"My I Love You" with Tina Tona

Five Things I Can’t Live Without:

1. The Black Album by Jay-Z
I am a very vocal and avid lover of Spotify, but the day Jay-Z pulled all his music off the platform, I experienced such weakening loss. In the age of technology and streaming, I truly never understood the weight of the question “What was the first album you purchased?”. That was until the Jay-Z drought got the best of me and I spent $10.59 on The Black Album. My heavy rotation of this album is 35% due to the fact that I need to get my money’s worth, and 65% due to the fact that I’ve never experienced music that’s resonated with every ounce of my being to this degree. I listened to it the most in my senior year of high school when my self-doubt and crippling anxiety were peaking throughout college application and acceptance season was coming around, and something about hearing both Jay-Z’s unwavering self confidence and the flawless production of each song helped me realize that my greatness wasn’t ever going to defined by someone that wasn’t me. On days where those feelings try to creep up on me, I know they don’t stand a single chance when HOV boldly states “I need you to remember one thing/I came I saw I conquered,” and I recognize that I can do the same.

2. Slouching Towards Bethlehem by Joan Didion
When I first arrived in the United States at the age of 4 years old, I landed in Northern California and had more than a brief stint in the small town of Albany, the city that would ultimately have my heart forever. It was my first impression of America, and after leaving in my tween years, I would continue to daydream about my return and write essays about how the rolling hills and ocean breeze would always call to me. I wish I was exaggerating when I say that thinking about California would always make my heart ache. For the longest time I would criticize myself for having these feelings, I would rationalize my melancholy by saying it’s just a city. That was until Joan Didion’s Slouching Towards Bethlehem found its way into my life. The summary in the back of my copy describes it as “the essential portrait of America--and California in particular,” and it almost perfectly mirrored the sentiments I had for my first home. Joan Didion helped me realize that my romanticism wasn’t trivial, and California truly is a beautiful place to be.

P.S: I’m now going to college in L.A, so I guess I found my way back home :)

3. Scrapbooking
In case it hasn’t already been established, I must inform you that I am a huge sentimentalist. Three of the movies in my top five are coming-of-age films, I still have every ticket from every movie I’ve seen since 6th grade (Moonrise Kingdom being the oldest one), and I have a vague obsession with documenting everything that happens in my life. I started my scrapbook a year ago, around the same time that I bought my first film camera (a point and shoot PENTAX!). I was partially inspired by Dan Eldon, who’s been one of my idols since I was 12 years old, and partially inspired by the amount of love I had for my friends and family. Both of my parents have been direct victims of political instability in our home country, and when we fled the country without much preparation, they had to leave all their photos from 20 years prior. I don’t have much reference for what their youth looked like, so I guess in a way this scrapbook is a way for my own children to have a vivid reference for what mine looked like.

4. My So-Called Life
I first found out about My So-Called Life when I was 12 years old. I was reading about TVshows in the camp of the cult classic Freaks and Geeks on my favourite, and now closed, publication Rookie. I tried it out, and I instantly fell in love. I’ve lost count of the amount of times that I’ve watched the entire show, which isn’t that impressing when you realize it only lasted ONE season. I found myself in every single character. It was the most honest portrayal of adolescence and the high school experience that I’d ever seen on TV, and it was the only show to make me feel like I was normal. I got a fade when I was in 9th grade so I could look like Ricky, I picked up a camera after seeing how much Brian Krakow could capture I would ask myself WWRGD (What Would Rayanne Graff Do?) before making any decision, and I was just as lost and in love with Jordan Catalano as Angela. It’s the easiest show for me to return to because it’s always just felt like a part of me. Plus, it introduced me to "Blister In The Sun" by Violent Femmes, and for that I’ll forever be grateful.

5. Lip Gloss
I just love lip gloss. I literally cannot go anywhere without having it on. I have a lot more lip gloss than the average human needs. I’ll go to the beauty store to buy hair and I’ll pick up at least two new shades at the counter. I’ve made my own glittery lip gloss that I use just as much as the Fenty Beauty Gloss Bomb. At this point it’s a personality trait. What can I say! I love to shine.♥

"My I Love You" with Charlotte Bumgarner

1. Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
Oh my god. This show is EVERYTHING!!! From the cheesy but amazing 90s-early 00s fashion to the feminist messages the show is constantly bringing up. I'm currently re-watching it for fifth time or something, I can't even remember at this point. I would highly recommend for anyone who likes spooky things and badass female leads.

