culture diary

Jenji Kohan’s Week in Pop-Culture Consumption

Photo: Jesse Grant/Getty

The creator of Weeds and Netflix’s new Orange Is the New Black tells us everything she watched, read, listened to, and clicked on in a week.

MONDAY, JUNE 10
 

Watched: 9 p.m.: The Source Family documentary.

11 p.m.: Mad Men. 

Midnight: The Daily Show. “I miss Jon Stewart. John Oliver’s accent gets to me after a while. There’s something cutesy about it that I’m not in love with.” 

12:20 a.m.: House Hunters International.

Clicked on: 1 a.m.: Indifferent Cats in Amateur Porn, Tumblr. “There’s no sex with cats, just cats in the background. When I watch this stuff, it’s not for titillation, it’s for fascination. But I do watch porn for titillation—don’t get me wrong.”

TUESDAY, JUNE 11 

Clicked on: 10 a.m.: Dangerousminds.net. “When you’re at work, you need to take breaks to see things like a photo of a dog’s asshole that looks like Jesus.” 

Watched: 1:30 p.m.: The trailer for The Michael J. Fox Show. “It was a little cringe-y at first, but I was pleasantly surprised.” 

2 p.m.: Farrah Superstar: Backdoor Teen Mom. “We watched it in the writers’ room. Now we have to work it into the show so no one can sue us for harassment.” 

5 p.m.: Top of the Lake. Baseball. The Simpsons. Flight of the Conchords. 

Read: 7 p.m.: Addicted, by Zane. 

8 p.m.: Plus One, by Christopher Noxon. “It’s an early draft of my husband’s novel, about a man married to a successful woman. It’s a little close to home, even though it’s fiction. I’m reading it in dribs and drabs, instead of just sitting down and reading it like I promised I would, and I feel like an asshole.” 

11 p.m.: Addicted, by Zane. 

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 12 

Clicked on: 10:10 a.m.: TheFrisky.com. “A woman just got the Guinness record for strongest vagina. Everyone in the writers’ room started to do Kegels.” 

Read: 2 p.m.: New Yorker article on the optimal number of kids that writers should have. “Have I blown it by having three?” 

10 p.m.: Moving Waters, by Racelle Rosett. 

11 p.m.: My Dirty Dumb Eyes, by Lisa Hanawalt. 

Clicked on: 4 a.m.: Amateur porn. “It was a threesome in a hotel room, but boring and really chatty.”

THURSDAY, JUNE 13 

Clicked on: 10:10 a.m.: Russell Brand embarrasses some MSNBC anchors on YouTube.He was smarter than I thought. I wasn’t predisposed to liking him, but I was impressed with how he handled himself, because they were being dickwads.” 

10:30 a.m.: Truecrimediary.com. “I had dinner with Patton Oswalt and his wife, Michelle McNamara, and she solves cold cases! I had to check out all her stuff. 

Read: 5 p.m.: “Erotica on my Kindle.”

Watched:  8 p.m.: Fashion Queens.

FRIDAY, JUNE 14  

Listened to: 8 a.m.: Let’s Explore Diabetes With Owls, by David Sedaris, audiobook.

Watched: 1 p.m.: We Steal Secrets: The Story of WikiLeaks. 

Read: 10 p.m.: American Assassin, by Vince Flynn. “I had never really read a thriller before. It was very male, with a lot of killing. It’s cotton candy.” 

SATURDAY, JUNE 15 

Read: 10 a.m.: The Los Angeles Times and the New York Times.

SUNDAY, JUNE 16 

Clicked on: 11 a.m.: Erato’s version of “Call Your Girlfriend” on YouTube

Watched: 7 p.m.: Tonight’s Mad Men, plus next week’s finale a week early at Matthew Weiner’s house. “Matt and I have been friends forever. It’s heartbreaking to see Don hit bottom, but there’s some hope. And Pete with Bob Benson—he learned!”

*This article originally appeared in the July 8, 2013 issue of New York Magazine.

Jenji Kohan’s Week in Pop-Culture Consumption