[#74] Good and Mad
Hi from STILL sunny Southern California, where I've left about forty empty boxes out on the front porch awaiting pickup for a couple of weeks. It never rains so the pile runs no risk of becoming a soggy mess.
The weirdest thing about re-entry is I went from being 12 hours ahead in time, aka The Future, to three hours behind. I wake up and it's already mid-morning on the East coast, so I feel perpetually late to everything. I KIND OF LOVE IT. End the East coast hegemony!
Reading
Lots of great travel tips from Jada Yuan, who's on a yearlong trip as the NYT's 52 Places traveler. This interview with Emma Thompson is A+. The failure of congressional oversight under Republican leadership. "Trump is what he is ... the question is whether our system is capable of responding." What will replace democracy? Billionaires destroyed the state of Oklahoma, and it's devastating. Questioning whether the sperm apocalypse is really coming. Babies don't hurt women's careers, men who don't do their share do. Man rubbed his buttocks against produce at the grocery store. What we lose by having awful men in charge of the news media. The "as a nurse" part here about the Giuliani divorce is interesting. Very few accusations of rape are false. The "why your fashion designer sucks" series from Jezebel features the work of DREW MAGARY of the Hater's Guide to the Williams Sonoma catalogue, which is what I anxiously await every Christmas.
Watch/Listen
This 99% Invisible episode about cultural norms around plastic surgery. NPR SkunkBear on whether neurofeedback mend a broken heart. Tracee Ellis Ross' TED talk on a woman's rage. The allure of personailty tests, from the New Yorker.
Werk
What am I doing besides playing the tambourine like Tina Turner? I'm working on a new beat about the world in 2050 — how we'll live, work, play, govern ourselves, what ideology or ideologies will rule the day (probablynot capitalism?) and developing video explainers to potentially pilot a TV episode with all those explainers, given the content-hungry streaming services out there. I am spending a lot of time talking about big ideas with big brains, at least until I have to pick up one daughter from yoga and the other from her Chinese immersion preschool. Tambourine!
Recommendations
The Baeto O'Rourke instagram (and Twitter account). "It may be pronounced Beh-to, but he's bae to us," is the tagline. And I like to look at it to catch glimpses of friend Andy (who is on Beto's staff) look at him longingly. AHAHAHAAHA dying.
Rebecca Traister's new book, Good and Mad, comes out October 2. I have pre-ordered!
Keep yer head up,
E