Observables #6
on The Chair and TikTok experiments gone wrong
The Chair on Netflix with Sandra Oh and Jay Duplass. It has a slightly canned and goofy feel but is also perfect—a bit funny and a slightly feel good comedic tone (like Ted Lasso, but with more female characters of varying ages). Something about a show set in the profession so many of my family members have navigated felt validating. Yes, academia is as fascinating as a hospital or a detective precinct. Sort of. Sandra Oh as Ji-Yoon Kim is excellent and the storyline with her adopted young daughter and Korean father who finds them both mysterious and hard to reign in is particularly fun.
I asked Nat and Simon, my closest real life academics, what they thought about the show. Nat pointed out that the Ji-Yoon’s office was something! Nobody at York University is sitting in an office like that. And the students in the show sounded like mouthpieces for ideas as opposed to real people finding their words—the way she has experienced students. But still a thumbs up. Simon, who is in Boston for work right now, texted me his thought as our good night task (yes, I can be TOO focused). He said the show hit on a lot of the right themes: tenure, old age, productivity and changes in area of expertise. Next up, polling my mom who spent time as the dean at her university.
I didn’t have a novel this week which is maybe why I feel adrift. I keep taking out more and more books from the library and then not reading any of them because now there are now too many to choose from. So I’m heading to my room now where I will insist that no-one talk to me so I can read something, anything and feel better.
(p.s. Violet and I read Phoebe and Her Unicorn and then I read two pages of Lauren Oyler’s Fake Accounts and then fell asleep.)
Earlier in the week I did read this fascinating article on how spirituality protects against mental suffering, which I am prone to. This researcher writes: “The finding was so clear and stunning, it stopped my breath. The high-spiritual brain was healthier and more robust than the low-spiritual brain. And the high-spiritual brain was thicker and stronger in exactly the same regions that weaken and wither in depressed brains.”
This little rainbow towel, because sometimes as a mother you find yourself wearing the cast offs.
This rainbow towel is Violet’s discard towel now (once it snuggled her 3-year-old body) because it is no longer enough towel. These are the weird sacrifices you make as a parent, donning the baby towel on your adult body, so your child has what she needs. Perhaps it is also emblematic of a parenting style these days (or my parenting style!) where we are all equal citizens in the family and even Mom can use the baby towel. She’s not special. Sometimes even my parents sit on the floor so the children can take the prime seats. I’m not sure if I should be ashamed or proud of… everyone.
Our first podcast of Sister On! comes out on Wednesday. To promote it, I started a TikTok account on a whim and made my first video. I was proud of my efforts until I saw Elsie’s horrified face. No, Mom. So now I’ve hired her to manage the account. Three bucks a post. You know all our secrets. Unfortunately, all her ideas involve me having to put a bra on and her phone in my face.
“Do I look okay? Normally when I’m on camera I put on make up, you know.”
“You look fine. All I’m filming is your face.”
“Exactly!”
She looks at me blankly. But there you have it, I need her.