You Used To Call Me On My ... Inter-Korean Hotline [#62]
Happy New Year!
Is it weird that I've only been back from holiday for a bit and I'm burned out? I need more executive time! Would have written you sooner but I was waiting for a sufficient amount of saved links to pile up. My periodical reading has slowed because I was nearing my self-imposed deadline to read 52 books before 2017 was out and made it with only hours to spare. Whew.
Reading
The showcase of hard power in China and its implications, by Friend Ed. On Trump, help is not on its way. In 2007, he was briefly forced to not lie. Sally Yates on the stakes of this moment. How actual smart people talk about themselves. On cognitive decline. A running list of authoritarian behaviors. Journalists have not solved the problem of how to help the public understand "already public" information. "Pushing the envelope further, until the fringe displaces the center." (I previously blogged about this notion with respect to Fox News, but it's the same principle.) Guide to heartbreak. You don't have to feel optimistic to act from a place of optimism. Philip Seymour Hoffman's relationship with Mimi O'Donnell (ht @BradWillis). Reading plans for life. What to throw out. Junior's done racing, by Friend Drew. The achievement beard, an appreciation (ht @photomatt). Lana del Ray ripped off Radiohead's two chords that "don't belong here." This top 10 journalism movies list EXCLUDES 'The Paper'?!? C'mon man.
Book Reading
Too Much and Not the Mood: Essays, by Durga Chew-Bose
Recommended by my sister Kat Chow (Yes, she gets the joke about her name.)
Work and Musings
On Vox's Divided States of Women podcast, about gender inequality in South Korea. After a day of dialogue, North Korea is coming to the Olympics. Atmospherics of the talks. Why the North Korea threat remains the thorniest of foreign policy problems. A look back at my 52 books of 2017. Some simple resolutions. (I hope so, anyway.)
Watching/Listening
Gave Mike Nichols' Closer a re-watch because I was in a bad mood and decided swim in the blues. Robert Siegel looks back on his career, with Terry Gross. Maggie Haberman on how never being accepted by New York society still affects Trump (ht @dannydb). NYT on how the smash hit/earworm Shape of You came together. Can't watch this yet but something I'm SUPER excited about in 2018: The Mr. Rogers Documentary!
Be well, be helpers, hug your loved ones.
xoxo
E