Use your brain in a meditative way
More from my conversation with singer and songwriter Isabel Pless
Welcome to Human Pursuits, the column that features need-to-know names and stories in media and other creative spaces. Today, an outtake from my conversation with Isabel Pless – and an afterthought on specificity.
Outtake
ES: I understand you’re a big knitting chica. How did you get into it?
IP: I started crocheting a few years ago. I don’t know why. Actually, that’s not true. It was because, once you turn your passion into your job, it starts to feel like your job. I felt I needed something else to be that passion. So I started crocheting. And then this past year I started knitting because I wanted to do sweaters and stuff. You can crochet a sweater, but they’re not necessarily my favorite thing.
ES: Is that a commonly held belief in the knitting-slash-crochet world?
IP: Laughs. I guess people could get mad at me for saying that, but I think it's a fair statement. Crochet sweaters tend to be a lot bulkier. Knit sweaters have better drape.
ES: How many sweaters have you knit so far?
IP: I’m finishing my third.
ES: That’s impressive. How many hours does it take to make one?
IP: God, I’m trying to come up with an estimate. This sweater I’m just finishing has taken about a month and a half to complete, working on it gradually. So maybe 100 hours?
ES: Is knitting a mind-body thing for you? I feel like it’d be good for re-establishing that connection.
IP: It’s a way for me to use my brain in a meditative way because the process is very repetitive. It feels like a better use of my time than simply playing a game on my phone. In the end, I have something that I made and I can wear. It’s an accomplishment.
ES: I love that. Do you watch TV while you knit? Or are you just staring at the wall?
IP: I usually watch something. I’ve been making my way through Vanderpump Rules.
ES: Oh, baby!
IP: I’m just heading into season six.
ES: That’s where things get a bit rough, so I’m sorry for that. But it circles back to being great, eventually.
IP: Have you seen all of it?
ES: I have. We watched it during the pandemic, pre-Scandoval. I was rooting for Tom [Sandoval] and Ariana [Madix] at one point. I bought their cocktail book and wrote an essay about the show. Ariana read it. It was kinda crazy.
IP: That's a huge. I don’t know what I would do if I ever had an interaction with any of the cast.
ES: It can be surreal. We went to SUR shortly after the second or third wave of COVID and Peter [Madrigal] was there and we met him. Nice guy. We got a photo with him. It was kind of like eating dinner on the set of Friends or something. You know the space intimately even though you’ve never been there before.
IP: I’ve heard Peter is there all the time. Which makes sense, it’s his job. But it still seems crazy. I think I’d like to meet Ariana.
ES: I think I want to meet Stassi [Schroeder] the most, to be honest.
IP: Really? That’s a crazy choice. But I guess I haven’t seen how her character arc plays out.
ES: I feel like she’s the rare example of someone being canceled and learning a lesson, and demonstrating that they learned a lesson. She easily could’ve slid back on the show and made easy money, but she’s talked about how that environment was toxic for her, and I just find it really interesting. Plus, she delivered so many of the show’s most iconic moments.
But, yeah, you could make an argument for meeting Ariana too. She’s an unproblematic fave.
Afterthought
For a long time, the unspoken goal for many of my interviews was to get the subject to reveal something surprising. Not in a Page Six-way, mind you. I was really interested in trying to capture a full picture of the person. To tease out some authenticity from the artifice that naturally occurs in parasocial relationships.
Like the fact that from Dimepiece is a really great painter, or that Tom Breihan from Stereogum enjoys dark chocolate peanut butter cups from Trader Joe’s. These things feel inconsequential, but for whatever reason they’re often the parts I find most fascinating or inspiring.
To me, they are Human Pursuits.
A few years ago, the above section would’ve been a no-brainer to include. Isabel Pless loves Vanderpump Rules. What could be more relatable?! The problem was that our interview touched on a lot of things that felt even more specific to her. Linguistics and LARPing and her love of little deer. Each of those moments felt like they told me more about her than the fact that we enjoy the same reality show. Basically: there was too much good content to make the final cut.
So, I left Ariana, Stassi, and Peter on the cutting room floor. The upside, however, is that now we can have our first-ever Pursuits Poll!
Isabel Pless is a singer-songwriter. She lives in Nashville.