Stealth Rigor, Mixed Asians [#105]
Good reads on education, identity, and an incomplete list of the people I've met in LA
Big week. I decided to be a “full-sized candy bar house” for Halloween and bought out the shelves of XL Kit Kats and Mr. GoodBars. And finally I jumped through the bureaucratic hoops to volunteer at my three daughters’ Mandarin immersion elementary school. DAMN, the second graders shocked me in how proficient they were at speaking and writing a very difficult language! I mean, didn’t these children just learn to read ENGLISH a couple years ago?
Moreover, the classrooms are filled with multiracial kids, which is such a balm for me, after growing up in lily white St. Louis suburbs and constantly reminded of my difference from everyone else. Lo and behold, some great longreads on these topics of language and identity have come out in recent weeks! Herewith:
Reading
How do we age online, now that millennials are senior citizens on the internet? Related: How to stop accidentally turning on your iPhone flashlight. Doordash cocaine delivery killed three unrelated overachieving Manhattanites in one night. Maybe we should redshirt all the boys. Chinese immersion public schools as a stealth path to rigor, without private school costs. All the ways the half-white, half-Asian protagonist is saddled with being a metaphor. Personnel shenanigans in mainland China. Late to this, but I love Ann Friedman’s theory of internet criticism: The Disapproval Matrix. And RIP to the editor who taught: “Put the best shit at the end, the second-best shit at the beginning, and all the other shit in between.”
Werk Werk Werk
Nerdette book club discusses Celeste Ng’s Our Missing Hearts, featuring me and the rapper/poet Dessa! An incomplete list of the people I’ve met in LA. Our production company wrapped the latest season of WeTransfer’s Influence podcast, featuring insightful interviews with people like Wendy MacNaughton and Riz Ahmed. And crazy news: My producer friends and I advised a writer’s room for Mike Judge and Zach Woods’s new parody sitcom about NPR, featuring its “third most popular host.”
Recommendations
These VOTE canvas shoes. I just got a pair but they’re selling out fast.
Halloween-themed viewing: Hotel Transylvania! (Hulu). Characters easy to love and a triumphant ending.
Too Good To Go, an app available in big US cities, where you can get yourself a $4 surprise bag of pastries from bakeries and restaurants near the end of the day so they don’t throw them out. Discounted pastries and reducing food waste, I’m in to it.
As always, your link recommendations, quips, comments and complaints are welcome! Send my way.
Until next time,
E
PS Thank you to Astro Poets for recommending this newsletter. I’m particularly into the Astro Poets analyses of various sign pairs. They’re hilarious and wonderful.