Amanda Fortini
@amandafortini
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Writer. I’m writing a book about Las Vegas. Columnist @countyhwy Substack: Email: amanda.fortini @gmail .com Also on Signal.
Las Vegas, NV & Livingston, MT
Joined May 2009
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I’m writing a book about Las Vegas! It’s called Flamingo Road, and takes off from the pieces I’ve written about the city. I’m so excited to be working with the legendary Bob Weil, the fantastic
@ginabiaquinta
, and everyone
@LiverightPub
.
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This Sylvia Plath fashion spread includes a GAS STOVE.
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An artist who calls for censorship ceases to be a real artist in my eyes.
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Years ago, when I was in my 20s, a bold and artistically daring older friend who has since passed on gave me what I often think was the best advice I have ever gotten. I was worrying what 'people would think' of a decision I had made, and she said, "Amanda, There is no audience."
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The pain of being human really weighs so heavily on Ben Affleck.
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Once, when I was being very quiet during an Uber ride—I had just had surgery and wasn’t feeling well—the Uber driver, a man, asked, “Are you mad at me?”
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This is what a serious little girl I was. 😂 I’m 5 or 6 years old in this photo, and I had told my mom I only wanted to wear “office clothes.” When she asked me what I wanted for Christmas I told her “office supplies.”
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I judged a story contest for kindergarteners last year and I will never forget that one of the stories was about taking a rocket ship to a planet where the kids could play with their friends without wearing masks.
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Men have no idea how much money it costs to be a woman.
EXCLUSIVE: Self-declared socialist AOC splurges on high-dollar hairdo
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RIP Paper Magazine. I wrote the Kim Kardashian “Break the Internet” story for them, the one that accompanied the infamous photos. Or as I refer to it: the story that 16 million people clicked on and almost no one actually read.
SCOOP: Paper Magazine, which published the famous "Break the Internet" photoshoot with Kim Kardashian in 2014, laid off its entire staff this afternoon.
The cuts come amidst a grim series of layoffs sweeping the industry.
For
@Adweek
:
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Big big backlash coming against Botox and fillers, I can feel it. Natural, imperfect, beautifully flawed (and, gasp, even wrinkled) faces are going to be the chic thing.
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@JasonIsbell
My high school boyfriend spilled a vat of sauerkraut in his car and cleaned it up in a really teenaged manner. The car smelled like rotting sauerkraut the whole time we dated; I can still smell it.
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People don’t really understand how much time writers and artists need to spend alone. Like vast swaths of time.
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People I know are sad, despairing, fretful, lonely, broke, on edge, turning on one another, drinking too much, sick with weird ailments, worried about their kids, losing their shit, & just generally unraveling. This has gone on for far too long and is simply not sustainable.
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Fellow writers: There a magical residency called Dear Butte, from which I just returned. You can stay in this lovely little house in Butte, Montana for up to 10 days and work on your writing project, without having to clean or socialize or talk to anyone. Highly recommend. ✨✨✨
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“You Want a Social Life, With Friends” by Kenneth Koch. A classic.
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One piece of advice I would give to young writers is to get all the academic and therapeutic jargon out of your writing. I see so much of this and it is just deadly. Rip that shit out. Use real words and specific, concrete details. Your work will be so much more alive for it.
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I truly believe that if you are a writer or an artist who is not writing or making art, it can make you physically sick.
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I interviewed a 97-year old woman today. One of my smaller pieces of life advice is that any time you have the opportunity to speak at length with someone who is very old you must take it.
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People are just out here driving with LED headlights so fucking bright they BLIND everyone else on the road. Why are there no regulations about acceptable lumen levels on automobiles? It's mind-boggling! It's a truly dangerous and scary problem and it's getting so much worse.
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I've been traveling lately, and at many hotels, casinos, and restaurants, service workers are still masked, whereas almost none of the guests/patrons are. I've said this before, but I continue to be bothered by the de facto class system that has sprung up post-Covid. It's gross.
