明迪羽衣甘藍

2020年10月27日

明迪甘藍。羽衣甘藍剛剛發表了她的第三篇文章收集,“一點也不像我想象的(有時除外)。”Credit: Mike Rosenthal By Rachel Rosenblit The Washington Post Updated October 27, 2020 6:00 AM Amazon Original Stories. Stories range from 11 to 35 pp. $1.99 each. People are very interested in Mindy Kaling, and not for her vices. After her breakout role as vapid customer service representative Kelly Kapoor on NBC's "The Office," she has kicked through meaningful doors as the first Indian American to create and star in her own TV show ("The Mindy Project"). She found success channeling her "otherness" into mainstream art, like "Late Night," the 2019 film she wrote about being a woman on a mostly white male writing staff, and "Never Have I Ever," the Netflix hit she created about a suburban teen trying to reconcile her Indian and American identities. So if her tendency in writing personal essays is to be more slapdash or exploratory of her Kapoor-ish qualities — Kaling, like Kapoor, is a celebrity junkie and rom-com fiend, after all — then, sure. Fluff is good! Fluff is keeping us all going. And yet, with her third essay collection, "Nothing Like I Imagined (Except for Sometimes)," you want more. (The six stories in the collection are being sold individually as Amazon Original Stories.) Seven years removed from her run as Kapoor, having achieved leverageable power in Hollywood while also navigating single motherhood (daughter Katherine was born in 2017 and son Spencer in September), Kaling's life has fleshed out in substantial ways that make her essays feel frustratingly inconsequential. A story about her first days in Los Angeles sets up a character-building journey in which a crushingly lonely Kaling tries to make friends but then skips to the part where she ditches her starter squad for being too-healthy eaters who drink tea instead of Bellinis ("Eating in an ascetic way at a Sunday brunch brings me no relaxation or pleasure, and isn't that what Sunday brunches are for?"). One of the Mindy Kailing's new collection of essays being sold individuallly as Amazon Original Stories. Credit: Mike Rosenthal When she teases a telling detail that might reveal something about the friends who fell short, and also about her ("I was surprised by how none of the women spoke truly candidly about anything"), she doesn't elaborate. She ghosts the group, and kind of ghosts the reader, too. There are observational gems, like the notion of "pity-patter" — when Kaling's married friends play "a sophisticated ... mind game" of "feigning [a] desire to be single in an attempt to make the single mom feel better about being husbandless." But rather than investigate her choice to raise her daughter as a single woman, Kaling ticks off a list of "Times I Wish I Had a Husband" ("When I Need to Reach Things") and "Times I'm Happy I Don't Have a Husband" ("When I Remember Both Nightstands Are Mine"). Sign up for Newsday's Entertainment newsletter Get the latest on celebs, TV and more. By clicking Sign up, you agree to our privacy policy . For a self-professed romantic who helped craft the achingly nuanced courtship between "The Office's" Jim and Pam, Kaling's view of modern partnership feels far less considered. "After he puts a ring on it," she muses in a bit about driving, "you always end up riding in the passenger seat." Is Kaling being glib for the punch line or sincere? Probably the former. In any case, it seems fitting that she's currently co-writing the script for "Legally Blonde 3": Like Elle Woods, Kaling's unseriousness belies a capacity to outsmart everyone in the room. Sometimes, Kaling does dig deep. An essay about her daughter's Mundan, a Hindu head-shaving ceremony to rid a baby of negative past-life energy, raises poignant questions about a parent's spiritual responsibility. And a sweet recollection about the baby nurse who helped her through her first months of motherhood — five years after her mother died — is especially affecting. But these impacts tend to get lost in the midst of so much filler: even a superfan might not be compelled to learn, in an addendum titled "What I Do All Day," that one of Kaling's "favorite way[s] to unwind is to wrap a present." One of the Mindy Kailing's new collection of essays being sold individuallly as Amazon Original Stories. Credit: Mike Rosenthal Then again, maybe? Those superfans, who "routinely ask [Kaling] to be their best friend," as she writes, are legion. For everyone else, reading "Imagined" in a decidedly unbreezy time is like eating just the whipped cream off a brownie sundae. As long as you're devouring empty calories — from a world-class pastry chef — a little chew would be nice. By Rachel Rosenblit The Washington Post