The Winter of Mixed Reads: Crying in H Mart by Michelle Zauner
When I first read Michelle Zauner’s New Yorker essay “Crying in H Mart,” about dealing with the loss of her mother, I couldn’t get the cover of her 2016 debut album, Psychopomp, out of my head. It’s a candid shot of two women, the outline of a roof behind them against the backdrop of a dream-bright blue sky. The woman on the left, Zauner’s mother, is young, dressed in stylish 80s office casual, and frozen in a gesture of reaching out at the camera. It’s hard to tell if she’s smiling, though the woman next to her is laughing. It’s a visualization of Japanese Breakfast’s esthetic: sonically reaching towards the past, but with lyrics full of yearning.
I have seen Brandi Carlile perform many times, and reader? I recommend it.