[A Pleasurable Headache] Black Dahlia; Food Chain Complicity; The Town
This week’s links:
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On being thirty-five and not speaking French
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The Black Dahlia
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Single-page protest websites
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Writing via the subconscious
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Covid-19 and the global food chain
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Democrats jump on the anti-fascist bashing bandwagon
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Monbiot on corruption in Britain
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The Ringer’s Oral History of ‘The Town’
I Thought I Would Have Accomplished a Lot More Today and Also by the Time I Was Thirty-Five
Alex Baia, at The New Yorker will make you feel seen:
“I tried to buy some Converse Chuck Taylors online, but I couldn’t choose between gray and obsidian, because I disliked them equally. Then I got distracted by life-hack articles on Medium for ninety minutes. I’m thirty-five! I thought I would’ve purchased cool shoes by now, and been in a movie. My improv-troupe mate Sanjay was in that indie horse movie. He’s crushing it.”
The Black Dahlia
Miles Corwin for The Delacorte Review has produced an epic of a long read on one of world’s most famous cold cases. Corwin’s article doesn’t diminish Elizabeth Short or coat her in glossy mystique as so many other accounts have (“Nobody can tell this story straight. Everyone wants to fuck with it”, a tired investigator laments).
Instead, Short is presented as a woman whose short life was fraught with grief and loss. Circumstance (not a quest for stardom) brought her to L.A where she ended up, as so many still do, merely trying to survive.
The internet of protest is being built on single-page websites
Websites like Carrd originally existed to provide an easy (and quick) solution to creating a simple online web page. Now they are being used as resource listings and focal points for local and national organising.
“Explanatory, PowerPoint-like Carrds are especially popular. Gibson says that what we’re witnessing in Carrds and Linktree alike is the transformation of social media from a personality-focused to an anti-influencer mentality. With the newer tools, the focus remains on a cause itself, not on the celebrities affiliated with it.”
Access Your Subconscious for Better Writing
https://litreactor.com/columns/access-your-subconscious-for-better-writing
Autumn Christian at LitReactor argues that our subconscious is a valuable (perhaps the most valuable) tool in the writer’s toolkit.
“The subconscious is a powerful tool, and one that’s necessary for humans to exist. And I’ve found that writers with a good relationship with their subconscious create better, more memorable stories. Because anyone can write a story. But not everyone can plug into the rhythm of the universe and ride high on the frequency waves of the inner voice powering the wheelhouse that is you.”
The Covid-19 pandemic shows we must transform the global food system
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/apr/16/coronavirus-covid-19-pandemic-food-animals
Jan Dutkiewicz, Astra Taylor and Troy Vettese combine over at The Guardian to produce a piece on the shortcomings of our current global food system and the ways in which it has helped the current Covid-19 pandemic proliferate. A system that puts profits and explotation of animals first is dangerous and unhealthy in the long run. Current events are beginning to show us that in a very tangible manner.
“Fauci, Graham and Goodall’s call for a clampdown on the “exotic” animal trade is a valid demand, but ignores how that industry is inextricably intertwined with “conventional” food production. The Chinese government has encouraged smallholders to breed and procure wild game to compensate for losing market-share to large livestock firms. Similarly, reliance on “bush meat” in west Africa increased after local fishers were pushed out of coastal waters by foreign trawlers in the 1970s, leading to the outbreaks of HIV and Ebola. The problem isn’t some people’s taste for seemingly strange delicacies, but rather our global, profit-driven, meat-centered food system.”
The Insidious Workings of the Political Ratchet
CrimeThinc on why Democrats are now joining Trump (and the DHS) in demonizing anti-fascist movements and protestors.
“One DHS report was edited so that references to white supremacists “presenting the most lethal threat” were replaced with the words “Domestic Violent Extremists,” a catchall term used to create a false equivalence between those who promote and carry out racist attacks and those who organize to defend their communities against them.”
For Your Eyes Only & Rotten to the Core
https://www.monbiot.com/2020/09/04/for-your-eyes-only/ https://www.monbiot.com/2020/09/14/rotten-to-the-core/
A George Monbiot double header on the systemic corruption nestled in the British power structure.
The first piece (FYEO), centres on Policy Exchange. It claims to be a neutral educational charity, but in reality it has played an important role in shifting some of the power away from various institutions and into the Prime Minister’s office. Monbiot cites the example of it building the case for curtailing the British judiciary in recent years.
The second piece (RTTC), talks about the rampant money laundering and other financial crimes that are knowingly carried out by business interests throughout the British capital. This is primarily done via British territories such as Jersey, Bermuda, the Cayman Islands and other offshore destinations.
Of the top ten countries designated as corporate tax havens, four are British oversea territories.
The Oral History of ‘The Town’
https://www.theringer.com/movies/2020/9/16/21438005/the-town-oral-history-10-year-anniversary
The Ringer go deep on the Boston-set heist movie. I’m still a huge fan of that Fenway Park sequence, even if others part of the movie have fallen away from the edifice of memory over the years.
Quite short this week, but time has been a luxury. I mean, who would get married in the middle of a pandemic? This guy apparently.
See you in two!