Colonial Williamsburg has become a space for truly complex, careful conversations about American history.

In America, the arts depend on charitable giving; that’s not ideal.

“The Death of the Fuck”: on puritanism and sex scenes in books.

I found this article fascinating — it’s about how the modern world assumes we want everything to be speedier and more efficient, but that’s not actually what we want all the time! God, I miss Blockbuster.

Meredith Shiner reflects on the high holy days, Palestinian lives, and that one CBS interview with Ta-Nehisi Coates.

“I progressed, swift, undeterred by silent letters, diphthongs, schwas, into a wintry future—my birthday is in January—of which two things could be said for sure: I would be five years old; I would be able to rely on myself.” Elisa Gonzalez considers homeschooling and what it means to be an autodidact.

Adam Serwer contemplates the snitch state.

“Rumor baiting is eclipsing constructive reflection. The pattern seekers are more interested in uncovering a juicier story than finding justice for victims who must now compete with specious secret-society rhetoric and crude Diddy memes to be heard.” A thoughtful piece about conspiratorial thinking and the exploitation of young artists in the music industry.

This profile of Palestinian American historain Rashid Khalidi (whose book I read this year) is excellent, and I am eager to read his next book on the links between Ireland and Palestine.

“What lengths may some fans go to get noticed?”

“With many patients, the drug is closer to brain damage.” A dopamine agonist used to treat Parkinson’s can lead to wildly out of character behavior and loss of impulse control.

Molly Young shares an abecedary of her enemies.

“Male historians will never stop explaining things. Female historians might, one day, stop listening.”

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What does appropriation mean in food culture? (link)

NPR crowd-sourced a list of the best SFF from the last ten years, and it’s a good-ass list. (link)

The Jeopardy! situation was some real fuckin bullshit and I want a recount, I want the recount to consist of everyone egging Mike Richards until he gets down on his knees and begs LeVar Burton to come back and host forever and then Mike Richards retires to, like, Chalmette. (link)

An interview with Silvia Moreno-Garcia, an author who writes a gorgeous, weird, fascinating range of SFF novels and has a new one out about Mexican revolutionaries. (link)

Contestants on the Bachelor franchise are, in fact, there to make friends. (link)

On misunderstanding Thoreau. (link)

I have never read not even one single word of John le Carre and I probably don’t agree with this writer’s final argument about George and Ann Smiley, but I still found this piece a hell of a good read. (link)

Mortgage approvals are systematically racist; which I know we all know, but here’s some more evidence about it. (link)

Welp, I was completely out on Y: The Last Man the series and then I started hearing about how hard the writing room worked to include trans voices and tell trans stories and now goddammit I guess they have lured me back in. (link)

“I simply enjoyed the fundamental separation of church and state.” How RPF and celebrity fandom has changed in the world of the vast internet. (link)

adrienne maree brown talks about the place of Black anger in speculative fiction and stories about Black grief. (link)

This deep dive on classic Black television is terrific, like everything Hannah Giorgis writes! (link)

Urban Meyer sucks. Here is a story of how the Ohio State football system failed a survivor of domestic violence (at the hands of one of their coaching staff). (link)

On editing fascist propaganda out of Wikipedia pages. (link)

It has been a very defeating week. If you have any good news, or anything that’s not news but is making you feel a little bit good, please drop it in the comments and make me smile. Have a wonderful weekend!

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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!

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