It’s Bummerville Out Here

But trying to stay positive.

Thank you for your enthusiasm regarding last week’s defense of diaries, and all the kind notes I received!

This past week I’ve been feeling particularly low about the state of things. A mass shooting occurred at my alma mater Brown University. A seemingly lone gunman went into a lecture hall during finals week. School shootings are a wholly American phenomenon of self-hatred: When faced with social discontent maiming younger generations does nothing but handicap a nation. My friend Ivy Rockmore is currently at Brown, she’s a junior studying literary arts and a beautiful writer, so I’m passing things off to her:

“Among my community, Brown may be something close to paradise; A place to create, to come by tools to change the world, and maybe meet some of the most brilliant, loving people along the way. On Saturday all of my friends set up barricades. I live with RISD dual-degree kids on College Hill and we had to disassemble their art projects—spare wood to block the door. We have lost two of our brightest classmates, Mukhammad, only a freshman, and Ella, a sophomore. Nine more are physically injured. We’re grieving but no one can ever take this from us, this immense joy that we have FOUGHT to cultivate.

I don’t know a single person at Brown right now who is passive and everyone is desperate to do something. We are metabolizing our grief through anger, all toward political means. We are all cooped up in our homes or homes of friends; none of us can look away. So it feels very necessary to be able to push for something.

My wish is that readers here can, too. You can donate to impacted workers, dining hall and custodian staff who fed us, protected us, let us shower and sleep in their homes. Same with the students who have passed and those still fighting. You can fill out our Community Assistance Form to get us the mental care and transportation support we need. You can take action and fight against the gun lobby with groups like Everytown. Use this LOVE!!!! It is still here and it can never be taken away, so use it for something.”

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When I started writing this Substack, I had the following mission: “It’s easy to lose sight of the fact that the person you are now is someone you once dreamed of becoming. We are constantly erasing the acknowledgement that we’ve accomplished so many of our dreams. It’s Schopenhauer’s cycle of dissatisfaction. What I’d like to do for this Substack is interrupt that impulse, however briefly.”

Now approaching the end of the year, reflecting on the horrors and joys of it, I’ve been thinking about that brief. And a possible edit. As important as giving yourself the opportunity to acknowledge your hard work, manifestation of dreams—all the good things we tamp down to make room for the roaming, whirling bad—is giving that to someone else, acknowledging somebody else’s hard work and dreams. That can be as simple as actually listening to your friends book recommendations, or as involved as helping purchase toys for kids in your community. Happy Holidays!

Shahid Alamin: Do you guys find working in teams flows differently when done digitally vs. in-person?

Yes. You gotta build a tight team because making something, whether that’s a cake or a magazine, is all about CHEMISTRY!!!!

Alexandra Diamond-Rivlin: What grabs your attention from someone who hasn’t published with i-D before?

Lots of people had questions about how to pitch and these are my tips, from someone who has been on both ends of the desk.

1. Your pitch should not be longer than a paragraph. If you must, two. Many editors I know stop reading well before that. A pitch is like a first date: leave an editor wanting more! Never send a fully written piece. You should respect your writing more than that, and also a good editor is collaborative, they want to shape the piece with you.

2. Spellcheck! Proofread! If your pitch isn’t clean, why would your copy be and nobody wants to create extra work for themselves. (I’ve recently heard a rumor that a well respected writer files garbage first drafts, rife with error, no periods. Do you know how good you have to be to get away with that?)

3. Don’t be discouraged but also don’t follow up more than once. Often I will remember a writer and reach out to commission them for a different piece.

4. Pitch something you have a unique insight into. If you are pitching what you think the editor wants to run, they’ve probably thought about running it already. You have the advantage, being you, knowing what you know.

5. You can pitch me at nicolaia.rips@i-d.co

Lele Ludwick: Do you have any recommendations for books that help with getting out of a creative block?

Honestly I loved doing The Artist’s Way, I think it’s very helpful for extreme block! Otherwise when I’m blocked I’ll reread A Moveable Feast or Eve’s Hollywood, two books which get me reeved up, absolutely itching to write.

My favorite substack S.P.A asked: What beauty things are on my desk?

I have single use handwarmers, three perfumes (two I don’t use: Miu Miu Miutine, Regime Des Fleurs Chloe Sevigny Little Flower. One I do: Marissa Zappas Tragedy Oil). I also have, a small pink hairbrush, texturizing hair mouse from Crown Affair, Byredo La Tulipe Hand Cream, a single Bloom energy stick, Byredo Ocean Haze Eyeshadow palette, a full chemical mini deodorant, four packets of instant miso soup that I SWEAR BY and got at a Japanese grocery store in Jersey, and my holy-grail-in-case-of-emergency-natural-adderall Thesis pills.

• When I was in college, I had a very chic roommate who was downtown-scene-adjacent and she wore Eckhaus Latta jeans (you know the ones, with the low pockets) and Priscavera dresses and I remember her entire vibe just popped my third eye wide open. I was like, Clandestino? What’s THAT? Anyway, on her encouragement I bought this skimpy little nothing Priscavera dress, it was made of woven silver chainmail and I was obsessed with it, even though I wore it out of my room only once, maybe, because I’m actually a big prude. Last week I went to a pasta making class with Priscavera at Pepe Rosso, an Italian Restaurant in Soho, and learned how to make these delicate semolina curls of pasta. All the gorgeous NYC girls like Ella Snyder and SickySab and Sophia Wilson were there in these truly luscious numbers, rolling up their sleeves, donning custom aprons, and making an absolute mess. I think I was somebody’s Nonna in a past life.

  

• Tuesday night I read at a two-story Burger King in FiDi for Matt Starr’s Perverted Book Club (he lit a menorah, read his really funny, really filthy poetry). Candace Bushnell performed a raunchy piece from her one-woman show about having a three-way with a “lady of the night”! James Frey read a funny prose/poem about a porny Mr. Claus, ready to deliver a big package. Jemima Kirke read from her dating column at Elle Magazine, and I think delivered the most apt advice of the night which was that some people just aren’t meant to have one-night-stands and there’s no use forcing yourself to do something you just don’t enjoy. Also, her writing is snippy and simple, a style I love—“Brevity is the soul of wit” afterall. Speaking of brevity I read an Eve Babitz deep cut from Ms. Magazine about having “Big Tits” (very personal to me). I love this piece but it is terribly edited, so I did a hatchet job on it which I will include here. I felt sure that nobody would notice that I actually rewrote swaths of this essay, except, of course, an Eve Babitz scholar. Lucky for me the current Eve Babitz scholar was the surprise reader of the night: Lili Anolik. Thankfully she absolved me of my editorial sins.

• I had a hot girls who write professionally symposium at Cafe Mogador with Danya Issawi, Marlowe Granados, and Layla Halabian. Across the restaurant Ice Spice and Myha’la were having lunch... still wondering what they were talking about…taking guesses.