Interesting Times No. 12
Slothful behaviour; driving; the nervous breakdown; BOOK LISTS!; 'Love Cloud'; Jesus Christ, businessman; art and struggle; psychopaths; Louise Bourgeois; macho sperm
Hello. Welcome. It’s time for this week’s best (?) of the cesspit that is the internet. Enjoy!
* I’m going away, to be reunited with my brother and his family after far too long! So the newsletter will return on the 1st April, and after that will be monthly, rather than fortnightly, coming to you on the first Friday of every month.
JOURNALISM
“We’re easing out gradually, easing but assertive. Huge fucking truck. Keep going. Don’t panic, stay on there, here we go.” Writer Steve Braunias, the ‘hapless non-driver’, learns to drive at age 58. ‘It came about because he [Steve’s fellow non-driver friend, Shayne Carter] abandoned me three years ago when he learned to drive at the age of 50. It felt it like a wound. Uselessness loves company and I took consolation that I knew other people who couldn't drive. […] But then he moved from Auckland to Brighton in Dunedin, where there was one bus an hour, and he decided to learn to drive. "Good one," I said, feebly. For a while I considered ending the friendship. His learning to drive was a kind of betrayal. I flinched every time he brought up the subject; our phone calls were filled with his heartless braying, his jovial travelogues. It got even worse when he shifted out to Aramoana on the Otago peninsula, and started to take long drives along the coast and in the country, just for the sheer pleasure of it, he bragged. I brooded. I festered. I auditioned new friends, but all of them knew how to drive, so what was the point? And then an idea began to ferment. I would visit Shayne at Aramoana and ask him for lessons. Who better?’
I find this unappealing. ‘The Mile High Club, Complete With Membership Cards: Love Cloud, an airplane charter business, offers private flights that help couples take their relationships (and relations) to new heights.’
‘In the ’90s, he played punk rock and helped create Vice magazine. Five years ago, he founded a very different organization: the Proud Boys, the far-right group that came to personify the vilest tendencies of Trump’s America. A former Vice editor interviews one of our era’s most troubling extremists: The Secret History of Gavin McInnes.’
‘It used to be okay to admit that the world had simply become too much.’ On the nervous breakdown.
‘So in today’s economic conditions, where an artist cannot afford to live and make work in ways that they used to, the need to earn a living means that, as Sarah Schulman notes in her book The Gentrification of the Mind, the artist’s goals are altered by necessity. What happens when artists can’t afford places to make art?’ And: ‘Silicon Valley has destroyed the creative middle classes over the last fifteen years and sponsoring the Booker Prize won’t make that right.’ Let the artists make the art! We need them!
‘Hu Xijin is China’s most famous propagandist. At the Global Times, he helped establish a chest-thumping new tone for China on the world stage – but can he keep up with the forces he has unleashed?’
Is it good to know what the kids are up to, or just tragic? I mean, just saying ‘kids’ is tragic enough - anyway, here’s what they’re up to: Bimboism. ‘All that matters is that you are both physically and mentally hot and sexy, on your own terms. This is perhaps the defining rule of modern day bimboism: Self-actualisation.’
‘The Macho Sperm Myth.’
‘The New York home of Louise Bourgeois, which has remained largely untouched since her death in 2010, reveals the artist’s hoarding tendencies. Drawings, diaries and loose sheets of paper are piled high atop filing cabinets, yellowing exhibition posters are pinned to the wall above her desk. The townhouse in Chelsea, Manhattan, even holds her gas receipts from the 1930s.’ On ‘The Secrets of Louise Bourgeois’s Wardrobe.’
‘Help! My Husband Bought A Burial Plot for Himself. And Not Me.’ Love an advice column. Always a good insight into the rich tapestry that is the human experience.
‘The internet is all sorts of things. The real problem is that we’ve grown up in a period of high individualism and, in a period of high individualism, the one thing you don’t notice is power. You’re supposed to be an empowered individual yourself. What’s disappeared out of the language is power. We just don’t see it.’
‘Psychopaths and the rest of us.’
‘Jesus Christ, businessman.’ And related: ‘Underneath all the makeup, who was the real Tammy Faye?’
‘The morning after Donald Trump’s election as president of the United States, a woman begins to cry furiously as soon as she sits down. When I wonder aloud if this revives memories of her own bullying, bigoted father, she shouts that she is crying about one thing and one thing only and doesn’t want to hear my boring shrink bullshit.’ On anger.
A very strange story: ‘The Watcher.’
‘The Barkley Marathons is one the hardest races in the ultrarunning world. Created by founder Gary “Lazarus Lake” Cantrell, the race provides one of the most grueling ultramarathons ever created. Here is what you need to know about the mysterious race that takes place in the hills of Tennessee.’ (I really recommend the 2014 documentary mentioned in the piece - it’s complete madness!)
BRITISH GOOP OF THE WEEK:
BOOKS
A round up of book lists, from different newspapers/magazines/websites/publishers:
‘The Overlooked Masterpieces of 1922.’
‘27 Asian and Pacific American Authors to read this [um, March].’
(I found it frustratingly difficult to find compilations of books by Māori and Pacific authors (i.e. Pacific authors based in New Zealand), and the few I did find weren’t very comprehensive.) Will investigate further.
‘20 New Books to Dive Into This Week.’
‘NPR’s Books We Love: Science.’
‘The New York Times’s book critics select the most outstanding memoirs published since 1969.’
‘10 New Books Coming Out This Week: New offerings from the world of crime, mystery, and thrillers.’
PODCASTS
‘Libertarian vs. Bear: A group of libertarians took over a rural town to live out their dreams of small government and freedom from regulation. The local bears had other ideas.’
‘“The compulsion to silence others is as old as the urge to speak.” In this episode of The World in Time, Lewis H. Lapham and Berkowitz discuss this history and consider the future of censorship and free speech.’ I would describe the presenter of this podcast as an old-school Man of Letters - quite fascinating.
Jon Ronson’s podcast, ‘Things Fell Apart: A series of strange, unexpected human stories from the history of the culture wars.’
See you in April,
-Ellie