Off the Clock: What the Lit Hub Staff is Doing This Weekend

Because I am incapable of loving anything a normal and judicious amount, I will be attending my third screening of Phantom Thread on Saturday night, this time with a live score performed by the London Contemporary Orchestra, at BAM. I anticipate weeping more violently than ever before when (spoiler?) the ghost of Woodcock’s mother silently appears to him. I’m also making my way through Lisa Locascio’s debut novel Open Me, forthcoming from Grove this August. It’s a surprising, bodily coming-of-age story at the intersection of one young American woman’s sexual awakening and the tense political environment in which she finds herself—an unfamiliar town in Jutland, at the mercy of a xenophobic Dane. Last but not least, I’d like to check out artist (and beloved Philadelphian) Alex Da Corte’s new spooky, neon show at Karma, “C-A-T Spells Murder”; the accompanying book features a dizzyingly great roster of writers, including Tommy Pico and Jia Tolentino.

–Jess Bergman, Features Editor

It is now my turn to enjoy the Lit Hub office’s single copy of Ottessa Moshfegh’s My Year of Rest and Relaxation, so I will be resting and relaxing with our increasingly beat-up galley (but also trying not to relax too much, lest I drop the precious jewel in the bathtub) this weekend. I’ve also carved out some time to watch A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night, which I still haven’t seen—and a rainy, oddly-warm February weekend seems the perfect time to finally get around to watching a black-and-white Iranian vampire western.

–Emily Temple, Features Editor

In between saying hello to some friends in town and reminiscing about cooperative housing hijinks, I’ll be spending the weekend with some f**ed up families, the South Korean edition. As soon as I leave work on Friday, I’ll be burning through the rest of You-Jeong Jeong’s new psychological thriller The Good Son (coming out in the US this June), in which an unstable young man wakes up to find his mother has been murdered and all clues point to him. Then, since every page of this book reminds me of the Bong Joon-ho film Mother, I’ll be rewatching this quietly terrifying film immediately after I finish this book. Man, am I glad not to have kids.

–Molly Odintz, Crime Reads Editor

This weekend I am planning to watch Black Magic a documentary about the history of basketball at Historically Black Colleges and Universities (which I’ve been thinking about a lot since reading Jelani Cobb’s New Yorker piece last month). And while I’ve never quite gotten into podcasts, in anticipation of CrimeReads (Lit Hub’s new crime site launching at the end of the month), I’m going to try the recently recommended West Cork, about the Sophie Toscan du Plantier murder.

–Emily Firetog, Managing Editor

Eight years ago FSG put out Jamie McKendrick’s bilingual selection of Valerio Magrelli’s poems, work full of startling and uncanny images. Buses are “at every stop/delivered of a sigh/that seems a prayer.” He notes how in photography “the flash cuts the umbilical cord/of the light.” I’m going to spend some of the weekend with them. Poems like these create space in time by opening it up. I’m sure I’ll spend every bit of time I gain on Gomorrah, the sumptuously-shot mafia megaseries based on Roberto Saviano’s book. I’ll probably also go get Roxane Gay and TaNehisi Coates’ World of Wakanda. After seeing the movie last weekend I kept thinking there was a whole other film in the lives of the Dora Milaje. Finally, I’ll be in Santa Fe this coming week with Aleksandar Hemon for an event so I’m rereading his charming 2009 collection Love and Obstacles, which I love, but which makes me a bit sad, as it reminds me one of the best short story writers in English is coming up on ten year’s hiatus from the form he made it seemed he was sewn into from birth.

–John Freeman, Executive Editor

CrimeReads, our new spinoff, is launching soon, and as part of my very official and solemn duties for that soon to be august publication, I’m rewatching 1990s crime movies with an eye toward ranking them. So that means, this weekend under near-laboratory conditions, I’ll be watching some number of L.A. Confidential, Out of Sight, Heat, Miller’s Crossing, Seven, Clockers, Jackie Brown, Primal Fear, and The Silence of the Lambs, among many, many others. If there’s time for books, I’ll dip in and out of The Corporation, TJ English’s upcoming history of Cuban-American organized crime.

–Dwyer Murphy, Crime Reads Editor

I’ve seen both the movies currently playing at the local small-town cinema (Black Panther and Peter Rabbit) so Saturday night will be reserved for watching a hockey game with the six-year-old, specifically the wonderful Toronto Maple Leafs vs. the truly dreadful Boston Bruins. When the dust settles I’ll return to David Keenan’s novel, This Is Memorial Service, which I’m reading not least for its setting in the west of Scotland.

–Jonny Diamond, Editor in Chief

This weekend I’m excited to do some non-subway, big headphones listening to Minneapolis rapper, singer, spoken word artist, writer, and all-round boss Dessa’s new album, Chime, which drops today. I’m also looking forward to reading more of Tadzio Koelb’s electrifying debut, Trenton Makes, about a woman in post-war New Jersey who kills her army veteran husband in a domestic brawl, disposes of his body, and assumes his identity. Finally, two increasingly unhinged men who straight up don’t like each other go to war at 9am EST Sunday morning when José Mourinho’s Man United take on Antonio Conte’s Chelsea, so I’ll be setting the alarm for that one.

–Dan Sheehan, Book Marks Editor 

Having fallen in love with Clarice Lispector’s writing through her Complete Stories, which New Directions published in 2015, I’m very much looking forward to reading their forthcoming translation of her second novel, The Chandelier. I’m also planning on seeing the Peter Hujar exhibit at the Morgan Library; they also have a show on “Medieval Time,” which I’ll probably also look at because it’s as close as I’ll get to Medieval Times Dinner & Tournament without going to New Jersey.

–Blair Beusman, Associate Editor