One of the running mental lists I keep is of ridiculous thesis topics I could have pursued as an American Studies major, with a comparison of the career trajectories of Hanson and the Jonas Brothers (“Tunes, Teens, and the Trinity: The Evolution of “Wholesome” In Troubled Times” OR “Band of Brothers: Making Room for God and Family in Top 40”) sitting right at the top. It’s the one collegiate habit I can’t seem to break, the impulse to translate everything into jargon-y theory terms and overthought paper topics as a very boring Lit major in-joke, but really: writing as a release of aggression and site of control, cooking as performative, the creepy, sort of unnecessary description of her as “physically frail” and the way he presumes her discomfort? “A Beach House of One’s Own: Joan Didion, Working Woman,” maybe?

maudnewton:

In this 1970 interview at her beachfront LA home, Joan Didion calls writing “the only way I’ve found I can be aggressive… I am totally in control of this tiny, tiny world.”