The Audacious Roundup
For the Week of May 3
This round up is a double round up because as I was getting ready to finish last week’s round up, my wife got sick and had an emergency appendectomy. It was a little scary but she is on the mend now, and all is well or soon will be. It inspired me to write an essay that is in progress. I hope to share it here next week.
In other news, the book club is now going to be hosted on the Literati platform. When I started this newsletter, I thought it would be an added bonus to also start a book club, and then it grew far beyond my expectations. I don’t have the resources to support a large book club by myself so I am partnering with Literati that has a lot of expertise in this area. They have an amazing app where we will discuss each month’s book throughout the month. There are two tiers of membership and at the higher tier, you will receive a copy of each month’s book. For those of you who are paid subscribers, you will still have access to our live author chat's. That doesn’t change. Literati subscribers will also have access. You can sign up for The Audacious Book Club now. Nothing about the newsletter is really changing except that book club content will be hosted on another platform.
I also created a writing prompt.
This month, TCM is hosting a Body in Film series every Tuesday and they asked me to share some thoughts alongside people like Sonya Renee Taylor and one of the guys from the new Queer Eye (sorry, I’ve not watched it.) You can watch the segment online and check out the film series on Tuesday nights through May.
This month’s author chat with Kaitlyn Greenidge is coming up on May 26th, at 8 pm EST/5 pm PST. Register now.
Eleven Madison is an amazing restaurant. We dined there for our six-month anniversary (yes, we are like that), and had a singular dining experience. There were so many surprises, and the chefs there have such a unique understanding of how to create an experience and how to delight their audience. I read with interest about their decision to re-open with a plant-based menu. I will definitely be going back to see what they’ve come up with. And I am interested to see if other restaurants follow suit as we rethink our relationships to meat and the sustainability of this planet.
Speaking of fine dining, n/naka is ten years old!
A long, beautifully crafted essay from Yvonne Conza.
Chakaia Booker makes really interesting art from tires and she also treats her daily wardrobe as sculpture. She is profiled, recently, in The New York Times, about her practice and the evolution of her work.
Kevin Young is the new director of the NMAAHC!
I am really interested in how Prince Harry is comporting himself now that he is free of much of the pressure of the monarchy. He seems like a fine man who has matured quite a lot.
Drought has become a way of life in much of California. It’s not… ideal.
An essay from Kiese Laymon, one of my favorite writers to do events with, and also just one of my favorite writers on the page.
Do you want to become a puppeteer?
Anthony Veasna So, our December book club author, has a posthumous essay up that reveals he is just as talented writing nonfiction as he is writing fiction.
Reductress isn’t holding back on people trying to “both sides” oppression.
John Mulaney is back doing stand-up as a different comic than audiences might expect.
An interesting piece on the Asian American activism happening away from Instagram.
Loved this piece from Charlie Jane Anders on monocultures in science-fiction. It’s quite telling that even when imagining the future, people struggle with diversity.
A profile of Ziwe.
Did you know there is a disgusting food museum? And I’m not even talking about all those horrifying Tik Tok videos where people desecrate food on counters and in coffee makers and whatnot.
An excerpt from Clint Smith’s new book.
I will read anything interesting about black women and our awesome hair.
Some people want to continue wearing masks for understandable, painful reasons.
A profile of artist Deana Lawson.
Shrill is in its final season. I really like this show and will be sorry to see it go. I saw Aidy Bryant on the street the other day and waved like a dork. She is very nice.
Somehow, critical race theory has become evil. It’s amazing how conservatives are so effective at controlling certain discourses and weaponizing things that they don’t like or understand.
Madonna? Oral history, you say? Count me in.
On the war against trans kids.
I love love love Desus & Mero. Their swagger. Here for it, forever.
An editing residency at the New York Times.
A great piece on the growing movement for abolition by two incredible scholars and activists.
A reckoning at Nat Geo.
The journalists who spent the past year and a half reporting on COVID are struggling.
No more master bedrooms.
A list of doctors who will treat you like a human being. Shout out to Dr. Gruber at Sollis Health who initially figured out Debbie prolly had appendicitis. She’s wonderful.
Thank you so much for this. Your Roundups are always a sort of "best of what's online this week" for me. If Facebook et al is a warehouse full of the worst junk food imaginable, then this newsletter is like a curated dinner at the chef's table of a five-star bistro.
I can’t shake that Anthony Veasno So essay. Thank you, as always, for a rich and thoughtful newsletter.