A rare version of young love

Welcome to the Sunday cultural edition of the Daily, in which we Atlantic a writer or editor reveals what entertains them. Today's special guest is Rina Li, the editor-in-chief who works on this newsletter.

Rina has very varied cultural tastes. She calls Laurie Colwins The solitary pilgrim a revelation; Dust Radio by Chris Whitley, a sweat-soaked apocalyptic track; and the television series Mr. and Mrs. Smith a sharp and honest meditation on marriage. Then there's Steven Millhauser, a writer Rina recently met: My goodness. Why don't people talk about him more?

But first, here are three Sunday readings from Atlantic:

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The cultural investigation: Rina Li

A soft song that I like and a strong song that I like: I feel about Chris Whitley the way some people feel about Princess Diana. Diagnosed with lung cancer at age 45, he left behind more than a dozen strange and beautiful albums, each with something fresh and vital to say about the blues. Its debut in 1991, Living with the law, hit me like a train the first time I encountered it, and it still does, 10 years and 1,000 listens later. It's easy to get carried away by the beauty of Land of the big skybut don't sleep Radio dusta sweat-soaked apocalyptic track that starts out simple and opens into something seismic.

Charles Minguss Haitian fight song is a battle cry, a triumphant and searing love song for liberation movements and oppressed peoples around the world. (Side note: this is also, inconceivably, the song that plays diegetically in Jerry Maguire as Tom Cruises and René Zellweger's characters prepare to spend their first night together, and there's an entire essay to be written about how this composition about the most successful slave revolt in history serves as a canvas background to two young white people who fall in love. What East this music? he asks her in bed at one point. They crack.)

Something I rewatched recently: A second Cameron Crowe film was released in this daily! I saw again Say anything a few weeks ago and I liked it even more than the first time. It is the rare representation of a young love so serious and courteous, with Lloyd Dobler (played by John Cusack) more Arthurian knight than '80s rom-com heartthrob. One question he asks of the aptly named Diane Court (Ione Skye) when she begs him to ask. to resume. Are you here because you need someone or because you need me? A second later: Forget it, I don't care.

An author I will read anything by: Laurie Colwin. People describe her as someone who writes about happy people, but that's not entirely true; she often writes about misfortune, but with such a light and witty touch that one does not at first realize what an achievement it is. His collection of short stories The solitary pilgrim was a revelation to me at university: she was the one who showed me that art need not be punishing, that things like cooking, domestic life, interesting gossip, dinners, babies, beautiful furniture, things that make life beautiful, in other words can and should be written with care. I return again and again to A Girl Skating, a marvel of a story that reads like bated breath. [Related: Eight cookbooks worth reading cover to cover]

The TV show I'm currently enjoying the most: Main videos Mr. and Mrs. Smith is as pointed and honest a meditation on marriage as anything I've watched recently. The argument between John (Donald Glover) and Jane (Maya Erskine) in the sixth episode is reminiscent of a certain scene from Anatomy of a fallis, note for vicious note, perfect. These destabilizing arguments with your partner where you say the ugliest, most venomous thing that can come to mind, where you rush head on towards the point of no return, that put me there. This rush of pleasure and horror, hot and nauseating, like burning down a house you had built. [Related: An unconventional spy show]

Best work of fiction I've read recently and best work of non-fiction: I recently read The rest of us, Steven Millhauser's 2011 Collection of New and Selected Stories, and my goodness. Why don't people talk about him more? Surreal and restless tales of Borgesian fantasy and troubled suburbs, anchored in cold, refined prose, without a single out-of-place word. He is a true writer, but also a writer for readers.

Reading nonfiction, for me, tends to feel like an act of virtue akin to choking down quinoa. That being said, I'm very happy to go through Michael Parentis. Black and red shirtsa slim, revealing volume that lays bare the symbiotic relationship between capitalism and fascism.

A cultural product I loved as a teenager and still love, and something I loved but don't like now: I fell in love with Marilyn Hackers' poem Almost a goodbye when I was a teenager, but had yet to live with someone through the routine of winter days/wake and sleep, half and half caffeine/assisted mornings, laundry, pots, dust/balls in the hallway , lists instead of wishing, trust that what comes next comes after what came first. I have it now, and I also know, as I could not have known then, what it means to say: goodbye. I remember you.

As for something I used to love but no longer love: lip gloss.

A poem to which I return: Aloneby Jack Gilbert.

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The week ahead

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Photo album

June 6 marked the 80th anniversary of D-Day, a costly invasion that turned the tide of World War II. These images show veterans, families, dignitaries and visitors gathering at ancient battlefields and cemeteries to commemorate the Allied landings on the beaches of Normandy.

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