Books

The Magic Fish by Trung Le Nguyen

I have no clue how to give this a summary because it’s effectively 5 stories in one: an immigration story, a coming out story, Tattercoats, Cinderella, and the Little Mermaid.

Suffice to say I lost my cool while reading this and am incredibly jealous of Trungles’ writing skills. Patreon here.

The Devil Comes Courting by Courtney Milan (Worth Saga #3)

A man determined to be the first to create a Pan-Pacific telegraph line, and the woman capable of of making that dream a reality.

Dang, this was Chinese representation I never expected to get. Holy shit.

Stakes Is High by Mychal Denzel Smith

Essay collection. Immensely quotable/highlightable. Definitely read the Accountability chapter.

---

Music

C. Tangana’s Tiny Desk (Home) Concert

In particular Me Maten, Demasiadas Mujeres, and Tu Me Dejaste de Querer.

Tora’s Call Your Name and Below

Erez Zobary’s Saku

---

Newsletters

Roxane Gay’s The Audacious

Paid subscription/content available as well.

Fran Tirado’s joy digest

Pay if you can.

Tressie McMillan Cottom’s essaying

Paid subscription/content available

---

Misc.

App: Chani Nicholas’ CHANI

This is my only paid subscription app, and the only app I let send me push notifications.

Figure skating: Jason Brown’s Sinnerman short program

This vid from the 2021 World Team Trophy in Japan. *Chefs kiss * sublime

Podcast: Duolingo Spanish’s El perro que protestó (The Dog Who Protested)

My feeeeels.

---

Articles

emotional labor is physical labor by lqb2

Gonna be thinking about this line: “emotional labor is learning how to be with our bodies which are physical things.”

people who break boundaries are (often) people who haven’t had their boundaries respected by lqb2

“if you make requests for boundaries and never or rarely experience someone upholding them, over time you forget or simply never learn what it feels like to have your wishes be respected. instead, you learn to ignore sensations related to your own boundaries. of course, you then can’t see it in someone else when you are crossing their boundaries. and, in some people, the sensation of crossing someone’s boundaries could even be interpreted as the right thing. like, if your parents always barged into your room against your wishes, maybe you’ll learn that that’s what good parenting is. you could begin to think that not doing that is neglect or something. maybe that’s a stretch but maybe not.”

An Office Designed For People With Autism by Susan Dominus

“Managers adjust, within reason, to their employees’ boundaries, rather than the other way around”

Want to borrow that e-book from the library? Sorry, Amazon won’t let you. by Geoffrey A. Fowler

“With other big publishers, selling e-books and audiobooks to libraries is part of the mix — that’s why you’re able to digitally check out bestsellers like Barack Obama’s “A Promised Land.” Amazon is the only big publisher that flat-out blocks library digital collections. Search your local library’s website, and you won’t find recent e-books by Amazon authors Kaling, Dean Koontz or Dr. Ruth Westheimer. Nor will you find downloadable audiobooks for Trevor Noah’s “Born a Crime,” Andy Weir’s “The Martian” and Michael Pollan’s “Caffeine.””

I’m non verbal, but that won’t stop me from speaking Maori, video interview of Geneva Hakaraia-Tino

Q&A with Denise Herd on equity-based vaccine distribution by Sara Grossman

Good Faith by Tina Horn

On power, cults, and kink. I first read this a while ago, but it just hit harder for me this time when I reread it in the We Too anthology.

“I’m not looking for new authority figures. I’m not looking to recycle the suffering of old gods. I’m looking to make something new.”

After crime plummeted in 2020, Baltimore will stop drug, sex prosecutions by Tom Jackman

“The coronavirus pandemic hit, and State’s Attorney Marilyn J. Mosby announced that the city would no longer prosecute drug possession, prostitution, trespassing and other minor charges, to keep people out of jail and limit the spread of the deadly virus.

And then crime went down in Baltimore. A lot. While violent crime and homicides skyrocketed in most other big American cities last year, violent crime in Baltimore dropped 20 percent from last March to this month, property crime decreased 36 percent, and there were 13 fewer homicides compared with the previous year. This happened while 39 percent fewer people entered the city’s criminal justice system in the one-year period, and 20 percent fewer people landed in jail after Mosby’s office dismissed more than 1,400 pending cases and tossed out more than 1,400 warrants for nonviolent crimes.

