My Friday the 13ths tend to be good, but I’m getting the results of a COVID test today, which feels very very cursed. Pray for me; I really want to do sister night with my sister tonight, and I very much want to spend some bonding time with my nephew this weekend. I miss him! He is such a good boy! Anyway, let’s have a links round-up! I’m going to start with an article that is partly rather grim about the future of the pandemic, but also reassures us that the pandemic will end someday. This is helpful to me. I am in a mental state where it feels like we’ll be doing pandemic forever. But Ed Yong says no.
The pandemic will end. Ed Yong, savior of cogent COVID explanations, lays out the path to normalcy, and considers what our new normal will look like. (link)
“Customers affect a demeanor of antagonistic helplessness.” PHEW this whole article about what it’s like to work retail at a time when everyone is being The Worst is very good, but this one line just about did me in. (link)
Here is why every woman in all of TV has the exact same hair. (link)
“You know how little girls dream of their weddings? I dreamt of houses.” Sandra Cisneros on finding a room of her own. (link)
Nylah Burton interviews Laura Blackett and Eve Gleichman on the dystopian world of their new workplace novel, The Very Nice Box. (link)
Lesley Anne Warren remembers Clue. (link)
On the people and companies that are trying to make travel less racist. (link)
“Who is to blame in this transaction: the lone shopper who purchased hundreds of dollars worth of clothes, or the billion-dollar retailer?” How Gen Z shops. (link)
Music critic Craig Jenkins sees no end in sight for homophobia in hip-hop. (link)
The central theme of Howl’s Moving Castle is unappreciated labor. Also it slaps. (link)
Midnight’s Borders, by Suchitra Vijayan, has been one of my favorite nonfiction books of the year. Here’s its author getting interviewed over at The Rumpus. (link)
“Does Lenù like Lila?” On the friendship plot and how it could be better. (link)
“Here is what it is: no force on earth will keep a writer’s preoccupations out of their fiction. You are not necessarily looking for them, but you find them every time.” A new Patricia Lockwood review is always cause for rejoicing. (link)
Why the devil do grocery stores still have an ethnic food aisle? (link)
“You can make a lot of money in diversity being abstract.” WHEW. On the DEI industry. (link)
This weekend, I am planning to do many, many tasks! If that doesn’t work out, I will at least spend time with my nephew, who is one of my favorite people on earth. I have two puzzles for him to play with and a new copy of Chutes and Ladders and a bed that goes up and down and a typewriter. All the ingredients for a fun time!