The Suit of Swords
Swords are the suit of conflict, truth, and communication, and we’re about to launch into ten weeks of Witch’s Marks exploring uncomfortable truths. It’s gonna be fun.
I’m limping toward the finish line of this calendar year, one that has brought me a lot of joy and growth, but plenty of stress and heartache. I need a few weeks to fill up my creative coffers, read my ever-expanding stack of books, and think through how I want to approach this complicated suit of cards.
So I’m going to take a short little hiatus — just a couple of weeks to do some thinking and holidaying, and I’ll be back soon.
In the meantime, as I’m contemplating the suit of swords, I’m thinking about breakthroughs, moments in my life where an uncomfortable truth has been confronted, or a hard-fought boundary has been set, books and movies that have changed how I think about the world or about storytelling. I wanted to share some of these here, in case you too are looking for some spiritual or creative confrontation this holiday season.
I say this all the time, and very few of you take me up on it (no shade, just saying), but I would LOVE to hear from you in the comments. Please share works of art that have blown your mind (either recently or long ago). I would love to spend my holiday reading, watching, listening, and experiencing art that cracks me open. Our current timeline is feeling pretty fucking dark these days, and I want to consume art that helps me understand what is still possible in the world, even if that means accepting a difficult or uncomfortable reality. So please please please weigh in in the comments. I (and your fellow readers) thank you in advance!
Books
Song of Myself by Walt Whitman
I read this poem as a teenager (it's also featured in Dead Poet's Society) and it stirred something in me about the world and my place in it. I was a young person who was desperately seeking, but impossibly practical. It was a hard combination. But the simplicity of Walt’s poetry, its celebration of being and of nature really resonated. I remember distinctly thinking "I hope someone reads this at my funeral":
The spotted hawk swoops by and accuses me,
he complains of my gab and my loitering.
I too am not a bit tamed, I too am untranslatable,
I sound my barbaric yawp over the roofs of the world.
The last scud of day holds back for me,
It flings my likeness after the rest and true as any on the shadow’d wilds,
It coaxes me to the vapor and the dusk.
I depart as air, I shake my white locks at the runaway sun,
I effuse my flesh in eddies, and drift it in lacy jags.
I bequeath myself to the dirt to grow from the grass I love,
If you want me again look for me under your boot-soles.
You will hardly know who I am or what I mean,
But I shall be good health to you nevertheless,
And filter and fibre your blood.
Failing to fetch me at first keep encouraged,
Missing me one place search another,
I stop somewhere waiting for you.
Anti-Diet: Why Obsessing Over What You Eat Is Bad For Your Health by Christy Harrison
Hunger: A Memoir of My Body by Roxane Gay
What We Don’t Talk About When We Talk About Fat by Aubrey Gordon
Scattered Minds: The Origin and Healing of Attention Deficit Disorder by Gabor Mate
The 1619 Project created by Nikole Hannah-Jones
Quit Like A Woman: The Radical Choice to Not Drink in a Culture Obsessed with Alcohol by Holly Whitaker
The Recovering: Intoxication and Its Aftermath by Leslie Jamison
An Immense World: How Animal Senses Reveal The Hidden Realms Around Us by Ed Yong
This science-based book also somehow describes my spiritual understanding of the universe. Essentially it boils down to: we are only experiencing a fraction of reality.
Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and The Teachings of Plants by Robin Wall Kimmerer
Paris: The Memoir by Paris Hilton
I’m currently adapting this book for A24 and Netflix — this book has so much to teach us about resilience and strength, the culture of the early 2000s, the ways we diminish women, and the snap judgements we make about people — I was and continue to be blown away by Paris’s story. Paris is an icon, the master of her own destiny, a hustler and a chameleon in pink. I fucking love her, and this book upended not only my conception of her, but also the way I was taught about femininity, beauty, and what our society expects of women.
The Nature of Consciousness: Essays on the Unity of Mind and Matter by Rupert Spira
Era of Ignition: Coming of Age in a Time of Rage and Revolution by Amber Tamblyn
Dark Sparkler by Amber Tamblyn
For Small Creatures Such as We: Rituals for Finding Meaning in Our Unlikely World by Sasha Sagan
How To Breathe Underwater by Julie Orringer
The Wisdom of Insecurity by Alan Watts
Man Alive: A True Story of Violence, Forgiveness, and Becoming a Man by Thomas Page McBee
Woodworking by Emily St. James — this book is going to be released in early 2025, and you can pre-order it now (I’ve read it because I am very special aka friends with the author). It’s fucking gorgeous. Brilliant, beautiful, suspenseful, funny. My friend, Emily, is a genius. I don’t want to say anymore about it, because I want you to just read it. For real. Pre-order this book right now.
The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion
Plays
There are far too many plays that have changed my life. Here are just a few:
Far Away by Caryl Churchill
Blasted by Sarah Kane – this play is amazing, but what really changed my life was this production, starring one of my dearest friends Marin Ireland (years before I ever met her). This production completely changed my perception about what was possible on stage.
The Pillowman by Martin McDonagh
The Mistakes Madeline Made by Liz Meriwether
A Long Day’s Journey Into Night by Eugene O’Neill
The Man Who Had All the Luck by Arthur Miller
Uncommon Women and Others by Wendy Wasserstein
August: Osage County by Tracey Letts
Movies
There are a million movies that have moved me or taught me about storytelling. The following movies, however, are the ones that stand out as creative inspiration to me from my earliest days until now:
Titanic (I saw this four times in the theaters at 14 years old)
Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade
Mission Impossible (every single last one of them — Tom Cruise is a national treasure — he gets a pass from me on the Scientology. I know that’s inconsistent with my values, but the heart wants what it wants).
Everything Everywhere All At Once
Jurassic Park (like Dawson from Dawson’s Creek, I’m a huge fan of the up and coming film director, Steven Spielberg) - I love so many things about this movie – I love a teaser with a bunch of characters we don't see again. I love the way that Spielberg uses sound and vibration to build suspense and horror. I love Jeff Goldblum trying to seduce Laura Dern with a droplet of water. I love people taking off their sunglasses to look at something amazing.
Podcasts
The Telepathy Tapes by Ky Dickens — I’ve spoken about this before, and I highly recommend.
WTF with Marc Maron – Zack and I drove cross country many years ago and we listened to hours of Marc Maron's interviews. He's one of the best to ever do it – and if you're interested, start with these.
Music
You know how there are some songs that you listen to over and over again when you need to feel all the things? My ADHD makes repetitive listening really satisfying. When I listen to a song that I love, that speaks to me on some deeper level about something I’m going through (or have gone through), I’ll play that song on repeat until it has soaked entirely into my psyche, until has become a part of me (and until I'm so sick of it that I can't listen to it again for another six months). I’ve made you a playlist of some of the music that I’ve absorbed in that very specific and obsessive way — these are all songs I’ve listened to thousands of times because they resonate with some unspoken part of me that only music can express.
Television
Some day I'll really talk about all of the TV that I love, but for now, I think it's important to tell you that Vanderpump Rules is modern Shakespeare.