Mozart, Meg Ryan and a MiniMoon

A midweek catch-up

Oct 02, 2024

Hi My Lovely Reader! How is your week going? I’m having a particularly exciting one which I promise to tell you all about soon, when it’s all done. In the meantime I’ve put together a few fun and inspiring things and also something that has been stressing me out quite a bit lately. Don’t worry, I’ll share my coping mechanism too, in case the same thing’s been keeping you up at night. Let’s start with something fun. I just finished reading a book I’d like to recommend:

☀︎ The Pulitzer Prize winning memoir Stay True by Hua Hsu

which is a beautiful coming-of-age memoir about friendship and grief. It tells about the author’s time growing up in the South Bay as the child of Taiwanese immigrants, and as an undergrad at UC Berkeley. It’s a time shaped by music, his dislike for what was ‘popular’ at the time, but most of all by his unlikely friendship with Ken. Hua Hsu writes:

“The first time I met Ken, I hated him.
Ken lived too loud a life, at least by my standards. I had met hundreds of him, hundreds of times before. I was eighteen, in love with my moral compass, perpetually suspicious of anyone whose words came too easily. He was a genre of person I actively avoided—mainstream. Ken was flagrantly handsome; his voice betrayed no insecurity. He lived on the fourth floor, just above us, and his room was filled with reminders of who he had been in high school. A photo of his girlfriend back home, white and blond and conventionally pretty. One of him with his friends, dressed up like refs, heckling their crosstown rivals at a basketball game. He had good manners, which served him well at his after-school job selling children's shoes at a department store. He was adept at charming both sticker-shocked parents and their impatient children. He could treat a hangover, and he opened the door for others. He knew how to order at restaurants. He seemed eager for adult life.”

The book is filled with details from the mid-90s like Nirvana, Zines, Casey Kasem and MTV’s The Real World. I found myself reliving the decade in such a real way. But ultimately, the story is a tribute to a beautiful friendship, which I got the sense that the author often felt he was undeserving of but will spend the rest of his life trying to live up to. It’s a story that doesn’t have a grandiose plot to it— there’s one big event that you know will happen going into it if you’ve read the back cover copy—which by no means makes it a slow read. Just the opposite: Hua Hsu’s prose has an elusive quality that makes it hard to put down.

Did you hear that

☀︎ a lost Mozart composition was rediscovered in a library in Germany.

Known as Serenate ex C or Eine Ganz Kleine Nachtmusik, the piece consists of seven miniature movements for a string trio. My favourite is the second one which starts at the 1:50 mark. Researchers think Mozart composed the piece in his early teens. Doesn’t this also sound like an intriguing premise for a novel?

Here’s a performance of the piece by a trio from the youth symphony orchestra of the Leipzig School of Music JSB.

I can definitely hear the Mozartien sound of the piece, which reminds me of this fun video of how different composers would rewrite Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. It’s so spot on.

From music to style:

☀︎ I’ve once again tumbled down the Meg Ryan ‘look’ rabbit hole.

It started off with this article, on a phenomenon known as the Meg Ryan Fall. Reading it reminded me of how much I love her style, not only in the three Nora Ephron films When Harry Met Sally, Sleepless in Seattle and You’ve Got Mail, but also in her other ones like French Kiss and City of Angels. Basically in every one of her films I have ever watched. There’s just something about the way she’s dressed in her movies that speaks to me.

I work from home and also spend a lot of my time shuttling (my darling family), cooking and keeping a home breathing, which means my wardrobe looks like t-shirts, leggings, leggings, jeans and jeans. I ‘technically’ do not need a wardrobe that looks like Meg Ryan’s in You’ve Got Mail. Still— fun to dream.

☀︎ We have a visitor in our orbit.

A minimoon the size of a school-bus is currently orbiting our planet alongside our trusted ‘old’ moon. It’s going to be staying for 57 days and departing on the 27th November. Unfortunately we won’t be able to see it without a supersonic telescope, but— it’s cool to know that it’s there.

In streaming news:

☀︎ I binged Netflix’s new show Nobody Wants This in a day.

I had a fun time watching it. It has an amazing cast. The chemistry is great, and the dialogue is witty. But not everyone was happy with it. Now all I’m waiting for is

Beth Lisogorsky

’s take on it, and— I know I’m not the only one:

Sheila Moeschen

, great minds think alike, don’t they?

☁︎ On a more serious note— here’s what’s been stressing me out:

I’m not American, nor do I live in the US, but I do live less than two hours north of the border and the upcoming elections have been stressing me out. With so much at stake, it’s hard not to over consume the news. Also how can, at this point, someone be ‘undecided’, and how does one not get outraged by the lies and the vitriol being spewed? Thankfully we have late night comedy.

And because I want to end on a more positive note,

☀︎ I’ll leave you with this quote from Mary Oliver that I stumbled upon via SwissMiss

“The most regretful people on earth are those who felt the call to creative work, who felt their own creative power restive and uprising, and gave to it neither power nor time.”
― Mary Oliver

Have a great rest of the week.

Until soon,

XO Ingrid

PS. did you know that October is the month Season 2 of The Diplomat comes out? Who else is counting down?