[a pleasurable headache] a different kind of heat
Apologies for the errors that have plagued this newsletter for the last few editions. Worryingly, I have no idea what went wrong. Buttondown is usually so reliable as well. Apologies also for the last edition that I did manage to resend going out several times. Ugh.
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Still waiting to hear back on that story I mentioned in the last issue of the newsletter. I guess they had a lot of submissions. Fingers crossed!
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Reading/Watching/Listening
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I'm currently about halfway through Anthony Bourdain's memoir Kitchen Confidential, a book I've been meaning to read for years (ever since Fincher almost adapted it back in the early 00s), but I'm only now getting to reading it. The book is bawdy and full of hilarious (and sometimes dark) anecdotes, as expected.
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Nimona and Extraction 2, both on Netflix, are good times for wholly different reasons.
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RIP Waypoint Radio, long live Remap Radio.
Links
'I told you so'
https://billmckibben.substack.com/p/i-told-you-so
One of the more recent entries in Bill McKibben's newsletter makes for some stark reading.
"Here’s the New York Times yesterday, reporting on the heat in Laredo (Spain) where the current hellish spell has killed at least ten people. One man found his brother dead in a bedroom with two broken air-conditioners. They were used to heat, of course; they’d grown up on the border. “But this was a different kind of heat. This is magnifying-the-sun-on-top-of-ants kind of heat. This is beyond anything we’ve had before.”
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The War on Climate Activism Is Reaching Dangerous New Heights
https://www.thenation.com/article/activism/climate-movement-terrorism-repression/
As The Nation reports, government reactions to climate activism is only worsening. The article does mention the U.K where the active Just Stop Oil movement is met with an almost authoritarian response by those in power whilst most of the public get mad that their (SUV-heavy) commute is interrupted. Nothing depresses the soul more than seeing a member of the public lash out at a group of protestor's attempting to draw focus and attention to the most pressing crisis in the history of humanity.
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In Texas, Dead Fish and Red-Faced Desperation Are Signs of Things to Come
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/08/opinion/heat-texas-climate.html
Meanwhile, in Texas...
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Listen up bitches, it’s time to learn incorrect things about someone you’ve never heard of
https://theoutline.com/post/7295/buckle-up-twitter-is-cancelled
Reason 1001 to leave Twitter and never look back.
"I have seen threads that would make your eyes water, and in all cases, the responses were not what I personally would have anticipated. Things being what they are, I would have thought that a thread that began like “LISTEN UP DICKHOLES: TIME FOR A RANT ABOUT HOW LAVRENTIY BERIA WAS A TOTAL JERK AND A REAL PERV” would end with an apology and a promise never to do it again, but why would you apologize when you are met with joy and delight? The thing about Buckle Up Twitter, hard as this may be for right-thinking people like me to accept, is that a lot of other people LOVE IT. They absolutely love to be told that they are morons and that all of this is actually Beau Brummell’s doing."
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These Are the Writers Shaping Horror's Next Golden Age
https://www.esquire.com/entertainment/books/a44491190/new-golden-age-horror-fiction/
Neil McRobert, of the excellent Talking Scared podcast has written a piece for Esquire on the fresh faces of the horror scene. Each of the authors mentioned are at the top of their respective games. You will significantly lengthen your TBR pile by reading this article, I promise you.
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Blood in the Gears: Philip Fracassi
https://litreactor.com/interviews/blood-in-the-gears-philip-fracassi
Tyler Jones' interview feature, Blood in the Gears, is a mainstay for me. I always tend to get something out of it. This time around the following quote jumped out at me, when he asks Fracassi about his switch from short stories to longer works:
"When I first broke into publishing in 2015 I was all about writing short stories. My thinking was always to publish as many short stories as I could and build a readership and a reputation with publishers and editors. It was my first agent who told me that I could continue focusing on short work and have writing be a nice hobby, or I could start focusing on writing novels and have it be a career. So I spent a year learning how to write a genre novel (A Child Alone with Strangers), and made that my focus moving forward."
Food for thought.
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I'm off to cross my fingers that this even sends. See you in two!