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Of all the books I’ve read (a lot), the one that most profoundly altered my outlook on life is Viktor Frankl’s Man’s Search for Meaning. I owned it for years before I read it, but a little more than a year ago I finally did, and it pulled me out of a period of deep melancholy.
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I forgot to turn the recorder off after I finished a Zoom interview, sent the file to a transcription service, and, when the transcript came back, the transcriber had typed out the phone therapy session I did after my interview. Verbatim.
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How strange that observing the reality you see around you has become a subversive act.
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My husband and I just spent an hour stuck in a snow drift and had to be pulled out. A man, a stranger, happened to drive by us—we were four miles out of town in rural area—then went home and came back in his tractor to extract our truck. Heroic. Truly. Most people are kind.
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It's interesting that people seem not to understand that a personal essay is not an advice manual nor a guide to an exemplary life. In fact the best ones are often just the opposite. The shame and messiness and darkness of being human is often where the literary material lies.
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I’m mystified that people do not understand the importance of free speech. It’s so basic. What gets censored (or “restricted”—the latest euphemism) is determined by who’s in power, and who’s in power shifts over time. The censors are not always going to be who you agree with!!
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Well, I ran into a well-known literary writer at a dinner party and told her I loved her most famous book, that it had changed my life and the way I thought about my own writing, and she looked at me dead on and said, flatly, “I’ve written other books.”
imagine running up to a celebrity and only saying u recognize them from a thing they were part of but absolutely not popular for
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In the past two days, like some 50s-era socialite, I have subsisted mainly on coffee, ham, and Champagne.
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A lot of writers think they don’t need an editor, and they are wrong.
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Honestly everyone needs to watch this immediately, especially if you care about small businesses and restaurants. She’s right about the hypocrisy. People are desperate and suffering—and if they aren’t in your world then your world is very privileged.
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Happy birthday to my favorite person on earth, my husband—the brilliant, wildly original, mischievous, quick-witted, and fun-loving
@walterkirn
!!
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So excited that I can finally say I wrote a profile of Michelle Williams for the September cover of
@VanityFair
. She’s famously private, but let’s just say she opened up.
“I never gave up on love”: In our September cover story, Michelle Williams reveals her recent marriage, a new outlook on her career, and the lessons she learned from the pay-gap scandal that rocked Hollywood.
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Little boy watching fireworks tonight at the Livingston Roundup Rodeo.
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I feel so bad for all the college students who have had their college experience almost completely dominated by COVID. We are entering the THIRD year of this now. As a young person who thoroughly enjoyed the freedom college brought me, I would not have dealt with it well.
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About Drew Barrymore: Sadly I have had to learn this lesson repeatedly in my own life, but anyone whose identity or personal brand rests on how nice, kind, warm, lovable, or friendly they are is probably not a great person when you scratch the surface. Sorry but it’s true.
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So a novel should not be set in historical Russia now? And that is harmful *how*? I wish people who think this is a beneficent move would really interrogate this line of reasoning. Tell me how a novel set in Siberia in the last century hurts anyone. This is deeply weird.
Important announcement about THE SNOW FOREST. Please note that if you were charged for your pre-order, you will be fully refunded. Thank you so much.
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Everything is falling apart, in a million ways, large and small. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, you are either very rich and living in a false little bubble of your own construction or willing yourself not to see.
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We are entering a period of extreme chaos and hysteria. Get in touch with ways to steady and ground yourself; you are going to need them.
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The whole idea of trying to wipe out all “misinformation” is so dystopian and disturbing. Read some history, people.
Podcasts rife with misinformation remain on social platforms like Apple and Google as extremists exploit a loophole left after the tech companies cracked down on other mediums.
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Thrilled to have this essay, “Real Life Does Not Fit The Narrative” published by
@bariweiss
today in her new publication
@TheFP
.
It’s a piece about the pleasing strangeness of reality and the unsatisfying falseness of “the narratives.”
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I don't understand intergenerational animosity. Everyone was young. Everyone will be old It's like the self hating the self.
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People always ask me for writing tips and I basically only have two: 1) Read 2) Be a decent human being who is curious about other people.
