Must Lists were my favorite part of writing on the blog I started in high school, My Antediluvian Baby. There’s nothing really cohesive about them – the only qualification an item needs to have in order to make it onto the Must List is my unparalleled enthusiasm for it, and since I’m enthusiastic about an obscene amount of things, it’s really no wonder that I loved writing them so much. I remember typing out this one in my high school computer lab when I was seventeen. The first item on it is sohan halwa, a “fucking delish” (as I wrote there) Iranian candy. I stand by it.
MUST LIST, NEW EDITION, HERE WE GO
1. Cat Litas
On the whole, I find Litas to be a little cliched. When you see somebody wearing Litas, you automatically know that they have a fashion Tumblr and have, at one point or another, worn a double ring, possibly with upside-down crosses on it. It’s a rule or something. BUT! How can I say no to these cat-fabric ones? Anyone who knows me has seen my tote bag that matches these shoes almost exactly, and it’s getting so beaten-up that I have to replace it, hopefully with something nearly as great and whiskery. Something tells me that instead of hunting down another $2 swatch of fabric with felines and handles slapped onto it, these shoes will do just fine when I have to put my old cat purse to sleep. I’m still not getting a Tumblr, though.
2. “The Mountain Low”
WILL OLDHAM EVERY DAY, EVERY WAY: From Bonnie “Prince” Billy to Palace Music. The latter incarnation is responsible for this gem, from 1995’s Viva Last Blues.
3. Death in Venice by Thomas Mann
The best way to read this novel is outside, either in print form or for free online, sometime in this month of October with your blood feeling all robust underneath your sweater. Block each line below the one you’re reading with a straight edge in order to make yourself really take in every word and you will be absolutely in love by the third time you’ve moved it down to allow yourself the next sentence. I promise you this. Warning: Watch out for red-haired men.
4. A new dresser
This one is theoretical until I can manage to go rustle one up in my fiance’s big tour van at the end of the week (I hope). I’m tired of my clothes being all everywhere against my will. I need something that will hold 357654 rompers and at least twenty XLTs, which sounds like a term for a brawny fast-food burger but is actually my acronym for eXtra Large T-shirts, also known as heaven when you are about to get into bed. Bonus points if they are emblazoned with things like “PARK AVENUE FORD” and the logo of your hometown newspaper. At least when every part of my dresser broke (seriously, it is a husk of shitty, possibly fake wood and bolts at this point), I had to stop secreting things away in the drawers. Worst hiding spot ever. I mean, it’s the first place people would think to look, probably.
5. No Pocky for Kitty
This Superchunk album from 1991 is amazing, especially “Cast Iron,” above. It reminds me of middle-school pop-punk, which reminds me of making out, which is a funny coincidence because I want to make out with this song.
ARS 