public life
In the days before the election, I mentioned, I wrote a lot. I was very excited about the writing I was doing-- final edits on that John Green piece (still not out) and a draft of an essay on pettiness I've been mulling for months (same) and a little personal thing, a desert gothic about holiday dread, and something I was, at the time, calling Boy Bands II Men. That came out on Monday and like, you know, it's a nice piece of writing and I'm proud of it, but also it came out the day after Donald Trump announced that he was going to retain a white supremacist as one of his top advisors in the White House.
I spent some part of this weekend agonizing about what I was going to say when it was published. Could I even say anything? I wondered. How fucking gauche would it be, to suggest that anyone care about boy bands or my opinions on them, at a time like this?
But also, eventually, I came to: writing and promoting these things is my job. It is no more self-centered or normalizing for me to acknowledge the work I have done and am doing than it would be to show up at an office every morning. It's crucial to have a sense of context, of course, always, but it's also sort of insane that I was busy shaming myself over something other people have been doing without comment every day since Trump was "elected" last week.
I'm asking myself a lot of questions about the role of culture writing and how I want to do it going forward right now, and I've been asking myself a lot of questions about social media and performative, or at least performed, outrage and grief pretty much since I got on Twitter. I don't have any answers yet. I'm very aware that sometimes in public it looks like this means I'm not engaging on any number of issues. I don't feel like I owe anyone those parts of me; I'm not even sure I owe you an explanation for why I'm not sharing them. But then also this means I have to leave myself open to being misunderstood, and I hate it. So this is where I say: I'm asking you to please give me the benefit of the doubt that I am doing my absolute best to do things well and kindly and thoughtfully, as I make it up, as I go along.
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In unpaid work, this week I wrote about taking a specifically Jewish approach to protesting the immanent Trump regime. I also got two-- two-- flat tires yesterday, so I'm re-upping this piece about anxiety, and loving my car more than I love myself.
My interview with Ron Finley about his work as a guerilla gardener in South Central LA is also still in the Los Angeles issue of Lucky Peach, which is out in the world as of yesterday. One way and another I ended up with more contributor copies than I really need-- send me proof that you donated $10 or more to an organization that's going to fight Trump's agenda and I'll send you one, okay? While supplies last, that is.