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At a crowded house party tonight, I talked with two friends about pandemic restrictions. One had to tell her dying mother goodbye over Facebook, which is also how I saw my grandmother for the last time. A third was barred from visiting her sick mother in the ICU.
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I am thinking it’s time for the era of dressing solely in exercise clothes—aka “athleisure”—to come to an end.
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Last night, before Walter was taken into his surgical procedure, he sat upright and said, “Where did the owls go?”—he was drowsy, but they hadn’t yet given him any drugs. “What owls?” I asked. He told me there were “three little owls watching over him.” Tonight, we drove by this.
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I am at the point where I believe almost nothing I have not seen with my own eyes. It’s unsettling. This has been an evolving realization that began when I covered the Las Vegas shooting and saw many aspects of it being misrepresented in the press and online. Don’t be credulous.
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Bless those men who view it as their duty to hold doors for everyone.
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@annehelen
The median household income in Darien is like $208,000. (I wrote about it once!)
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I wrote an essay for the beautiful new issue of the
@believermag
about living in Las Vegas. People do actually live here! And not in casinos.
The People of Las Vegas via
@believermag
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A friend recently suggested I approach something I was resisting with curiosity rather than dread, and the more I think about it, the more I am convinced that this small shift may be the key to life.
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Everything is so stupid.
Greta Thunberg is 19 years old and single-handedly humiliated 36-year-old Andrew Tate, who is now arrested for human trafficking in Romania after trying to “clap back” at Greta. Never mess with Greta. An absolute legend and icon. The best of Gen Z.
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I really don’t like the implied class system that asserts itself when customers are not required to wear masks but those who help them (waiters, retail clerks, service workers of all kinds) are—often for long hours. It feels wrong. Workers should be free to go maskless, too.
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Anyone who works as a bartender and is losing their livelihood right now: Here is a link where you can apply for the USBG's Bartender Emergency Assistance Program. Please share:
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What I don’t understand is why universities, many of which have truly hefty endowments, are neither made to lower their tuition—$30,000 or more a semester in many cases—nor to shoulder any burden of the loan forgiveness being proposed. The whole system is ripe for reform.
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No, wrong! Eye bags are hot: they mean you’re up late having fun having sex working hard on your important art project and just generally doing things in the world.
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I left Las Vegas the first week of March and just returned to my apartment there. Look at this time capsule I found on my kitchen counter.
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Even my sunniest most resilient friends are worryingly depressed. We need to talk more openly and honestly about what this moment is doing to people.
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A beautiful and happy birthday to my husband
@walterkirn
, Leo of all Leos, who sees things more clearly than most people and can write circles around them all!!
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We all hugged and felt a deep sad shared empathy between us. What people were put through was inhumane.
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Anyone saying this has no idea what it’s like to be poor and live on the thinnest margin. Higher gas prices mean higher prices for *everything.* So many people in this country are barely scraping by as it is. It’s not a joke and it’s not funny.
.
@StephenAtHome
: "Today, the average gas price in America hit an all-time record high of over $4/gallon. OK, that stings, but a clean conscience is worth a buck or two. It’s important. I’m willing to pay $4/gallon. Hell, I’ll pay $15 a gallon b/c I drive a Tesla"
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“Among teenage girls, suicide attempts are up a shocking 51 percent (and among boys, 4 percent).” So sad and unacceptable. Kids need to live normal, unrestricted lives.
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Hell yes
@britneyspears
tells it like it is on her Instagram—about her father, sister, Vegas, etc. I love it.
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The millennials get a lot of flack, but one of their most beautiful achievements is that they normalized saying “I love you” to your friends.
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I wish magazines would hire women to write about some of the big male rock star whales—Dylan, Springsteen, etc—for once. I’m tired of those profiles and essays always being written by men.
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I just found this photo of
@walterkirn
and me watching the total solar eclipse in Rigby, Idaho in August 2017. To my mind, this marks the exact moment the world turned upside down and after which things started to get super weird and no one will convince me otherwise.
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Whatever age you are as a woman, it's important to have female friends who are quite a bit older than you are.
