-friend/ former-editor Shelley Mann Hite. Read our story here.

On each episode, we read and discuss one book about sobriety, self-growth, or surviving—and then thriving—in spaces that profit when we numb ourselves, from ourselves.

Episodes one and two launched today over at ZeroProofBookClub.com! Add that link to your bookmark bar or follow us on Instagram @zeroproof.

First up (on episode two), we discuss “The Recovering: Intoxication and Its Aftermath” by Leslie Jamison and dig into our own varied approaches to recovery.

We’re also featuring Zero Proof drinks (get it) that pair with each book. After all, we know book clubgoers need something to imbibe. We just don’t think it has to be alcohol.

“The Recovering” pairs well with an Iowa Fog, considering all that time Leslie spent at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. ☕📝 It’s our take on the classic London Fog: Steep a mug of Earl Gray tea, add a drop of vanilla, then top it with steamed milk. If you don’t have a milk steamer at home (who does?), you can get the same effect by beating milk in a saucepan over low heat with your hand mixer. Beat for a few minutes till your milk is nice and frothy.

The Iowa Fog

I can’t wait to share more episodes throughout our first season! Up next, we’re reading “The Body is Not An Apology” by Sonya Renee Taylor. Episode three drops on March 11.

#SundaySentence: A star closer

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And, of course, this policy of denial is just another form of lying — a fanciful story we tell ourselves about our future even as we fight to free ourselves from the personal lies of our past.

Nancy A. Nichols, Memoirs of a Used Car Salesman’s Daughter

For David Abrams’ Sunday Sentence project, readers share the best sentence they’ve read during the past week, “out of context and without commentary.”

This closing line from Nancy A. Nichols’ issue of True Story gave me a lot to chew on as I rode the train home (these mini magazines with one longform true story per issue are so perfect for commutes).

On writing: Stephen King to the rescue

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If you haven’t read On Writing by Stephen King yet, get a copy now. Stock up on cute highlighters while you’re at it. (He’s also hella feisty on Twitter.)

If there is any one thing I love about writing more than the rest, it’s that sudden flash of insight when you see how everything connects.

Stephen King, On Writing

I love this golden nugget quote in the chapter about theme. It’s so true, right? Even those of us who can only hope to be Stephen-King-quality after a couple lifetimes know this feeling. Hitting that sweet spot where things you didn’t even know were in you fall together into a cohesive story or paragraph or sentence? It feels otherworldly.

Keep writing! Chase those ghosts! <3

Roundup: Five Saul Leiter photos to make you feel snow romantic

Jackie Mantey 2 Comments

Saul Leiter was a pioneer of American color photography. His painterly images of 1950s and 1960s city life are so wistful. His work makes me see bad weather, stinky streets, and the humans who inhabit it all — differently. Better. More lovingly.

“A window covered with raindrops interests me more than a photograph of a famous person.” 

Saul Leiter

^ Same.

Here are five of his most lovely snow-filled images that might make this seemingly never-ending winter snow a lot more bearable. At least more beautiful.

Postmen, 1952

Red Umbrella, 1957
Snow
Newspaper Kiosk, 1955
Parking, 1950

Read more about the artist’s life here. Also this: “Saul Leiter, the quiet genius who made the mundane beautiful.”

Art you should know: Dawoud Bey’s Underground Railroad photographs

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Dawoud Bey is a MacAurthur Genius Award-winning portrait artist whose most moving photographs are black and white images in urban settings; however, his exhibition currently on view at the Art Institute of Chicago happens across a different landscape.

Titled, in a nod to Langston Hughes, “Night Coming Tenderly, Black” is a compilation of 25 photographs taken of places in Hudson and Cleveland, Ohio, that marked the end of the Underground Railroad.

The large-scale images are darkened to mimic the blackness of night, a time of day when it was “safest” to run. The darkness makes it hard to see what you’re looking at, inducing a sinister terror that must, when you think about it, only be .01% (if that) of the sinister terror runaway slaves felt when approaching these final stops toward freedom—a term that feels especially meaningless when faced with the final resting stop, Lake Erie and sky. Canada’s freedom on the horizon, but at what cost? How did these people ever feel free or safe or whole? It seems as impossible as swimming in the dangerous choppy waves of the photograph.

Their reflective nature is particularly Bey-brilliant. With this effect, the viewer sees themselves in the image, in this situation, both long ago and in the modern world. At first, I thought about how alone these images made me feel, no human to be found, just the potential for danger that had to freeze you in your tracks. Seeing a shadow of myself in each image, I also thought about the ways white supremacy has shaped my own understanding of the world. How its effects linger today. I thought of Flint. Of Chicago police brutality. Of my own willful blindness that contributes to modern racism.

