Energizing content for the easily exhausted
On a mafia boss, a woman accused of murder, a reality TV star, and a running influencer
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Last weekend, I was hit out of nowhere with a massive wave of fatigue. I had no other symptoms to suggest it was a flu or cold of some kind, but, mindful of what had happened when I’d pushed past exhaustion last year, I decided to take the last two weeks extremely easy.
While I don’t have the flexibility to adjust or reduce my work schedule, my typical weekends involve: exercise classes; an hour-long subway commute to Brooklyn Heights to visit family and friends; exploring bakeries, coffee shops, and stores in various neighborhoods; and trying new restaurants with friends. I love my weekends, but I made the executive decision that the last two would involve significantly reduced levels of borough-hopping and buzzing around.
As a result, I’ve found myself with vast expanses of free time, but, given I’ve only just finished fighting off the fatigue (still no clue what caused it), my mental energy has been more limited than usual. I haven’t been able to give the FT more than a cursory glance, and I had to put aside my attempts to work my way through The Sopranos in favor of trashier pastures.
It was, in fact, my inability to make progress on my Sopranos journey (especially given the speed at which I worked through Game of Thrones during summer 2023), that served as the impetus for this newsletter. I sent a voice-note this morning to my friend and noted Sopranos superfan Caroline1, where I explained the stagnation, noting that I’d basically been able to consume TikTok videos and not much more over the past two weeks, but that I was coming out on the other side and ready to jump back in. She suggested I write a newsletter about the content I consumed when I just couldn’t hack the prestige stuff2, and HERE WE ARE. And, in looking back on the past two weeks, I’ve realized that some of this very content has been responsible for pulling me out of that mental slump. So, whether you’re in a place of too-tired-to-function now (apparently there was some sort of astrological phenomenon that caused this, but I didn’t look it up, so…take my word for it, I guess?) or want to bookmark this for later, consider it a list of go-to recs for energizing the exhausted soul.
The one TV series that got my attention:
It should be abundantly clear by now that prestige TV was not in the cards for these last two weeks. What was in the cards, you ask? A Body in the Snow: the Trial of Karen Read. It’s the riveting documentary on the trial of Karen Read, who was accused in 2022 of running her boyfriend, police officer John O’Keefe, over with a car on a night visit to the home of one of John’s cop friends. Read not only wholly denies she did it, but also suggests that those in the house they were visiting were involved, and that they framed Karen in order to protect the police force. It all goes down in Canton, Massachusetts, and it’s a fascinating study of the fierce communities that form in small towns, and also truly impossible to stop watching given all of the twists and turns. If you haven’t watched it yet, get on Max and do it. I promise you’ll be hooked. I haven’t binged a show like that since Rivals.
The read I raced through:
At the beginning of April, I went to see A Streetcar Named Desire at BAM, a birthday gift from two friends (TY, Sam and Euan<3). While I’m almost always vehemently opposed to looking a gift horse in the mouth…I did not think the play was particularly good (the reason I feel fine about it in this case: Sam liked it even less than I did). My plan was to read the play, watch the Brando film, and compare all three versions. I was even going to build my own (virtual) Streetcar set (a major issue I took with the BAM production) out of chic furniture I could find online, but…I couldn’t really get into a reading rhythm with the play, so I put it down in favor of something more engaging.
That book was Gold Rush, journalist Olivia Petter’s first novel. I read and reviewed her first book, Millennial Love for the MailerLite (TBT) iteration of this newsletter all the way back in 2021, and have read a lot of her journalism, so I knew I liked her writing style. The premise was up my alley, too: a young publicist at a fashion magazine sleeps with a megastar on a night out—but she doesn’t really remember it. As she attempts to piece together what happened and it becomes increasingly clear she was assaulted, she starts to feel isolated from friends and colleagues who believe she should consider herself lucky for being involved with him at all, and the others she doesn’t tell because she knows they won’t understand. It’s a story about celebrity culture, the excuses we make for the people we revere, power dynamics, and consent. I read it in one sitting, and 10/10 recommend. It’s an excellent choice for fans of The List (SO good and soon to be a television series, I hear) and What Red Was.
The podcasts I finished:
Once I finished Gold Rush, I headed immediately to the podcast feed of Straight Up, which has been my favorite pop-culture podcast since the High Low spirited itself off our Spotify accounts.
Kathleen and Ellie, the journalists that co-host the show, had interviewed Olivia (Ellie and Olivia had interned at British Vogue back in the day), and they discussed everything from celebrity culture to the bachelorette parties (“hens”) to the bygone days of print media. It’s a fabulous listen, as are all of their other episodes.