2. The fashion designer Caroline Hu.
She's a badass graduate from Parsons who makes the most beautiful clothes ever. She uses textures and patterns that you wouldn't normally see together. Her style is based on women in Renaissance paintings. She tries to capture movement and brush strokes in her work and she does it impeccably well!!!

3. Francesca Woodman.
I've never been able to pick a favorite photographer because it's too hard to narrow it down but...it might have to be Francesca Woodman. She died very young but has a huge body of work. Most of her photos are on black and white film and are self portraits. She makes taking self portraits on film look so easy. (Which it definitely is not!) Her work is so powerful and beautiful and often shows connections to femininity and nature.

4. Boygenius.
The super group of Phoebe Bridgers, Julien Baker and Lucy Dacus. All separately incredible musicians but together an amazing girl power band. I feel a personal connection to them because I am a female solo artist as well and I know how hard it can be sometimes. So when Boygenius was formed from three of my favorite female solo artists and they dropped an album with some heavy songs too I was so happy. Most people will call solo artists boring or emo but they make the most heartfelt and beautiful music. I recommend watching their live sets, these women know what they're doing.

5. Just Kids by Patti Smith.
Again, it's hard for me to choose all time favorites because I often have way too many to narrow it down but Patti Smith is one of my favorite authors, and Just Kids may be my favorite book. Patti has the ability to write beautifully about mundane things, about ANYTHING. In this book she talks about her journey. From childhood to life in poverty in 1970s NYC to fame. She writes honestly about what life is like as a struggling artist and it is such an important read. She talks casually about hanging out with Janis Joplin and Jimi Hendrix and living at the Chelsea hotel. I could go on and on about this book but I'll just say it definitely changed my life. Anything by Patti Smith is well worth the read.

6. Dilara Findikoglu.
MY QUEEN. She is an amazing fashion designer in London. Her work is like occult glam!!! She uses really unique looking models and makeup making her designs really stand out. People were calling one of her shows a “satanic orgy” because she uses occult symbols on her clothes and had a show in a church. I love everything she makes and hope to reach her level of witchiness one day.♥

"My I Love You" with Thea Neufeldt Armstrong

I love you, Driely Carter!

Currently, I'm obsessed with the work of photographer Driely Carter. She's an artist in New York, taking pictures and breaking down barriers.

You may feel it very differently, but this is the way I feel her work - she represents people in a very real, honest way that I'm not used to seeing - in motion, and through lots of different states of being and moving. Doing something themselves, or having something done to their image by the medium of the photograph and the way she chooses to arrange and work with it. Driely's figures are superimposed over smashed glass or reflected in it, sitting next to bright colours or staring down a camera. No two photos by Driely are the same, and her creativity in representation is stunning.
Refinery29 interviewed her about female photographers on their article "30 Female Photographers Sound Off On Fashion's Gender Imbalance," and here's what Driely had to say:

 "I actually get really annoyed with the entire concept of the 'female gaze.' It often feels like a way for brands to use me to check off their HR boxes, and I don't appreciate that at all. I also find it to be such a disservice to women photographers because it was meant to take women outside of a box, but it just ended up putting them in another. There is this idea that women only shoot pastel colors, glitter, fruits as vaginas, period art, naked everything, and anything derivative of Petra Collins (I love her work, and this is by no means an attack on her. I'm just stating the obvious). It's annoying because that is not the kind of work I am attracted to, but brands will still ask you to change everything about the way you shoot so you fit this aesthetic in order to come across as woke. There are so many ways to be a woman and experience womanhood, and for that reason, we need to have space for these images to exist and conversations to happen so we can become better at understanding each other as human beings."

I really like a lot of her work and can't stop looking through what I feel are really honest, beautiful images and representations. She used to post a lot on her Instagram but she seems to have deactivated it - in any case her website offers a beautiful and plentiful amount of photos to look through and think about, from shots simply labelled "in no particular order" to portraits of Pharrell Williams. I'm really excited to see more of what Driely makes in the future and am super excited to see female trailblazing creative geniuses in photography.

You can view more of Driely's work on her website.♥

"My I Love You" with Prachi

I'm currently obsessed with the new single "Bad Ideas" by Tessa Violet. She is also soon to release an album by the same name.

I love the song because it's like the song-that-describes-my-life. The chorus, "bad ideas I know where they lead but I got too many to sleep," is particularly the part where it gets relatable. The song describes having a crush in the truest sense without any exaggerations or daydreams. It's wild it's candid and absolutely singalong-able.

Oh and did I mention how sweet Tessa's voice is? For me it's the definition of a sweet voice.