I was moved by the titles of his images, too. A forest. A marsh. These seem idyllic to me—because they can. But in light of the darkness of these settings and the truth behind them, I understand how these words and places represented a challenge, a cover, an enemy to the people who had to escape through them without the cover of peace… or even hope… or even, sometimes, other people.

Outside the gallery is a wall of framed photographs Bey curated from the AIC’s private collection. In addition to harrowing images of the murder that racism has justified on American soil are images of people who fought back and found strength in the darkness. Their courage is breathtaking.

The landscape portraiture Bey picked to include in the roundup is also meaningful. A particular Ansel Adams image of a tree, which, in a different context, I would have mused on romantically or in a rosy awe of nature, gave me chills instead. The photograph’s juxtaposition to a lynched murder victim evoked the trauma of a tree, how everything has been affected exploited in the name of “natural order.” It’s a devastating exhibit. It’s an important one. It’s on view through April 14.

Roundup: Five spots to shop for cool kettles

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Yes, kettles, as in tea kettles.

Whaaaat, you ask? Who am I, you ask?

As a longstanding diehard coffee consumer, I’ve been asking myself the same questions.

A few weeks ago—three tomorrow, to be exact—I wasn’t feeling very well. I had a coffee on my nightstand as I laid in bed, trying to nap off whatever bug was bringing me down. The smell of the coffee, though, kept waking me up and making me feel queasy.

I haven’t had a lick of it since.

Considering I quit drinking alcohol almost three years ago, I am still surprised at my ability to be surprised when I fully quit something that has been part of my everyday life for over a decade. But I was drinking five to six cups of the strongest coffee I could find a day, and now I’m… a tea drinker? It’s weird. Surprising. And weird.

There are several upsides, obviously, to cutting the extreme caffeine. I’m saving money not purchasing $4-a-pop pick-me-ups. My energy is way better, ironically enough. More consistent. Fewer crashes. Less dramatic energy surges and lethargic dips. I l-o-v-e that I don’t feel restless/ manic if I haven’t had my morning coffee. AND, best of all, the ritual of making tea is way more fun.

I’m not fancy. By ritual, I mean literally just boiling water. But it’s like when you’re 16 and learn to drive and get a $300 janky, old, dump-destined beater that is a straight-up diamond in your eyes because it represents freedom, delicious freedom.

That beater = boiled water for me right now. <insert heart eyes, hashtag EZ2PLZ>

Once I passed the two-week coffee-free threshold, Justin and I decided to get a new kettle for the house so I could boil water like a lady. (Technically we had one already but it was, well, a dump-destined beater that was ~16 years old itself.)

Here are some places I found awesome options, including a few unexpected locales. So many tea pots, so little time (and also counter space).


A sea foam green cast iron kettle ($24.99) with a stainless steel infuser on the inside, embossed Japanese-style grapevines on the outside.

World Market

Travel the world from the comfort of your own stovetop. World Market’s options range from beautiful embossed cast iron kettles to marbled enamel numbers that would play perfectly in a white-cabinet kitchen.

Bonus: WM’s lucky cat tea infuser mug, which will ensure every morning starts off on the right paw.
French vintage enamel tea kettle ($45) on Etsy.

Etsy

The Etsy marketplace is often a go-to when I’m shopping for jewelry or décor, but I didn’t think of it right away for tea kettle shopping. Don’t make the same mistake. There are some really lovely options available, including punny pots like Mr. Tea, who pity the caffeine-fiending fool, and many vintage goodies, like this amazing Corningware cooker.

Luanne tea kettle ($38) from Anthropologie.

Anthropologie

Whimsical print pots, $500+ coppermill kettles, and swoon-worthy sets complete with sugar bowls and serving trays. That’s so Anthro.

Rave Tea Kettle from MoMA
Raven tea kettle ($80) from MoMA.

Art museums

Yet another destination you might not consider right away, art museum shops often have a curated section of hip home goods. For example, The Art Institute of Chicago’s Museum Shop has a sparse but mighty selection, and MoMA has some seriously great stuff that will ensure your tea routine is a work of art. (PS. I bet your local bookstore also carries some tea related must-haves.)

Ah! Tumultuous love affairs aside, these Frida and Diego mugs = amazing wedding gift alert!
Rainbow mirror whistling kettle ($27) from Amazon.

Amazon

Ah, good old Amazon. Fun options abound, though we ended up getting none of the above and, instead, going for function over style, purchasing an energy efficient electric kettle that can boil water in mere seconds.

Le sigh. It’s cool in a practical way, but I’ll be in the market for adorable mugs soon. This, friends, is what kitchen-based compromise and communication looks like.

And this: