THE HOLIDAYS

A Cultural Serving

May 8

A Cultural Serving

THE HOLIDAYS

The school-year tradition of long holiday breaks does not always translate into adulthood, but that ethos of rest and respite is worth emulating. While we may not yet be able to hibernate entirely or take our relaxation to the extremes of, say, an Ottessa Moshfegh protagonist, slowing down is certainly welcome as is preparing for another year ahead. Don this pajama set for a day in catching up on the titles you’ve missed or on the stack of lit mags (RIP Astra and Bookforum) you’re hoping to crack open before the new year.

“What is often forgotten about Kathy Acker, sexual runaway and post-punk icon, is that she had perfect manners…It was Christmas. I said, ‘Kathy, we need to make custard.’” The writer Jeanette Winterson offered this unexpected anecdote a few years back about the unabashed Acker, who is now the subject of a much anticipated biography exploring her life and work. An experimental novelist and proclaimed plagiarist, Acker rejected singular notions of the self and constructed narratives by pulling from authors like Dickens, the Marquis de Sade, and Violette Leduc, to name a few. The critic Maggie Doherty describes Acker’s work as asking, “not ‘Who am I?’ but, rather, in a more philosophical key, what it meant to have an ‘I’—or several.”

Acker’s unwillingness to acquiesce to convention seems to stand in stark contrast to this domestic, somewhat traditional act of custard making, and yet it also shows that Acker wasn’t one to reconcile her perhaps contradictory impulses. As Winterson shares, she and her friend did whisk up the eggy dessert and enjoy it together on a New York night, a tidbit to contemplate as many of us return to childhood homes, visit with loved ones, and attempt to make sense of ourselves during this particularly nostalgic time of year.

Looking to the other end of literary gastronomy we might find the poet Emily Dickinson who, unlike Acker, was a notable baker and often wrote in the kitchen as she worked, sometimes using labels or chocolate wrappers as vessels for verse. One standout recipe is her gingerbread that takes about 35 minutes to bake, which is coincidentially the perfect amount of time to dip into her oeuvre.

Season for celebration

The holiday season is here and so is the time of gathering. Whether it be a lavish gala courtesy of Truman Capote or a casual get-together in a friend’s home, these celebrations hold potential for conversation, joy, and memories. If you’re hosting and have a flair for the stylized, take a cue in plannng from artist Nadia Lee Cohen, who described her inspiration for a recent dinner party as follows:

“I was picturing the Rothschild Ball (Guy and Marie Hélène de Rothschild’s 1972 Surrealist gala at the Château de Ferrières near Paris) meets (the 1999 Stanley Kubrick film) Eyes Wide Shut: a long table, lit by candlelight, with everyone dressed up and very soft music. I imagined all the courses on the table, similar to how they are presented in the (1989 Peter Greenaway) movie The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover.

Cohen also references the surrealist dining bible that is Dalí’s Les dîners de Gala, which includes recipes for delicacies like thousand year old eggs, frog pasties, and toffee with pine cones. Pair these dishes with bottles from the artist’s 1978 The Wines of Gala, and of course, follow his trenchent credo: “A real connoisseur does not drink wine but tastes of its secrets.”

In the mood for an outing

It’s worth stowing away a few hours between dinners and gatherings to visit The Jewish Museum this month for New York: 1962–1964. As its title suggests, the exhibition is an ode to the city and the rich culture it fostered during such a short stint. On view through early January are works created in New York during this period, including pieces by Diane Arbus, Isamu Noguchi, and Agnes Martin, to name a few. If you’re traveling for the holidays, tune in for Dancing in the City on December 22 to get a glimpse of the experimental choreographies that emerged during these years.

Those staying in the city might also visit the Metograph for its annual cinematic celebration, which includes classics like Ikiru, Phantom Thread (which is remarkable for its holiday apathy), and the aforementioned Eyes Wide Shut.