a random review of march
NYC, movies, cake, music, books, & things
March was quite the month, mostly because I went to NYC for 3 days that first week. Saw a play, experienced Brooklyn for the first time, saw my grandmother, didn’t sleep much. The rest of March, I definitely spent in an isolation induced funk, but the silver lining was that there was so much new art to ingest. I went to the movie theater basically every week for $10 Tuesday. (I’m shocked that I’m becoming a movie theater person in adulthood.) There was finally new music to put on playlists with the first proper album releases on the year and some fun 5 year anniversary bonus tracks. I found new books and an amazing chocolate cake recipe and got into proper junk journaling.
So let’s do some lightning round reviewing:
speed run of the NYC Trip
Ace Hotel Brooklyn - Honestly, 10/10 pleased with the hotel. Gorgeous lobby with a photo booth (?!), a giant gorgeous window that overlooked the bridges, perfectly quiet, and an easy spot to get everywhere from. Highly recommend if you’re looking for a spot to Brooklyn, particularly one close to BAM.
Greenlight Books - My favorite bookstore from the trip. Homey, very thoughtfully curated, aware, and well stocked. I hope I get to visit it again. For my thoughts on all the bookstores I visited in NYC, they’re on my blog.
Breakfast at Tiffany’s - The restaurant in the Tiffany’s store is obviously going to be a novelty. A bit American Girl Store for grown-ups. But the bathroom was a sight to behold.
Bergdorf Goodman - As a girl who’s always had a soft-spot for fashion and has spent most of her conscious life in a town with one decent (albeit very small) clothing store, there was something Disneyland-like about the seven floors of Bergdorf’s, even though the prices are eye watering.
MOMA Cafe - I love sitting in a museum cafe and talking for hours as the main activity at the museum. A glance at the art, a sugary drink, and good conversation. It’s my default for wasting time on rain days.
Nobu 57 - Even my grandmother who won’t eat sushi declared this the best meal of the trip. A truly cool atmosphere with plenty of corner booths, even for small tables, and the strawberry cream cake was a peak culinary moment. It’s so rare that dessert at restaurants isn’t way too sweet.
Williamsburg - I feel like I did Williamsburg totally wrong and failed to find the magic outside of finally getting to visit Catbird in person.
A Streetcar Named Desire - This play has stuck with me deeply despite not being familiar with it going in and having generally low expectations. So well acted by all three leads—Patsy Ferran, Paul Mescal, and Anjana Vasan—and staged in a fashion that highlighted its enduring relevancy. The whole reason for the trip, and it delivered. Also, Paul Mescal falls squarely into the meet your idols camp because he was incredibly kind and lovely at stage door. He even won over my grandma who had no clue who he was before the trip.
the movies
Foe - This movie’s conceptualization is as fragmented and confused as the reviews said back in 2023. What a waste when you have Paul and Saoirse. But I’m still thinking about it weeks later, so that’s something…
Anora - This was the start of my movie theater going this month, and I actually wrote a formal review of it because (despite it having been way easier if I hadn’t on a moral dilemma front) I really enjoyed this movie for what it was. Here’s the newsletter I wrote about it.
Snow White - I had a friend who had been looking forward to live action Snow White because of Rachel Zegler for months. The only thing that made this viewing experience worthwhile was making “wtf is happening” faces back and forth at each other in the dark. The additional songs are extremely lackluster, the re-write to include a bandit who desperately wants to be Jonathan Bailey but fails to come close feels extremely awkward, the script can’t decide if it wants to modernize the language or be a fairytale, and Gal Gadot cannot hold an accent to save her life. Also, the evil queen is not camp. She fundamentally misunderstood her entire role.
