*The Week in 15 Selections*
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It’s one of the top five worst days of the year: The first Monday after the clocks switch back! Awful! Terrible! I hate it! More than half of United States citizens do not want to roll our clocks backwards and forwards without any real reason. I am sorry but at least we are all in hell together (unless you live in Arizona or Hawaii or another country where you don’t have to do this stupid shit).
Anyway, here are fifteen good things to read and look at that might distract you from your sleepiness at 4 p.m.
At least 40 million people are going to be without food this month because of the government shutdown and the lack of SNAP benefits.
That makes now a great time to give extra to your communities. I’m giving to South Philadelphia Community Fridge and Philabundance. You can use the resource at Feeding America to find charities near you where you can give or volunteer or both.
Lily Allen’s new album West End Girl is one of the messiest things I have heard in a long time (complimentary).
Substacks (and blogs in general) should have fewer takes and more being insane. Great example here of Liz Cook trying to make a THICK COCKTAIL with xantham gum lol.
I really enjoyed reading this feature in The New Yorker about people who cannot see images in their minds, one of the most terrifying things to me.
I’ve been listening to Audrey Hobart’s Who’s The Clown? non-stop for a week now.
Hysterically, Who’s The Clown? is produced by Ricky Gourmet, who made a TikTok I was obsessed with three summers ago:
https://www.tiktok.com/@rickygourmet/video/7117661520330313003?lang=enAs a Halloween treat, I read Monstrilio by Gerardo Samano Cordova, which is a spooky novel about a woman who tried to regrow her dead son from a piece of his lung and gets a little monster instead.
Vera Papisova is literally braver than the troops for dating conservative men for a whole year on the apps for Cosmopolitan.
Sometimes a pan is so good, you’re gasping for air. Like this one of Audrey Gellman’s new hotel in Interview:
“The dream (or the facade) of a different life. A simpler life, one where children run barefoot, they’ve never heard of screen time, your work for the day is to trim the rosebush and maybe to lactoferment some heirloom peppers. You and your husband are the New-American Gothic, you in your Salterhouse organic cotton dress, him in his Arc’teryx puffer vest. “
I love to read an essay that is so voice-y that it sounds like the person just vomited it all out in one go, but you know sounds like that because it was tightly edited. Great article about the dread of podcasting.
I liked this short-story in N+1 about a woman who is losing her mind because of construction next door by Elizabeth Schamblean.
If OpenAI is willing to publish these numbers, imagine how much worse it must actually be. From Wired:
“The company’s estimates therefore suggest that every seven days, around 560,000 people may be exchanging messages with ChatGPT that indicate they are experiencing mania or psychosis. About 2.4 million more are possibly expressing suicidal ideations or prioritizing talking to ChatGPT over their loved ones, school, or work.”
I’m excited to read the new Equator Mag!
I liked this thought by Leah Abrahms: “When it comes to capturing the truth, nothing beats fiction. But when it comes to capturing attention, the essay is an ancient and necessary evil.”
This week I wrote about Lily Allen’s new album and did my bake (puddings??)!
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