Public Consumption: Week of June 24

in the swing of summer, but you wouldn't know it by my viewing habits

One thing about me is that I’m going to overcommit myself.

But Adrienne, you say, it’s summer, surely that means that you have more time than ever to stream, binge, watch, read, eat, & every other variation of the word “consume.”

Oh you sweet summer child, I will reply. This month I have a new book hitting shelves, need to add at least 20,000 words to my current work in progress, and also should probably do my day job (if you are my employer this is a joke, I am very committed to my role and also this was scheduled to publish in advance).

Also, I have a baby cold, which is making me grumpy. Here’s to over-reliance on local honey in case it’s allergies and Stash’s Earl Gray with Bergamot tea which is my sick-tea of choice. Should have added that to the matrix…

1. Patterns in Repeat (a Substack by Laura Marling) — Where others learned guitar by playing Wonderwall by Oasis, Mr. Jones & Me by the Counting Crows and Daughters by John Mayer (looking at you, every boy at my high school), I navigated the strings with internet tablature of Laura Marling songs. I was awed by her precise use of language, the way she approached songs as full narratives, and the references that spilled from her lips. Her music was reverent. Her persona mysterious. Her stage presence magnanimous. I’ve seen her play live on both coasts multiple times. Sometimes when I’m sad, I still sit in the dark and listen to Once I Was an Eagle. Her style and precision is entrenched within me. Her penchant for drop D tuning inspired one of the best songs I’ve ever written.
   
   Her last album of solo work, Songs for Our Daughter, was released in 2020. Artists don’t own us art, time, or explanations, but I have missed her greatly in the years between then and now. She is back, albeit in a slightly different way: on Substack. She has only shared a few posts, but already she is pulling away the curtain on what songwriting means to her, the art, creators, and world around her that impact, inspire, and infiltrate her craft. Obviously, I have subscribed. There’s an intimacy to her prose, as though she’s allowing the reader these discoveries alongside her. I am grateful for the openness. I am eager for more.

2. Occhipinti Wines — If you are a wine drinker and ever have the opportunity to purchase a bottle of Arianna Occhipinti’s wine, take it. Preferably from a wine store, because restaurant markup is real (albeit necessary for their margins). An Italian winemaker who learned the ropes from her uncle, the producer of COS wines, Arianna Occhipinti’s work is transcendent, and not just in the way that pretentious people talk about wine—in the way that people who genuinely drink wine for the exploration of the world it offers, a glance at the soil, climate, and terroir of another country, at how grapes can be tended to, prepared, and coaxed into something stunning, and for the taste of it, because this wine is delicious.
   
   Over many years of New York City dining, long conversations with sommeliers, and the fortune of living near a very well stocked wine store, we know exactly what we like¹. That tends to be light bodied reds from Beaujolais and Jura, the Central Coast of California, Castillo y Leon, and more. Italian wines are intimidating, and many of them far too heavy for the vegetable forward meals we² make at home. Enter: Occhipinti.
   
   On her website, Arianna talks about “respecting the wine as if they were a person”, and that attention is clear in the work she produces. This is special occasion, silky wine, perfect enjoyed outside during the summer or fall with a slight chill and a light breeze. This wine is superior, not just for a “female winemaker” but for any winemaker. She also makes an incredibly difficult to find³ Grapa which will change your life.

3. Orphan Black (streaming on Prime / AMC+) — After the dud of a first episode of Orphan Black: Echoes (see below), I decided to revisit the source material. If you have not yet this 2013-2017 Canadian scifi/thriller starring Tatiana Maslany, WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR? This show is incredible—a twisty, almost incomprehensible scifi plot about human clones where Tatiana Maslany plays 10+ characters with such a high degree of skill that you literally forget there is only one actor in all these scenes.
   
   It is not a perfect show by any means—the only Black main character is a cop, there’s squishy handling of the character of Tony, a clone who is trans, Cosima is white and wears her hair in dreadlocs—and the first two seasons are certainly the strongest, but if you are a writer or an actor, it is work watching solely for the character study and performance of Tatiana Maslany. Her talent is in full display especially in scenes with herself, the accent work, physicality, mannerisms, and transformations are a thing of beauty. Sometimes, there are scenes where one clone is pretending to be a different clone, which breaks my brain if I think about it for too long. She is so beyond talented, and it’s a fun that’s definitely not how science works kind of watch that would probably make my dad angry but doesn’t bother me.

4. Orphan Black: Echoes (Sundays on AMC)— As a society, I fear we are far too focused on creating art with the purpose of being successful, rather than creating for creation’s sake. It’s hard to make good art when you are so focused on winning you’ll do whatever you think it takes, regardless of the cost. It is also difficult to understand what success truly looks like⁴. Perhaps that’s why people are far more willing to spin-off, reboot, or remake successful television shows and films, rather than opening the door for something new. Sometimes, that is successful (although as I currently scramble for an example, I am coming up empty-handed). Other times, it ends with too-complicated drivel, a concept overworked and under-executed.
   
   As stated above, I loved Orphan Black so much that I have watched the series in its entirety twice (soon to be three times, as you saw above), that when I saw there was a spin-off starring Krysten Ritter (again, usually a slam dunk), I immediately texted my wife in all caps.
   
   I took caps locks off after the first episode.
   
   As a writer used to the complexity of establishing a brand new world from page (or in this case minute) one, I won’t judge the series in its entirety until the end of the first season. Set thirty-seven years after Orphan Black, Lucy (Ritter) is on a search to understand herself, where she came from, and why she woke up in a laboratory with a doctor observing her every move. Fans of the original series will delight in the knowledge that the doctor is Kira—Sarah Manning’s daughter—all grown up. For most of episode one, we follow Lucy two years later, whose rural life is blown up when she is located by ~someone~ trying to bring her back to the city and the study.
   
   This show has the makings of something campy albeit quality: Krysten Ritter, a theme song by Julien Baker, writing credit to the original Orphan Black show runners. But until I’ve watched a few episodes, I won’t know for sure how close they’ll get to the magic of the original.

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1. and how to explain what we like in order to be introduced to something new—a very important skill if you want to expand your wine knowledge!

2. my wife

3. apparently, we need to blame Stanley Tucci for the current scarcity of her imports. everyone is clamoring to get their hands on this wine now, but I definitely didn’t learn about her from him, I learned about Occhipinti from Andre Hueston Mack.

4. a problem equally pervasive in publishing