The Audacious Roundup
For the week of January 19th
AUDACIOUS BOOKCLUB HAPPENINGS
Our February selection is The Age of Calamaties by Senaa Ahmad. We will have a live book club discussion with Senaa on February 25th at 8 pm EST/5 pm PST. Registration is open! I hope to see many of you there. If you missed our conversation with Sara Levine, it is now online.
For newcomers, there is a bookclub FAQ if you have questions about how it all works. We’re partnering with the lovely people at Allstora for the Audacious Book Club. Now, you can sign up to have the monthly selections delivered to your doorstep each month! Otherwise, I’ve put together an Audacious Book Club storefront if you want to buy current or forthcoming book club titles.
THE NEWSLETTER WEEK IN REVIEW
PERSONAL & PROFESSIONAL NEWS
Debbie Millman wrote, for Time, about the misguided Nike/LeBron James collaboration on an MLK-inspired sneaker.
Book and project links: Books I’ve Written, RGB Imprint Titles, Rebind: The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton; The Forgotten Occupation.
READING MATERIAL
The Trump regime continues to enact a cavalcade of cruelty across the country. They kidnapped a five-year-old to use as bait. They murdered another person in Minneapolis, a 37-year-old nurse named Alex Pretti. One of the federal agents involved said “Boo hoo,” afterward, further reminding us that these people are inhuman. All of the federal agents involved are still patrolling menacing the streets of Minneapolis.
Here are some ways to help the people of Minneapolis. And should it be of use, this is a guide to nonviolent conflict.
Cubans are shocked that they’re being deported because they’re Republicans, you see, and they thought that the terror they voted on wouldn’t reach their doorsteps.
The regime also continues to try and erase any reminders of slavery but WE WON’T FUCKING FORGET.
It will come as no surprise that the FBI, under Kash Patel, is a mess.
The couch fucker and his wife are having a baby.
Trump’s bizarre web of travel bans is making it hard for touring artists to come to the U.S.
The people of Greenland remain uninterested in American colonization.
Alma Guillermoprieto writes for New York Review of Books about Venezuela and America’s ongoing imperialism.
A bit of a pathetic story about how a certain type of conservative college students are finally feeling cool because… I don’t even know.
Paris Hilton and AOC are fighting against AI porn. Yes, you read that correctly.
Speaking of AI, it is not really boosting productivity or… much of anything.
A sociologist shadows a Mary Kay salesperson and learns that it is really hard to extract yourself from the claws of multilevel marketing.
Astronaut Suni Williams has retired because she is sick and tired of space.
RIP Dr. Gladys West.
Considering Joan Didion’s essay, “On Becoming a Cop Hater,” which… who knew? That was a new one to me!
A look at how things are going at CBS under Bari Weiss.
A really interesting roundtable on Sinners which received sixteen Oscar nominations, the most for any film, ever.
In POETRY, Megan Pillow has curated a collection of Frank X Walker’s poetry as she looks “Beyond Black Appalachia.” The folio also includes an essay on Walker’s work by Kelly Norman Ellis.
How book criticism has devolved into lists.
We Need Diverse Books has a new initiative to combat book banning!
Casinos are now in our phones and it’s a real problem that will only get worse.
Online communities for chronic illness can be wonderful oases but also toxic and harmful. I suppose that could be said for most communities.
The Free Solo guy climbed a skyscraper in Taipei without any ropes, nets, or a parachute because, well, I don’t know. Adrenaline junkie I guess. Anyway, he didn’t die.
There is no hotel on the moon. No astronauts have been to the moon in… decades. Regardless, don’t let that trouble you because you can still reserve a hotel room on the moon, that does not exist because there is no infrastructure, of any kind, on the moon.
That said, a new mission to the moon or a lunar mission, if you will, is nigh.
No REALID? That will be $45.
There’s a new Star Trek show and it’s called Starfleet Academy and I am really liking it so far.
Naomi Osaka had to withdraw from the Australian Open because of injury.
