Snacks on Election Eve [#106]
A way to deliver news with less despair, a way to send less stuff to landfills and ... a holiday gift idea!
Over the weekend I went to an absolute gem of a place: a tiny poetry library in South LA, tucked next to an auto body shop on a major road. I went to hear my friend Val read from her new collection, Snacks for the Love Hungry. Her feminist takes are specific and universal at once, and she had us laughing uproariously moments before gutting us with her truth bayonets. So my holiday gift this year to my girlfriends is going to be this vulva bag paired with a copy of Val’s book.
Reading (all prose, for those of you who aren’t into poetry)
There is a better way to communicate news, one that actually leaves us better off. Why another special counsel? There was a pandemic baby boom, after all. (I wasn’t sure which way it was going to go — more babies, or fewer?) Fast furniture from lockdown life is clogging landfills. This fascinating frame-by-frame breakdown of former Chinese leader Hu Jintao getting ejected from the Party Congress. This essay on how Korea’s young people were failed again by the supposed grownups. When Julia Roberts was born 55 years ago, Martin Luther and Coretta Scott King swooped in to pay the bill.
Werk Werk Werk
New email list! My book manuscript is nearing the end of the editing journey, and as loyal Hu’s Letter readers I hope you will sign up for the book specific email list: flawlessthebook.substack.com. That’s where I will update the journey to publication day, including when to pre-order and request the book at your libraries!
The book is called Flawless, and it uses the global rise of K-beauty — skincare, cosmetics, plastic surgery — as a jumping off point to explore why we continue to give external “beauty” so much power, and where we draw the line on appearance improvement when it all becomes cheaper and more technologically possible. There are also bits from our time living in Korea sprinkled throughout, like the harrowing cab ride to Isabel’s birth. If the subject matter of the book might appeal to someone you know, please share the link with them, too. Your support means a lot to me.
Watch and/or Listen
Avenue 5. I don’t know how I missed this before COVID, but Armando Ianucci of The Thick of It and Veep fame has a show on HBO right now starring Hugh Laurie, my new friend Zach Woods, and Josh Gad about a totally over-the-top cruise, but in space. Seasons one and two are available now.
For Americans out there — I hope you’ve made a plan to vote!
E