Straight Up comes out on Thursday mornings US time, and my walk to the park while I listen is the highlight of my workweek mornings. I don’t always agree with them, and they don’t always agree with each other, but their willingness to share opinions, even when unpopular, keeps me interested. Though their solo pop culture debriefs are my favorite, on last week’s episode, they interviewed Elizabeth Day, which then led me back to her podcast, How to Fail (I’m a lapsed listener; the episode with Mo Gawdat is a must if you’ve never listened), where I thoroughly enjoyed her interviews with Love Island UK icon Olivia Attwood and reality television king Andy Cohen.
What the algorithm had in store:
(Literal) social media actives
I’ll be honest, the bulk of content I’ve consumed over the past couple weeks has been via TikTok. BUT: there’s been a shocking upside, and I’d argue what I’ve seen there has been the most motivating. Stay with me…
It’s no secret that I am obsessed with London. I crave London on a cellular level and ultimately want to live there for at least a few years at some point in time. In the meantime, content created by those who live in London is going to have to suffice.
A couple weeks ago, Caroline (of earlier-in-the-newsletter fame) told me that she’d been watching TikToks from a content creator that worked a corporate job but also led a life that, at least to an outside viewer, looked like a blast. Instead of simply asking for her name, I googled “London corporate tiktoker”3 which is how I accidentally stumbled upon Alexandra Brown and an entire social media subculture I did not know existed.
Alexandra Brown is a corporate lawyer living in Southwest London with her boyfriend. But she’s also a “running girlie,” finishing races and marathons at impressive paces and posting expertly edited videos tracking it all alongside a group of very fit friends. While Alex works, her “running friends,” Mary McCarthy, Lucy Georgia, and Savannah Sachdev, among others, are all full-time running influencers (her boyfriend is too). Recent influencer trips they’ve gone on: a Garnier-sponsored run from Dull, Scotland, to Brighton, England, to celebrate their Vitamin C line (dull to bright, get it?!) and a one-month training trip to Cape Town.
They’re all running the London marathon next week, and I am locked in to the content, which is both wholesome (Sachdev, for example, started running just a few minutes a day to take care of her mental health, and is now on a 1400-day running streak) and not wholly obsessive (they’re young, which could explain this, but they seem to live normal lives, going out and spending time with friends who don’t run—unlike a few of the people in this article).
It was these snappy, inspiring running videos (and the promise of cute summer workout clothes) that got me back out in the park and running for the first time in weeks. Perfect timing with the recently announced Strava acquisition of Runna, a popular UK fitness app that creates curated training plans. I’m doing a free trial to see what the hype is about and so far I’ve been v. impressed with the UX (but my sister’s plans are better—DM me for her info).
A London-based Canadian with impeccable vibes:
What I was actually searching for when I happened upon this running enclave was Kait Park’s TikTok account. Park is a London-based Canadian who works a full-time corporate job, but spends her free time truly living her best life eating, drinking, hosting, and cooking. Her pizza party TikTok sold me and I’ve basically watched all of them since. In almost every single one of her WFH videos, she fashions a delicious-looking lunch, which inspired me to go to the Whole Foods that is literally on my doorstep and buy ingredients to get cooking myself lunch again.
There you have it: TikTok got me exercising and cooking again.
The foray back into news consumption:
I got through about one word of this week’s FT before abandoning it in favor of the magazine, which I almost never read. It was the wedding special, so I didn’t have high hopes (I’ve never been inclined to view other people’s wedding content, not before, during, or after the planning of my own), but I was hooked by the first feature. It was an interview with cake artist and food stylist Sophia Stolz (a hot topic,
did a feature on the “Instagram cake economy” last week), who charmed me right away.Stolz describes her relationship with cakes as built on three pillars: “craftsmanship, ephemeral creativity, and the fact that everyone loves cake.” More importantly, she offers up tips for mooching a custom lighter from the Ritz Paris, recommends a book called Furiously Happy that both my mom and I will be ordering, and, most importantly, speaks my language when it comes to the differences between dark or milk chocolate—when asked what indulgence she would never forgo, she answers: “I could say dark chocolate with a little bit of salt, blah blah. But I just love Galaxy Minstrels and Cadbury Buttons.” Read it here.
Once I was officially motivated enough to move out of the exclusively audiovisual realm, I also enjoyed a number of Substacks: Three Extraordinary Memoirs from
has me ready to dip back into that genre with Sad Tiger and Mayhem. As someone clearly obsessed with “day in the life” content, I devoured ’s piece, The 9-to-5 Pretenders, and, along those same lines, ’s Beauty Rituals of Finance People.That’s all for now! If you’re new here, we’re typically a bit punchier and more structured…but I’m working on CONSISTENCY and you are getting this newsletter in your inbox every Sunday come hell (nothing to write about) or high water (an abundance of topics)! SEE YA NEXT WEEK!
I’m watching for two reasons: one, because I want to, and two, because Caroline said if I watched it she would watch Game of Thrones.
My day job involves a LOT of SEO, no need to push it with the query creativity on a weekend…
Excellent post as always