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For real, I need to get rid of some books. More on that within. Also talking about Black composers, The Nap Dress, global tech trends, etc.
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Hi! It’s Sunday. Let’s get into it.
Get Random Books From Me!
I’ve spent most of my time inside lately, hiding from mosquitoes and looking at Caity Weaver’s annotated Google/Wikipedia searches (many of which are simpatico with my own). I have also gone through a number of bookshelves and assembled quite a box of books to purge.
If you want to receive a random box of (1-3) books, just reply to this email with proof of a recent donation to a bail fund/racial justice initiative and your mailing address. (If you’re short on cash, email me anyway and we’ll work something out.)
I have no idea what I’ll send you, but who doesn’t like opening up book mail?
You might receive a cookbook, or a book about Italy (lol), or a classic that I stole from my high school, or an esoteric but intriguing art book, or contemporary fiction, or something else. You will certainly receive a note from me, though!
This Week in Activism, Local Businesses & More
You can text “TRENDING” to Resist Bot at 50409 for a list of petitions that need signing. Right now, you can text WALK to support the repeal of New York’s #WalkingWhileTrans ban.
McNally Jackson has partnered with Reach Out & Read, a nonprofit organization devoted to early childhood learning and literacy skills, to donate books to doctors at Jacobi’s Pediatric Outpatient Clinic in the Bronx. Books will be handed out to families during appointments for children 6 years old and younger.
Christine Wong of The Yommme Kitchen is selling masks and donating a portion of proceeds to a variety of charities and initiatives. Though some masks are sold out, proceeds from buying masks with this pretty pattern go to Heart of Dinner, an organization “nourishing Chinatown's elderly with meals and supplies during the pandemic.” New mask prints will be launched/restocked this Wednesday, July 29.
The Books
This week I finished a few books, including:
Revenge by Yoko Ogawa, which was incredible. I’ll write more about it once I’m able to cogently express myself (and my penchant for yelling IT WAS SO GOOD to anyone who asks about it does not count).
The Perfect World of Miwako Sumida by Clarissa Goenwan, which I read in a single sitting. It was dark and twisted and compelling.
The Guest List by Lucy Foley, which was a page-turner with a few good surprises.
I also started The Source of Self-Regard by Toni Morrison and The Binding by Bridget Collins.
Your Recommendations
A reminder that you can complete this Google form or reply to my newsletter any time to let me know what you’re reading. Maybe you’ll end up here.
Amateur Bibliotherapist: Alexander Gary Smith (full name is essential)
Favorite Bookstore: Half Price Books on the east side of Madison, WI | The little library by my credit union | Honestly, the Apple Books store, I'm a sucker for the digital age. (Note from Anna: me too, my friend. I always have a book on my phone.)
The Read(s):
A text from Martin dunking on our friend Alan, which I appreciate because Alan is more successful and better looking than us, thank you Martin.
American Exceptionalism and Human Rights edited by Michael Ignatieff (no free link available, to my knowledge), specifically Andrew Moravcsik's chapter on "The Paradox of U.S. Human Rights Policy" (free link available!)
Moravcsik does, in my opinion, an exceptional job (pun not intended) laying out how the American system of government fits into the international human rights regime, or rather, how it doesn't really fit. It's also refreshing to read someone using the word "conservative" not in a pejorative sense, but just to describe individuals and institutions that are focused on maintaining the processes they've already developed. Admittedly, this conservative focus on traditional processes does not make the U.S. very flexible when it comes to addressing human rights violations, but you can read all about that in the chapter. While the book and chapter were published in 2005, coinciding with revelations regarding US torture policy, I still found it relevant today within the context of the Black Lives Matter movement, which has been a pointed human rights movement since its inception.
Elsewhere in the book world, here’s what 100 writers have been reading during quarantine; here’s the 27 books long-listed for the 2020 Center for Fiction First Novel Prize; and here’s a list of 8 anti-capitalist sci-fi and fantasy novels.
The Articles
Black Artists on How to Change Classical Music, The New York Times (~6 min). I’m pleasantly surprised to see the NYT running a series on how to change classical music, which has been “even slower than American society at large to confront racial inequity.” This article asks nine Black performers about ways to transform a “white-dominated field.”
Terence Blanchard, who is slated to be the first Black composer to have a work staged by the Metropolitan Opera, was quoted in the NYT piece and was also highlighted in a recent presentation of Black composers that I attended. It was hosted by YNYC, the the choir I perform with during non-pandemic times, and included historically significant Black composers; non-idiomatic choral music of Black composers; and contemporary Black composers. It also introduced me to "Can You See," an incredible composition by Dr. Zanaida S Robles that feels particularly resonant in 2020.
Tune In, Drop Out, Rest Of World (~15 min). This article, which was featured in a recent Study Hall newsletter, examines the honjok social movement in South Korea that describes “people who prefer, out of pleasure or practicality—and, often, utter exhaustion and sheer desperation — to live outside of conventional social structures and simply be alone.” While there’s a burgeoning market for people doing things by themselves—everything from self-serve food kiosks to partitioned dining areas for solo customers—the “traditionally collectivist” South Korean society continues to relegate the self-described honjok to its margins.
Rest Of World, an international nonprofit journalism organization, recently launched to explore global tech stories that go beyond the “Western-centric worldview that leaves innumerable insights, opportunities and complexity out of the conversation.” I spent a good deal of time this week clicking through their work (and read through articles on automating Thailand’s hospitals, the relationship between digital and civil rights in Sudan, and end-of-life technology in Japan).
The Allure of the Nap Dress, the Look of Gussied-Up Oblivion, The New Yorker (~5 min). Because it is likely that we live in a multiverse, I am content to admit that I, in this universe, am probably the worst version of myself to exist. That’s because I, like the author of this article, was stalked online by The Nap Dress on Instagram and eventually succumbed to native marketing and bought it. I, too, “purchased it in the wee hours of the morning, during one of my frequent bouts of pandemic-induced insomnia. Since sleeping through the night was not happening,” I, too, “figured an outfit specifically designated for daytime dozing might be just the thing.”
Despite rolling my eyes throughout most of this article, one paragraph stuck out to me as a particularly interesting examination of fashion history and impact:
“We are used to seeing women in white nightgowns as haunted, anxious, skulking around with unfinished business. But there is also the figure of the innocent child in white, a kind of prelapsarian state of guilelessness and imagination. The Nap Dress combines these associations into a single garment; it is children’s clothing sized up for adults, or creepy, adult ghost clothes festooned with sweet and approachable details. It is a dress that connotes both extreme stress and also the cessation of it. How wonderful it would be, the Nap Dress suggests, to finally be able to rest after all the hand-wringing.”
I do love pretending to be a ghost.
Ok, that’s it! Please have a martini and peruse this sapphic analysis of the new Taylor Swift album.