The Audacious Roundup
For the Week of August 3rd
AUDACIOUS BOOKCLUB HAPPENINGS
Our August bookclub selection is The Simp by Roshan Sethi. We will be in conversation with Roshan on August 26th at 8 pm EST/5 pm PST. Registration is open.
For newcomers, there is a bookclub FAQ if you have questions about how it all works. And this is what we will be reading for the rest of the year. 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
Book and project links: Books I’ve Written, RGB Imprint Titles, Rebind: The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton; The Forgotten Occupation.
READING MATERIAL
Todd Blanche was confirmed as AG. SMH.
Looks like Trump is going to need congressional approval after all, if he wants to build that ridiculous ballroom.
The people who rely on Haitian labor are in their feelings. Talk to your president!
There was a mass shooting at an In-And-Out in Idaho and at least three people were killed.
In Jackson, MS, Tasia Fortune was found hanging from a tree. She was only 29. Also in MS, two of Nolan Wells’s friends said they went back to where they last saw him to “investigate the layout and dynamic.” Uh huh. Sure.
In Michigan, Abdul El-Sayed won his Senate primary. Democrats are, per usual when a progressive wins, losing their shit. Democracy doesn’t mean you get what you want. It means you get what the majority of people who show up to vote want.
Though it’s not getting a lot of mainstream coverage, Puerto Rico is dealing with a severe water crisis. Their power grid is also in crisis. (See also: Cuba, dealing with an energy crisis.)
As the planet keeps on warming, the water levels of the Danube River have gotten so low that you can see scuttled WWII ships!
Soldiers on the USS Lincoln are living in deplorable conditions and can’t get home.
Max Miller, a Republican in Congress, has been accused of domestic violence but he’s not letting that get in the way of running for reelection.
RIP Benjamin Alire Sáenz. RIP Vincent Pastore.
A kid wouldn’t sit on a plane so they couldn’t take off and the flight was cancelled. Wild times.
Things in the WNBA are a mess right now. In a Sky/Fever game DiJonai Carrington and Sophie Cunningham got into it. Carrington was ejected from the game. Racists did their racisms. There is also a lot of conversation happening around trans women in the league even though there is no trans woman trying to join the league or even on the horizon. Meanwhile, a couple washed out cis men former NBA players are entering the 2027 WNBA draft to make what they think is a good point but really they are just pathetic and asinine.
Good news, lesbians. Women’s professional baseball is here!
I have a lot of thoughts about Jason Arday who seems to be quite the fabulist. I don’t really understand how he got as far as he did with such a wildly implausible life story and set of accomplishments. There’s an interesting conversation to be had about how certain groups of people are overly credulous. How did folks believe all of this nonsense? But also, there is a conversation to be had about disproportionate responses to the mistakes Black people make versus their white counterparts.
LOL. Emily Wilson still has her foot on the neck of The Odyssey.
There’s a man living in a billboard on the Sunset Strip.
It is fascinating to see the pass that Brad Pitt has been given by the media and Hollywood. Anyway, he says he’s no longer sober but he’s able to manage his drinking and blah blah blah etc.
Gen Zers are getting into Shania Twain. As they should.
The NYC mayor is mayoring, for real tho.
A review of Ariana Grande’s latest album, Petal. She is taking a step back from the public eye and as you might imagine, the discourse is discoursing about what it all means.
And here’s a review of Tracy Emin’s exhibition at the Tate Modern.
On Call Her Daddy, Nara Smith said she isn’t a tradwife. Now, I’ve actually never thought she was a trad wife in the true believer sense. It’s plainly obvious she is a. the breadwinner and b. a working mother. She has never hid it.But I also know that she has allowed people to interpret her content through the lens of trad wives. She is more than happy to make it seem like she’s all about that domestic life and submissive wife lifestyle because it is very lucrative for her. As the cultural tides shift, now she is saying something else.
One of the most loathsome celebrity bloggers, Perez Hilton, had some sort of psychotic break, was self-harming while filming a Live TikTok and is now in the hospital. His family has asked for privacy which is… very ironic.
The L.A. Jazz Festival, which I had been really looking forward to, has imploded.
Angel Reese has a Barbie!
Stassi is back! Again!
A look at literary agents and their influence. And another installment in the MFA discourse.
A cultural shift in NYC? Zaina Arafat writes about how the SWANA community in NYC has evolved. It’s part of an entire issue about the SWANA community in New York Magazine.
Former Gawker editor AJ Daulerio is sober, and talking about it in a new profile.
Why hasn’t the Cinderalla soundtrack featuring Whitney Houston and Brandy been released???
Oh no! A travel influencer was turned away from the Amanvari resort in Mexico even though he had a paid reservation.
Is struggling online really the last taboo as this essay suggests?
What’s with all the standing in line?
Ralph Lauren is doing a collaboration with the quilters of Gee’s Bend. Interesting. (It’s all quite beautiful.)
Applications are open for a NYT editing residency. It pays fairly well, too.
THE RUMPUS WEEK IN REVIEW
Essays:
Physics, Fractals, and a Zumba Playlist by Randi Miller
The Spectacle by Michaela Hulstyn
Comics:
It’s Just a Number, Right? by Susanne Reece
Fiction:
You Know by Heidi Diehl
Dear Employee 24601 by Sam Kemp
Slime by Shane Inman
Penny’s Head by Gretta Trafficante
Poetry:
The Sleepwalker by Amanda Quaid
My Mother’s Mother’s God by Lily Greenberg
Two Poems by Shiyang Su
The Great Flood by Marcus Tsai
Interviews:
A Conversation with Austin Kleon by Collin Mitchell
A Conversation with Nicholas Goodly by Saúl Hernández
A Conversation with Courtney Maum by Tiffany Graham Charkosky
Culture:
Girl on Girl (Week Two): Can a Woman Belong To Herself While Still Loving Men Deeply? by Monica Danielle
What is Freedom: Kim Hastreiter by Kim Hastreiter
What is Freedom: Cy Gavin by Cy Gavin
What is Freedom: Zoe Mendelson by Zoe Mendelson
El Alboroto:
Fire Play by Francesca Dennstedt García
I have the original cast album of Cinderella with Julie Andrews. Whitney and Brandy would be outstanding. I hope they resolve this. The score is magical.
In a "big tent" democracy there should be room for everyone, El-Sayed AND Talerico. When is that penny going to drop?
I have a BA in Humanities/Creative Writing (minor) from NYU. The professor I will never forget is the one whose feedback made me a better writer.