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“The papers, both published in the journal Hospital Pediatrics, found that pediatric hospitalizations for COVID-19 were overcounted by at least 40 percent, carrying potential implications for nationwide figures.”
Yep. ☝️
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It’s Valentine’s Day. I like this holiday because at root it’s about showing love, the most powerful force there is. We just had a harrowing few days at the hospital but the good news is Walter is on the mend & if I ever stop writing I have a future as a fierce patient advocate.
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Something I have learned over time is that a lot of people––more than you would think––have no idea what they're talking about. They just say things.
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I’ve come to realize that a lot of people are constantly listening to podcasts, music, etc. A painter friend just had a major breakthrough when she began to work in silence. Without existing in quiet, at least sometimes, I think it’s hard hear your intuition, ideas, inner voice.
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Every year about this time, I need to read this poem. Maybe you do too.
“You Want A Social Life, With Friends,” by Kenneth Koch
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Fourteen years ago tonight, right about now actually, I met my husband
@walterkirn
—on Facebook of all places!
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My Las Vegas shooting story is out in print today. I reported it for 7 months, in the hope of shining a light on a horrible tragedy that seemed to have been forgotten. It's my first ever cover story & my first in
@CalSunday
. Check out the issue! All the stories are incredible.
Our June issue is LIVE! And out in print Sunday. We traveled the world for this one. Read
@amandafortini
on the Vegas shooting,
@Danielduane
on the crisis in Tijuana,
@jglionna
on boxing tents in Australia, and Rollo Romig on the tech workers of India.
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“We are up to 65,000 registrations in a single 24-hour period since T. Swift's post,” said Kamari Guthrie, director of communications for
Taylor Swift's Instagram Post Has Caused A Massive Spike In Voter Registration
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“At 500 pounds, Hank is ‘exceptionally large,’ the state wildlife authorities said. The average black bear in the western United States weighs 100 to 300 pounds... but Hank’s diet of human food and garbage has expanded his size.”
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Danielle Steel has published 190 books, has had five marriages from which she has nine children, sleeps four hours a night, still smokes, and starts her day with a virgin mojito.
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I need to say something to young people: it is fine to be earnest; it is fine to be sentimental. You don’t have to footnote it or apologize for it. Let yourself feel everything and express it honestly. Don’t become so cool and irony-poisoned that you forget how.
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“They were careless people, Tom and Daisy—they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made.” —F. Scott Fitzgerald
Marilyn Monroe’s iconic dress has reportedly been damaged after being worn by Kim Kardashian at the Met Gala.
The dress now shows signs of tearing, and several crystals are either missing or hanging off of it.
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People who make “niceness” their brand usually have a dark mean side.
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I just watched two guys going into a liquor store, one saying to the other: “Fucking 2020. The moon entered the Seventh House and Jupiter aligned with Mars, Bro.”
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JLo’s daughter is a far better singer, and the little girl’s face betrays the fact that she knows she sounds better than her mother. Greek drama in the making. 😂
World renowned vocalist Jennifer Lopez teaches her daughter how to sing just like her 😍
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I grew up around a couple of pathological liars and it made me an absolute bloodhound for truth, a disciple of reality, and severely allergic to slipperiness with facts. As you might imagine, I am absolutely losing my mind these days.
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This sweet photo of him makes me so sad 😞
Car passenger who filmed killing of retired police chief Andreas Probst arrested, faces murder charge
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As she pushed her cart through the desolate grocery store aisles at 11pm, the announcements urging shoppers to get their “immunizations” bleating overhead, she realized, all at once, that this was it: the dystopia all the novels she’d read had warned about.
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This video of kids playing "Crazy Train" on xylophones is seriously the best thing I have seen in AGES!! It's so good it makes me cry.
Be sure to watch until you get to the kids rocking out with solo parts at the end.
Awesome and proof that every school needs a well funded music program!
Ozzy Osbourne's "Crazy Train" xylophone-style.
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.
@Ocasio2018
is now live on Instagram chatting about politics while she eats macaroni with a coffee stir because she doesn’t have any utensils. “That’s grassroots baby,” she just said, “Make it happen. Make it work.” I love her.
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