Things I Liked in June
From cheese to sunscreen
Things can change so quickly. Last month, in May, I was doing everything I could to keep my head above water. Thank you to my readers, by the way, for offering so much kindness and support during that time! But June has seen new possibilities open up, new colors. Particularly, a vivid, green optimism; the sort of green that crops up after a forest fire. I feel full of new ideas, and I’m trying to get to them as best I can.
One of them I’m excited about is rewriting and publishing a chapter of ¡Hola Papi! that I wish I could have included in the book, but didn’t. I’ll be putting that here on Substack, so keep an eye out for that if you enjoyed the memoir.
I’m going to try from now on to begin each of these monthly lists with some piece of consumable media that any of my readers can engage with regardless of location. That could be a book, or an album, or a person with a body of work I’ve been enjoying. This month, I am giving Papi’s Seal of Approval to Mexican singer and songwriter Natalia Lafourcade.
De Todas las Flores has had me in a stranglehold for weeks now. Seriously, I will wake up, get my coffee, open up a Google doc, press “play” on the whole thing, and work for hours. The songs are gorgeous, personal, poetic, but also casual, in a way. There’s something shabby chic about the album that makes me feel like I’m in an upscale Mexican cafe, scribbling alone in my notebook while a woman with a guitar sings in the adjacent room.
You know?
Among my favorites on the album: “Maria La Curandera,” a trippy number about a Mexican healer with no shortage of antidotes for all the ails you, and “Pajarito Colibrí,” or “Little Hummingbird,” a song about soothing an anxious creature who’s afraid to live. “Everything will be alright, little hummingbird / You were put on this earth to be happy.” Meanwhile, “Muerte” is a distinctly Mexican celebration of death that sounds like marigolds and dancing skeletons.
This album is what led me to Lafourcade’s project, Un Canto Por México,” a truly stunning work that made me weep when I listened to it. Almost immediately, Lafourcade conjures Mexico, its familiar textures and shapes. I thought of my abuelo, who loves mariachi music and who is in failing health. Whew! It hurts.
McGrath Cheese
Next on the list is cheese.
I decided this would be my summer of picnics, and I’ve been quite intentional about planning them. Sunday is my designated picnic day, because the park near me, McGolrick, turns into a small farmer’s market where one can pick up everything they need for a picnic, including baguettes and creamed honey.
Most importantly, there’s a cheese stand that sells the best cheese I’ve ever eaten. The whipped fresco from the McGrath Cheese Company tent is life. It is everything. A couple weeks back, Aamina (over at Vibe Killer) and I went on a picnic by the cloisters uptown. “Kind of dreaming about the cheese,” she texted me a few days later. “Feeling unnerved by how good it dared to be.”
Yes, you will be thinking of this cheese days after eating it. You can find it in McGolrick Park every Sunday. Just please leave some for me.