Mickey 17 - I was nervous about seeing a Bong Joon Ho movie cause I’m squeamish, but, somehow, this was the most uplifting thing I consumed all month. Robert Pattinson is a good actor (surprising no one), as is Patsy Ferran in her small part (which is what got me to finally go see it). Its a bit heavy-handed on being afraid that the audience will miss who the villain is modeled on and doesn’t quite feel like it trusts the viewers and their inference skills, but I was glad I saw it.
the books
Liquid by Mariam Rahmani- This is the only book that really impressed me all month. I love reading about smart characters where that aspect of the narrator’s identity is conveyed effortlessly through the prose. So rich and endlessly fascinating. The first book published in 2025 that’s genuinely impressed me.
Fleabag: The Special Edition - Talk about Fleabag’s enduring legacy—I was reading this thin paperback on the plane, and my seat mate (a middle aged man) leaned over to remark on how incredible Phoebe Waller-Bridge is and ask if I’d seen the show. I’d seen the Scriptures at the bookstore I worked at in 2019, but I didn’t know this version detailing the life of the stage play till I found it at Books Are Magic.
the music
“Dress” by Niall Horan - It’s been five years since Niall played this Heartbreak Weather reject on Instagram Live and left me reeling. How could you cut a song this perfect from the album? After being deeply patient, it’s now mine and is as incredible as I remembered. I don’t think I could ever get sick of this song. Also, all of the 5-years-since-COVID reminders this month were deeply upsetting, but this callback to when I spend hours watching Niall sing songs on his couch through my phone screen (eventually even turning my mother into a devoted fan) reminded me of a part of lockdown I genuinely loved. It’s my one bit of 2020 nostalgia.
“Modigliani” by Lucy Dacus - Lucy Dacus finally released her album, and this is currently my favorite song from it. I love the idea of recognizing someone trying on new mannerisms for size. I wrote a full review in the last newsletter.
I Said I Loved You First by Selena Gomez and Benny Blanco - I still haven’t managed to get through this full album. I like “Call Me When You Break Up” well enough, but the project feels unfocused and uninspired on the whole. I can’t hook into it, and I’m confused about how many spoken interludes there are. I’m usually into those kind of weird textures, but it doesn’t work at all here. However, I’ve really enjoyed their press run for the album. I want a Benny x Selena cooking show.
the food
Guinness Chocolate Cake with Bailey’s Mascarpone Icing - I originally made this cake as something to do on St. Patrick’s Day, and then it was such a hit that my mom requested it two weeks later for her birthday (this time with the addition of heaps of fresh strawberries). I got the cake recipe from Sally’s Baking Addiction but reduced the sugar to a scant 1 1/2 cups (fair warning, my household hates overly sweet things, and I made this cake very much not a bakery standard level sweet. It was a huge hit with the adults and immediately rejected by my brother). The recipe makes for a delicious chocolate cake with an incredible spongey texture, but fair warning, it sinks horribly in the middle. I skipped Sally’s icing and went with one I found briefly on Instagram and didn’t save but consisted of heavy cream, mascarpone, powdered sugar, vanilla, and Bailey’s to make a sort of stabilized whipped cream. I’m the world’s biggest icing hater, but this stuff is my kryptonite. I think this is my new go-to cake.
the hobbies
junk journaling - I’ve always saved random scraps in the folder in the back of my year-long bullet journal and then taped them into the blank pages at the end of the year, but usually, at that point, I’m tired and not giving it much effort. This year, I’ve decided to make these pages every few months, and I put some serious time into cutting up my Streetcar playbill and artfully placing my other New York detritus into true scrapbook pages that (I think) look cool. It was actually a lot of fun, though it did make me feel peak unemployed spending so much time cutting and gluing little scraps of paper.
the things I failed to do
child locking my phone - I spent February with my phone basically on lockdown. I set the screen time feature to restrict use of everything from Instagram to my Internet browser except for the hours of 10-4:30 when I allowed myself a moment to reconnect with the virtual world and make my bookstagram posts. I took it off for my trip to New York, and never turned it back on. Apparently, I can’t be trusted with my phone, so the child lock is back on, now reduced by another hour. If I can’t have self-control, I guess I have to force it on myself to force myself to do more reading and scrapbooking and playing guitar. Maybe I’ll even go outside.