Check out the amazing and colorful music video for "Bad Ideas" (directed by Jade Ehlers) here!♥

"My I Love You" with Marissa Smith

I started @myfavoritesigns at the beginning of 2018, I had just left a full-time job and was freelancing. I wanted to fill my time with something new and fun as a side project. After traveling all over the world, especially California, I noticed how there are some gems of vintage architecture and signage all over the United States (and abroad). Every time I passed an old motel from the 60's or 70's I would squeal because it just looked so cool. I was also impressed and surprised that it hadn't been torn down yet. That's when I decided I need to be documenting the amazing places still in existence. Basically, in another life I grew up in the 50s/60s where everything was beautiful and mid-century modern.

I use a Pentax IQZoom EZY film camera I got at Goodwill for $1, and my two rules are: that the photos have to be taken from me, on my film camera (no submissions) and that all photos are taken in the daylight - no night time shots.

Top 5 favorite signs:

1. Bambi Cleaners, Philadelphia PA
There's of course a community of people on Instagram that love signs, and once you fall into the rabbit hole of going through all the accounts you start finding signs you might not have known about. This was one of them. I'm a huge Disney fan, and I couldn't pass up taking a little road trip to Philadelphia to grab this one. Fun fact: my camera was acting up that day and I was so stressed about not getting the photo I literally used a whole roll of film just on this sign alone. I usually only take 2-5 photos of one sign to get the money shot.

2. Safari Inn, Burbank CA
This photo to me, is the reason why I started the account. The font, the neon, the graphic, the palm trees in the back... it's hard to believe this still exists.

3. Lollipop Motel, Wildwood NJ
I grew up going to Wildwood when I was younger, and this sign always stood out to me. Not to mention the motel is super colorful. Wildwood is one of those towns that literally has every old motel from the 50s and 60s still around, with original signage.

4. Weber’s Drive-In, Pennsauken NJ
I love a good diner/drive-in/kitsch food restaurant. Weber's did not disappoint. The sign was moving... it was beautiful and to then eat with carhop waitresses coming to your car to take your order, it's a blast from the past.

5. The Donut Hole, La Puente CA
I love oddities and obscure places. This one was suggested by a friend. A donut place that you literally drive through a donut. I mean come on!♥

"My I Love You" with Andrea Panaligan

With this new column (named after the Frankie Cosmos song) we wanted to do a spin off of an old Instagram series that we used to do called zb + zm's current obsessions where every week each of us would share one art and/or music related thing or person that we were obsessed with. This slowly dwindled as school got in the way, but we wanted to start it back up by seeing what our followers and staff were interested in. We are delighted to kick off this new series with Andrea Panaligan!

Shirkers (Documentary)
Shirkers is film critic and now filmmaker Sandi Tan’s debut feature about her debut feature. As a teenager, she shot a 16mm road movie with a couple of friends and her very mysterious, middle-aged American mentor, who later vanishes with all their footage. When the film is recovered two decades later, Tan recounts the production and retraces her mentor’s steps before his disappearance. There is a portion in the documentary where scenes from their movie, shot in 1992, are juxtaposed to scenes of western movies released years later—a shot of Tan, who plays the protagonist, looking through an aquarium cuts to an aesthetically similar scene in 1998’s Rushmore; a shot of her walking through the streets of Singapore cuts to a similar scene in 2001’s Ghost World. It made me cry; I couldn’t help but wonder how different the film industry would be if an Asian teenager’s undeniably innovative film didn’t go missing, and I got so angry for living in a world where Shirkers the movie never found its way to cinemas. It made me realize that as a young Asian female creative, I would rather drop dead than let an older man touch my work. When you’re a teenager creating, it’s inevitable that who you are bleeds into the art you make—the work of young people very often are intimate and personal, and having an older man—your literal antithesis—get all up in your creative space—your safe space—is purely devastating. While I mourn for never seeing Shirkers the movie, I’m grateful for the existence of Shirkers the documentary, a personal reflection on art, our relationship to it, and the importance of paying attention to the teenage lens.

A Brief Inquiry Into Online Relationships - The 1975 (Album)
Any album that includes the lines, “Rest in peace Lil Peep/ The poetry is in the streets/ Jesus save us/ Modernity has failed us” is bound to be one of my favorites. The 1975 have always brought me comfort, each song coming pre-packaged with a hyper-specific feeling that makes their music so atmospheric and palpable, I could almost touch it. I found myself listening to them more when I went away for college; at first because they were something familiar—and at a time when everything was changing, I clung to anything familiar—but over time I managed to make myself a little home within their iconic riffs, and their new album has been accompanying me as I try to navigate my new daunting life. Hearing the opening to "I Always Wanna Die (Sometimes)" for the first time (“I bet you thought your life would change/ But you’re sat on a train again”) while sitting on a bus on my way home, contemplating whether living in the city was actually as romantic as I’d imagined it would be, cemented The 1975’s title as my favorite band ever.

