It's time for Flashback Summer

Plus: what's coming up for paid subscribers this fall

How often do you watch your old favorite movies? I don’t mean your favorite classic movies; I mean the movies that used to be your favorites. In high school, I spent a lot of time in my parents’ basement, curled up on the threadbare couch, watching the same movies I always checked out from Blockbuster or Family Classic Video. And some of those movies stuck around into adulthood…for example, I’ve rewatched Pretty in Pink very often as an adult, I’m always rewatching Nora Ephron, and I recently rewatched both The Wedding Singer and Punch-Drunk Love (inside you are two Adam Sandlers…).

But so many of my high school favorites stayed firmly in the past, and I thought that’s where they belonged. Until now, that is, because I decided to spend the rest of summer rewatching my beloved high school favorites. These are the movies I’ve seen a million times, the ones I used to have memorized, the ones that kept me company when I would have otherwise been alone. At 17, I loved these movies and made them my entire personality. But what will I think of them now? Will I love them in the same way, or in an entirely different way? What if I dislike them now? Will they chafe against my current sense of self, uncomfortably reminding me of who I used to be? I don’t know, and I’m curious!

I loved a lot of films as a teenager, a few of which I’ve already covered (The Wedding Singer, Say Anything). But here’s what I’m considering watching and writing about here:

-Lost in Translation

-Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

-Tampopo

-Ghost World

-Annie Hall and Manhattan (because I’ve been reading Claire Dederer’s Monsters!)

-Me and You and Everyone We Know

-Punch-Drunk Love

-Noi the Albino (a deep cut, but I checked this out REPEATEDLY at Blockbuster and I remember absolutely nothing about it)

And I’m sure there are more I can’t remember right now. Most of these films are about adults, so I’m curious to see what I think about them now that I am one.

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I’ve been thinking about how to make this newsletter more exciting for paid subscribers, and also more exciting for me because I am, if you think about it, a paid subscriber to my own life. And finally I hit upon it: what if I do a reread of my number one favorite childhood series, the books that live inside my heart, the ones I look back fondly upon when I think about being a kid and reading book after book in the summer? I’m talking about, of course, the Alice series by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor.

Not to say I didn’t connect with Judy Blume as a kid (once I was reading Here’s to You, Rachel Robinson with my extremely religious grandmother and she told my mom I shouldn’t be allowed to read such a racy book because the girls were talking about how if a boy had leg hair it meant he had “experience,” lol), but these were my formative books. And, sure, this is where I learned a lot of information about puberty, sex, bodies, etc. But mostly what I learned from these books was that life is embarrassing. Alice was constantly getting herself into embarrassing situations, sometimes because of her actions and sometimes just because things happen. She also had a wildly dramatic love life (I’ll be honest, though, I still think she could’ve done better than Patrick). And her home life was both sad (her mom died when she was little) and wonderfully cozy (her dad ran a music store! Her brother was named LESTER and was forever deciding between two girlfriends, Marilyn and Crystal!). I loved Aunt Sally. Carol. Pamela and Elizabeth.

There are specific scenes in these books that I think about all the time, so it seemed like a good idea to do a reread. This is kind of a throwback to how I started my public writing career: writing about young adult books for a website (that’s how I know a good portion of you!). Starting in September (or August, if I really get my life together), I’ll be writing about one Alice book a month for paid subscribers. Paid subscribers will still get a monthly roundup and whatever else I want to talk about behind a paywall. We’ll have fun! The Alice books will probably make me cry!

That’s it for now! We just got back from a wild trip to Legoland and New York City, and I need to watch lots of Nothing Happens Cinema to mentally and physically recover. If you need me, I’ll be busy taking yet another trip…this time, down MEMORY LANE!!! See you soon. xo