First Word #17
a nearby forest, a saltbrush desert. rot / uncertainty / connection / hardware / feminism.
Every institution is prone to rot—even great causes like feminism. It should be no controversy to affirm, Sophie Lewis writes, that often “women are horrible.”
Feminism Against Itself // Grace Byron // The Nation
Berlin’s most far-flung, secret, and orphan suburb sits in the saltbrush desert about ninety miles southwest of Salt Lake City.
Berlin’s Skeleton in Utah’s Closet // Mike Davis // Dead Cities
This essay collection is what we are reading for book club. This was my favorite essay from last week’s reading which is about a cop city of sorts constructed by Standard Oil in 1943 to practice bombing Germany as well as Japan. I’m very fascinated with fake cities, Riotsville USA is a great watch on the topic.
Jen Andrulli entered the darkness for the first time last June in her Soldotna, Alaska, home. It was sunset, right after the summer solstice, in a room retrofitted to keep out light. With few sensory stimuli, aside from dogs barking in the distance and the rustles of the nearby forest, she began to feel like water—for five days and six nights.
When the Absence of Light Is the Medicine // Mattha Busby // Double Blind
Apparently Aaron Rodgers likes to do this stuff — I would go insane.
Just as it is impossible for me to articulate with any certainty the moment I entered adulthood or began to believe that human life on Earth would not last past the twenty-second century, I cannot tell you when I first became aware of Shen Yun.
Stepping Into the Uncanny, Unsettling World of Shen Yun // Jia Tolentino // The New Yorker
From Nicole.
18 months ago, I wasn’t planning on spending more time hanging out with my neighbors than with friends I’d known for decades.
Not my favorite writing in the world but still a wonderful piece about making connections with your neighbors.
Misty Gonzales has been tending bar at T.J. Byrnes, an Irish pub in the financial district of Manhattan, for 13 years. For most of that time, she has served office workers, college students and city employees.
A No-Frills Irish Pub Draws a Martini Crowd // Charles W. McFarlane // The New York Times
the times blew up the spot :(
Guillaume Verdon stands before me with a new kind of computer chip in his hand—a piece of hardware he believes is so important to the future of humanity that he’s asked me not to reveal our exact location, for fear that his headquarters could become the target of industrial espionage.
Hot New Thermodynamic Chips Could Trump Classical Computers // Will Knight // WIRED
I worked on this piece and if you liked “Big Balls” you might also like “Based Beff Jezos.”
On a warm Tuesday I walked across the island to seaport to listen to Rayne Fisher-Quann and Jamie Hood discuss Hood’s new book “Trauma Plot.” The discussion ranged from David Lynch and Greek myths to the limits of #MeToo to the cultural resentment of women’s confessional poetry. Hood originally wanted to call the book “Rape Girl.” Perhaps, if the memoir had had that title I wouldn’t have been hearing college-aged girls leave talking about how the talk hadn’t had a trigger warning.
A month ago I listened to Grace Byron and Sophie Lewis discuss “Enemy Feminism.” I’d highly rec Byron’s piece I linked first on the newsletter. I’m excited by writers like Lewis and Hood publishing books on Real Serious Feminism. As Fisher-Quann said this week, it can sometimes feel as though we are in a feminist thought recession. If you find yourself making enemies of politician or cop girl bossery, terfs, the r*d scare girlies, and the trad wives—the world can feel like a lonely place.
I left both of these talk feeling refreshed and charged. I ate khachapuri across from Books Are Magic on a cold February night with my friend and we chatted about gender in a way I haven’t since college. We joked about him being a male feminist. When did Real Serious Feminism become cringe? Two years after the Year of the Girl we have “my body, his choice.” Do we not need Real Serious Feminism now more than ever?
Would love to talk more about this the next time I see you. In the mean time, send me first sentences for next week and I’ll include them in the next newsletter.