So on Friday, Mosby made her temporary steps permanent. She announced Baltimore City will continue to decline prosecution of all drug possession, prostitution, minor traffic and misdemeanor cases, and will partner with a local behavioral health service to aggressively reach out to drug users, sex workers and people in psychiatric crisis to direct them into treatment rather than the back of a patrol car.”

Keeping Love Close, photo series in The New York Times

Sandy Kim’s photo, staring into the camera as her parents feed her, along with her statement sucker punched me.

“Every week my parents drive an hour and half away to visit me in Los Angeles. They stock my fridge, clean my house, do my laundry, cook meals for the week and fix anything broken. It’s important to them that I stay on track ever since I overcame a decade-long opiate addiction. I’ve spent the last two years relearning how to live, replacing all the shame I had with love and connection instead. I am so grateful to be alive, and for the love, support and hope they give me.”

Kati Kariko Helped Shield the World From the Coronavirus by Gina Kolato

“She grew up in Hungary, daughter of a butcher. She decided she wanted to be a scientist, although she had never met one. She moved to the United States in her 20s, but for decades never found a permanent position, instead clinging to the fringes of academia.

Now Katalin Kariko, 66, known to colleagues as Kati, has emerged as one of the heroes of Covid-19 vaccine development. Her work, with her close collaborator, Dr. Drew Weissman of the University of Pennsylvania, laid the foundation for the stunningly successful vaccines made by Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna.”

What Is a Ballet Body? by Gia Kourlas

Happy to see ballet’s fetishization of skinniness addressed.

White People Keep Posing As People of Color for Clout by Manisha Krishnan

“In passing, Black people were accessing resources that white people already had—and that were reserved for them alone. But when white folks pose as people of color, oftentimes to access opportunities, they are essentially double dipping.”

“One of the wider issues at play, according to Rosa, is the commodification of race and diversity. When institutions are confronted with their white-ness, the instinct is to hire more people from the Black, Indigenous, and people of color communities. But Rosa said that’s “the most cosmetic and superficial way” to address the problem—and it doesn’t deal with the structural reasons they are excluded.

“It also creates a whole other set of problems like these forms of fraudulence,” he added.”

Femme Shark Communique #1 by Zuleikha Mahmood and Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha

“All our holes are hungry: hungry for justice and fucking.”

I had seen the femme shark manifesto but didn’t know there was a zine too!

Actress Jasika Nicole on why she won’t do any more cop shows: ‘I want to turn my privilege into power’ (Op-ed) by Jasika Nicole

“By casting cops as non-white, Hollywood thinks they can avoid inconvenient discussions about racism and power, but the truth is that you don’t have to be white to uphold the tenets of white supremacy; you just have to believe in its validity. Suddenly the stakes of the role came into clear focus for me, and I couldn’t imagine willingly perpetuating a distortion such as this, supporting the narrative that cops were generally well-intentioned protectors of all citizens, only occasionally lumped in with a few “bad apples.”

The devastating and unending loss of Black, brown, and indigenous life at the hands of our “protectors” is not occasional. The uncovering of alleged gangs in the L.A. County Sheriff’s Department wreaking deliberate, murderous havoc on communities of color is not occasional. A prison system with racial-based inequities so vile that they are hard to fully comprehend is not occasional. It is consistent, it is intentional, and it has no place being falsely memorialized in TV and film, not by me or anyone else.”

13 Tips Re: Cancel Culture + Ritual Invites from the Oracle of Los Angeles’ newsletter

The tips are useful for being in any sort of conflict, not just when you’re in hot water.

A Black Physicist Is Borne Back Ceaselessly Into the Past by Chanda Prescod-Weinstein

“I am forced to live in a parallel world to the one I wanted to live in, where I could have been a physicist without also constantly being asked to speak on or attempt to compensate for the persistent racism of institutions.”

Building a Post-Colonial Community Starts With Vocabulary by Kelsey E. Thomas

“While the English language is constantly adding words to express new concepts and inventions, the Maskoke language traditionally evolved in accordance with the natural world. Instead of pushing Maskoke to keep up with English, Briggs-Cloud became interested in materializing a community where the indigenous language could thrive without being altered drastically to express the demands of Western life.”

Deep Cleaning Isn’t a Victimless Crime by Derek Thompson

Sharing specifically because I had such a strong knee-jerk reaction to this. Basically saying wiping things down is pointless, and our energy is better spent masking up or actually like addressing the root causes of this pandemic.