First published on Daily Life, April 2016. Marnie Michaels recently discovered how far people can deviate from their former selves. In a recent poignant Girls episode, Marnie, who’s played by Allison Williams, finds out that Charlie, the long-lost boyfriend who was once devoted enough to carry around her retainer, is no longer the rich tech bro who […]
My Sex and the City boxed set is gathering dust in the back of a drawer but I can’t bring myself to throw it out. Ten years ago, a friend and I, jobless and aimless, put on it repeat and watching Carrie, Samantha, Miranda and Charlotte turn to each other again and again brought our […]
Somewhere between the demise of American Apparel and the unmasking of Gavin McInnes, the Vice co-founder who penned an openly transphobic essay for Thought Catalog last August, an appetite for sincerity and self-improvement has seen irony lose its edge. Last year, Emily Gould, the former gossip columnist credited with inventing Internet snark published a heartfelt memoir about […]
The answer has almost nothing to do with the writer’s emotional context and everything to do with the fact that quest narratives belong to a Western literary tradition in which “finding yourself” hinges on the presence of a far-flung Other, whose authenticity brings your own truth sharply into focus. The scenery might switch between Kerouac’s […]
