The Monday Media Diet with Mary HK Choi

On Eleanor Olyphant is Completely Fine, Libby, and the Epley maneuver

Mary H.K. Choi is an author among many other things and has a very sharp pulse on culture. Pleased to have her with us and be sure to check out her new book, Pool House.

Tell us about yourself.

I’m Mary H.K. Choi. Author, essayist, podcast host, screenwriter. I’ve been a culture reporter for over two decades, writing for a slew of different magazines. Many long defunct, including the one I launched as editor-in-chief when I was 27, called Missbehave. I also worked on the Summer I Turned Pretty Season 3. I ghost wrote DJ Khaled’s business book. I’ve also written comics for Marvel and DC and I’m a New York Times bestselling author. My fourth novel Pool House is out now.

Describe your media diet.

A good mix of newsletters, podcasts and various magazines. Including zines. Nymphette Alumni. Audiobooks. Bandsplain. Articles of Interest. Cake Zine. Granta. Anything that Hunter Harris and Peyton Dix touch; together or separately. Las Cultch. Interior Motives. Feed Me. The New Yorker. Throwing Fits. Vogue. Also, I really enjoy Air Mail but almost in the way that I love coming across a print issue of the Robb Report. It’s all such rich people shit, not to be confused with the newsletter, Rich People Shit. Town & Country has been really good for a while too. I love how young and vibrant Interview is. I also just found out that Readers Digest has 12 million paid subscribers and still produces the small-format print edition which is thrilling. Their last cover was all about breakfasts across America which feels like a print version of a Buzzfeed gallery from 15 years ago in a way that I am deeply into. I also recently wrote an essay for High Snobiety and was delivered a print issue that was an absolute bruiser. The paperstock was gorgeous and the curatorial vision has gotten so specific in a way that I admire. Which is not to say that it’s haphazardly niche-core, just that it feels like the vision of particular people. Zero TikTok but so much interest in it. More IG scrolling than is advisable. I adore the chat section of The Mole Hill newsletter. It’s the coziest place on earth which is such a testament to Viv Chen’s vision. Her readers just do the most wholesome show & tell of grails they’ve acquired or ask and answer questions about what shoes to wear to a wedding. It’s both sincere and exacting.

What’s the last great book you read?

I just listened to 2017’s Eleanor Olyphant is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman and loved it. This whole time I thought it was by Fredrik Backman, the guy who writes all those ‘A Man Called Ove’ or ‘Britt-Marie Was Here’-type novels. I think because of the title and timing and the cover, I’d filed it in the wrong section of my head. I don’t really go for heartwarming Scandi, Triumph of the Human Spirit stuff, they’re just a bit relentlessly Christmassy in a way that I find oppressive but I loved this book. Eleanor Olyphant is totally different. It’s Glaswegian and not at all male. It’s all PTSD and mother-hunger and neurodivergence which is very much up my alley.

What are you reading now?

The Bloater by Rosemary Tonks. The language is electric.

What’s your reading strategy when you pick up a print copy of your favorite publication?

I subscribe to the New Yorker but only my partner reads them in hardcopy. I read the articles online and then become silently resentful when he gets them all wrinkly from the bath even knowing I won’t read it in analog. With other magazines, I always read the editor’s letter first and then hop around by byline.

Who should everyone be reading that they’re not?

I wouldn’t know. But Alex Chee told me to read Gary Indiana so I’m doing that. Also, ever since Michael A. Gonzales wrote about screenwriter and novelist Eleanor Perry, who wrote 1968’s The Swimmer, based on the short story by the same name that John Cheever wrote for The New Yorker, I’ve been trying to track down a copy of her novel, Blue Pages, that isn’t riotously expensive. Maybe if everyone wanted to read that it would get reprinted.

What is the best non-famous app you love on your phone?

I think Libby is super-famous but it is genuinely my favorite app. So many magazines, library books, audiobooks for free. The only thing that’s a bit tedious is wading through the “available now” view since you have to scroll past the same massive genre franchises and the airport thrillers or lady-murder books or those cozy stories about anthropomorphic animals that teach us about humanity or romances that involve WWII.

Plane or train?

My father-in-law travels by train whenever he can. He enjoys traveling at the speed of time and never getting jet lag upon arrival. I think this is marvelous but my ADHD would go nuts from the waiting and my Autism/hypermobility would go ballistic from the sitting. Which is to say, plane. By a lot. Despite airports. I also loathe a road trip. I’m not built for any of it.

What is one place everyone should visit?

The Keith Haring bathroom in the LGBTQ center in New York. It’s like mini church. Best place for a cry. I imagine it’s what Quaker church is like but everything I know about Quaker church is from Fleabag season 2. As an aside, I once saw Hot Priest Andrew Scott on that same block. Personal best as famous people sightings go. (His arms!).

Tell us the story of a rabbit hole you fell deep into.

Earlier this week I was grappling with a wild bout of vertigo. I couldn’t tell if it was book tour related or fatigue or a weird pillow situation but it was an insane experience. Full on flop sweats, violent dizziness, throwing up, the whole do. I’ve had vertigo before so I had my partner look up the Epley maneuver which is a series of moves that uses gravity to shepherd the crystals in your ear back to where they need to be in order to stop telling your brain that you’re spinning out of control.

Then I started thinking about who this Epley person was, this Epley of maneuver fame, and he’d challenged the prevailing wisdom within the whole ENT community in the 80s that the little calcium carbonate crystals weren’t anchored in place and rather moved around, which meant you could move them back. I can’t imagine how life changing this was for chronic vertigo sufferers. It’s astonishing how effective it is given how simple the steps are and it really goes to show what a difference a person can make by flouting convention and how brave people have to be at certain points in their life. I’m also so grateful for YouTube in general. Of course then I looked up what makes these crystals go for a walkabout in the first place and sometimes it’s just age. It’s always age! I’m so glad I’m not one of those live-forever, bio-hacking tech people. It’s like throwing spears into the ocean to fight Neptune. What a choice!