"The Year of Emotions,  feat. Lorde" - Rookie Podcast Episode #1
When Tavi Gevinson, founder and editor-in-chief of Rookie Magazine, announced that Rookie would no longer be publishing any new content, I felt like my world had fallen to pieces. I know I’m not alone in saying discovering Rookie and proceeding to spend so many nights scrolling through it felt nothing short of liberation—I no longer felt like I was alone in going through the disorienting years of teenhood, and it was extremely validating to have so many people my age express themselves and what they feel and think. Since the announcement, I keep coming back to the first episode of their podcast, where Tavi interviewed Lorde about growing up, her songwriting process, and her then newly released single "Green Light." It was enlightening, deeply personal, and exonerating, even. Lorde never fails to make me feel heard, and this time is no different (when she talked about always making herself small because she was too tall and her voice was always booming—I felt that, my dudes).

Burning (Film)
Lee Chang-dong’s first movie in eight years, Burning, is what I like to call the movie equivalent of the lines “I would die for you”; “then perish.” It’s a psychological thriller that happens in slow-motion, building tension from the ground up in a way that’s both frustrating and rewarding; implosive, with an ending that I definitely did not see coming but somehow knew would happen. And Steven Yeun, man—a beguiling performance that I could not get off my mind. I was lucky enough to see this film in a local film festival last October, and I find myself still recounting scenes in my head. Aptly enough, it gets better the more I think about it.

Enigma Variations - Andre Aciman (Novel)
Call Me by Your Name author Andre Aciman is back with another literary heartbreak written so lovingly that reading it almost makes you drunk. A love letter to love itself, Enigma Variations is a collection of five love stories—both mutual and unrequited—centering around one person. Below is an excerpt from my favorite chapter, Manfred:
Occasionally, you’ll say “Excuse me” when I happen to stand in your way, and “Thank you” when your ball drifts into my court and I hurl it back to you. With these few words, I find comfort in false hopes and hope in false starts. I’ll coddle anything instead of nothing. Even thinking that nothing can come of nothing gives me a leg to stand on, something to consider when I wake up in the middle of the night and can see nothing, not the blackout in my life, not the screen, not the cellar, not even hope and false comforts—just the joy of your imagined limb touching mine. I prefer the illusion of perpetual fasting to the certainty of famine. I have, I think, what’s called a broken heart.
One of the main reasons I'm so fond of Aciman's writing is because of the way he speaks about unrequited love. He approaches the subject and chooses his words so tenderly that you can clearly see he doesn't see this kind of love as pathetic, as most writers—or most people—would; in fact, he deems unreturned love as more exhilarating, more heartbreaking, more damning because of the fact that it's unreturned. This was beautifully exhibited in Elio Perlman, and is seen even more extensively in his latest effort. So if you loved his writing in CMBYN, I cannot recommend his newest tale of love and loss enough.

Mindhunter (TV series)
Filmmaker David Fincher has me wrapped around his finger and I am not complaining. His movies never fail to find their way into my favorites (all you The Social Network stans out there, let me hear you say “I’m sorry my Prada’s at the cleaners!”), so I was more than elated when I found out he produced a Netflix show set in the 70s called Mindhunter, which, in true Fincher fashion, is about two FBI agents and a psychologist who interview serial killers in an attempt to understand and profile them. It’s more of a character study than a plot-driven story, with majority of the runtime dedicated to these interviews and our protagonists talking about them, but the fact that the show relies on dialogue so much is what makes it such a gripping watch—all the criminal acts, albeit extremely atrocious, all happen off-cam, and we get to spend so much time with these murderers, but we never see them kill—it humanizes them, creating a sense of revulsion in the audience that sticks longer and digs deeper. And I know I’m totally super biased, loving a show about the behavioral science unit of the FBI when I’m a behavioral science major myself, but hearing the characters analyze the interviews is absolutely fascinating and something I couldn’t get enough of. Imagine 2015’s Best Picture Oscar winner Spotlight, but with Fincher’s signature dark visuals and rich pace, and you get this underrated masterpiece (that you can stream in Netflix right nooow!). Getting to hear them come up with the phrase ‘serial killer’ gave me chills and should be enough to convince you to get started on this show.♥