On Tuesday, February 10th, Robin Coste Lewis will be in conversation with Alexandra Grant at Oxy Live!
A conversation with Rachel Eliza Griffiths. And another one. A review of Jennette McCurdy’s new novel. An interview with an extreme athlete. Ummmmmmm no.
The Metropolitan Opera is still struggling financially.
Sad news… Prue is leaving GBBO!!! But she’s earned a break so while she will be missed, I hope she enjoys whatever is next.
Craigslist remains one of the few Internet sites that has, for the most part, remained true to itself.
Nepo baby (no shade) Brooklyn Beckham has shared some of what ails him about his parents. And… honestly, I’d be fine with his problems.
Lego Crocs? Sure. Okay!
What’s that? A Costco apartment complex? DON’T TEMPT ME!
THE RUMPUS WEEK IN REVIEW
Essays:
What They Don’t Teach You About Collapse by Hazem Almassry
Fiction:
Bird Shoots Buck by Jessika Bouvier
Like Camels Raging by Zein Nakhleh
Poetry:
Unlocked Alcohol Cabinet and Insatiable Memory by Aldrin Badiola
Imprecision by Katie Berta
Reviews:
Love is a Dangerous Word by Essex Hemphill by Livia Meneghen
Interviews:
A Conversation with Jen Percy by Irish (Yi Youn) Kim
A Conversation with Daniyal Mueenuddin by Sonja Srinivasan
A Conversation with Diamond Forde by Tryphena Yeboah
A Conversation with Melissa Falivenoby Joanna Pearson
I am going through some really tough stuff right now (serious medical diagnosis), and I look forward to these roundups on the regular as a way to keep my head on straight. Your wonderfully acid commentary is a marvelous foil to the absolute dark surrealism of the news. A few things:
--AOC and Paris Hilton (or the ghost of Bella Abzug) for Prez and Veep!
--MLK sneakers...who the fuck even greenlit those? MLK sneakers whose main theme is *checks notes* where Dr. King was assassinated? Who makes this stuff up?
--Now I really need to watch Sinners.
--I see Crocs as a necessary evil, especially for apartment living -- they really do dampen any walking noise for your downstairs neighbors. However, I will probably get the Lego Crocs just because. They also seem to have missed out on obvious joke of "one Lego you won't mind stepping on." If they make them with actual "holds" for real Lego pieces I will lose my shit entirely.
--On a more serious note: Dr. Gay, I would buy and read any essay that has your take on "junk news sources" versus real news. Cases in point: The selling-off of WaPo. The New York Times devolving into the equivalent of the local free supermarket newsletter for the ultra-rich UES/UWS crowd (their bothsiderism BS, as well as keeping idiots like Ross Doubthat on staff, makes me want to cancel--IF they ever offered a subscription just for NYT Cooking and the lifestyle sections I'd get that). The Guardian is pretty good--I donate to them every year -- but when it comes to US News they tend to give off "85 year old British gay uncle tut-tutting you while serving shortbreads" vibe. The Atlantic is getting more uneven and is also devolving into a combo of bothsiderism and "oh noez now what?" So what do I read for what I consider "real" news? Local papers for local news like The City (NYC) and for stuff that gets buried below the fold (if it appears at all) in US news: The Economist and the Financial Times. The rub: Neither of those are cheap. FT is some of the best, most unbiased, steely-eyed reporting of the news that I have ever seen, and it's worth every penny of the $700-ish/year price. They're covering stuff that the US newspapers seem scared to cover--like the gradual erosion of the dollar (already well underway), China's rising star, and poorer countries that have long supplied cheap goods to the US expanding their trade footprint with the EU. But what does free news look like? Faux News and its similar affiliates, pumping BS into people's brains 24/7. Add CNN to the list also--at this point it's just another MAGA mouthpiece for MAGAts who think that they are too smart for Faux News. Would love to hear your take on this and thank you for everything that you do!
Though Costco has certainly emerged as "one of the good ones" as corporations go...that link is giving me IDIOCRACY flash backs (or is it flash forwards?)