Please read Michelle Dean’s “A Brief History of Botched Executions in America”:
In other words, in these executions these days, states are actively experimenting with the technology of death. The methods of killing people are unusual in the basic definitional sense: There is no established protocol. If our Founders, as conservative jurisprudence assures us, took the rightfulness of capital punishment for granted, they expected it to happen by gallows and the firing squad. They weren’t making up the method of death on the fly.
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Junot Diaz’s “MFA v. POC”:
Some of you understand completely. And some of you ask: Too white … how?
Too white as in Cornell had almost no POC—no people of color—in it. Too white as in the MFA had no faculty of color in the fiction program—like none—and neither the faculty nor the administration saw that lack of color as a big problem. (At least the students are diverse, they told us.) Too white as in my workshop reproduced exactly the dominant culture’s blind spots and assumptions around race and racism (and sexism and heteronormativity, etc). In my workshop there was an almost lunatical belief that race was no longer a major social force (it’s class!). In my workshop we never explored our racial identities or how they impacted our writing—at all. Never got any kind of instruction in that area—at all. Shit, in my workshop we never talked about race except on the rare occasion someone wanted to argue that “race discussions” were exactly the discussion a serious writer should not be having.
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Lindy West ranked everyone in Mean Girls:
14. Girl Who Just Has a Lot of Feelings
FEMINIST ICON.
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I would have read a much, much longer piece on Dean Ripa’s Serpentarium, but will settle for just making YOU read the longest paragraph from it:
I learn that the Egyptian cobra, whose festive yellow and black stripes evoke Charlie Brown’s shirt, is believed to be the asp that killed Cleopatra; in ancient Egypt, the sign reads, these snakes were awarded to royal prisoners as a means of suicide. The Asiatic spitting cobras, meanwhile, which never seem to run out of venom, are like a “SORT OF ENDLESS POISONOUS SQUIRT GUN.” The bite of the Central American fer-de-lance feels like having your hand slammed in a car door and then seared with a blow torch. As the placard helpfully elaborates, “THE BITTEN EXTREMITY SWELLS TO MASSIVE PROPORTIONS, THE SKIN BURSTS OPEN, AND YOUR EYES WEEP BLOOD.” The fifteen-foot king cobra, the longest venomous snake in the world, can kill an elephant with a single bite, and is known to rear up six feet in the air, hood flared, and look a man in the eye while growling like a dog. For some reason, perhaps a primal one, the male king cobra’s eerie, flat dirt color is scarier to me than some of the flashier patterns on display here. Likewise the look of the steely black mambas, who are long, skinny, and, according to their description, “EXCITABLE”—and indeed each time I’ve visited they were wide awake and slicing around their enclosure like a gang looking for some action. Most disturbing of all, perhaps, are the puff adders, whose odd, fat cigar-shaped bodies make them grotesquely evocative, like nightmare shapeshifter snakes. We are snakes, they seem to say, but we are on the verge of becoming something else.
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AND now I’m even more freaked out about the public school trip to the Church History Museum in Utah I mentioned earlier this week:
Worse still, Museum staff falsely portrayed the Book of Mormon as actual history. One docent claimed — again, falsely — that this history wasn’t only a Mormon belief, but was generally accepted by secular professional historians and secular museums.
Fail. Not surprisingly, when asked, the docent was unable to name a single one.
But the docent had plenty else to say — presented as historical fact.
In my conversation with the individual, as historical fact, the docent claimed that black skin was a curse from God. As historical fact, the docent claimed that God drowned every baby on earth during the Noachian flood.
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awwww the dirtbag queer teens of 1970s Atlanta speak!
Some undergrounders, like me, were the spawn of exhausted, former flower-child single moms. These moms’ laissez faire “trust in the universe,” plus unforgiving work schedules and/or willful blindness, meant they let their kids twist in the wind. A few moms, despite seeming “cool” until our adolescence, freaked out when our hormones kicked in, and they were more than ready for us to get our stinky, pimply, sex-glazed selves out of the house, where perhaps the world would kick our asses in a way they could not. None of us, however, felt like victims of “benign neglect,” at least not consciously. We were free. Frequently scared, but free. We pretended we were orphans, or that we’d been stolen by the Faeries, like children in Celtic folktales. The Fae loved us so, they’d taken us from distracted parents and spirited us away to … 688.
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NEW HYPERBOLE AND A HALF. Well, kind of? I’ll take what I can get.
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Tags: feminism, link roundup, the internet
One day in 1971 in Wilmington, North Carolina, fourteen-year-old Dean Ripa was at home performing surgery on a cottonmouth snake, and it bit him.
Well, sometimes when you’re doing at-home snake surgery while a teenager, things like that will happen.
I really enjoy snakes and find them utterly fascinating and would love to keep one as a pet, but first my mother and then my roommates and now my husband won’t hear of it. (But tiny corn snakes are so CUTE! I say, and it falls on deaf ears.) I would LOVE to go to the Serpentarium one day.
“He knew enough about snakes to know he would probably not die, but he did need a ride to the hospital, which meant his parents were going to find out about the fifty snakes he was keeping in their spare room”
WHAT THE FUCK NEVER HAVE CHILDREN
“A year after the cottonmouth episode, one of his new cobras got loose and the whole Ripa family had to move out of the house for five days until it could be found and shot.”
FOUND AND SHOT
This exact thing just happened in my hometown (except it was a 16-foot one-eyed python named Muffin) and everyone on that street freaked out and either left or barricaded themselves in their house until it was found.
The best/worst part is that the owner was so distraught and kept reassuring everyone Muffin was totally harmless and to please not shoot it. When they found Muffin the newspaper published a reunion photo and it was obvious the owner was so happy he was near tears.
As if doors and windows can stop a snake SNAKES LAUGH AT OUR PUNY DEFENSES
[screaming]
What the fuck is that! Get it away from me.
Holy shit snacks.
“Excuse me ma’am, do you have a few minutes to talk about Mary Kay Cosmetics?”
They can open doors, too…
That is what I think of every time that I think of snakes. NOPE. YOU HAVE NO LIMBS, YOU SHOULD NOT BE CAPABLE OF WORKING DOOR HANDLES. HOW WILL WE TRAP YOU?
The worst part of this video is the muttered “good job”. What do you mean, good job?!!! No! No!!! STAY PUT!!! Eeeeeeesh. . .
MUFFIN.
I am so relieved and happy that Muffin was not shot that it’s a little ridiculous. Muffin!
Hahaha a 16-foot one-eyed python named MUFFIN hahahaha *runs away in terror*
*still laughing though*
I lived at a field station for a while- the labs were on the 1st floor and the dorms were on the 2nd. A coral snake had been seen on the first floor a few times but we were told not to worry, they didn’t think it would slither up stairs.
OH YES , they can slither upstairs. I have seen this with MY OWN EYES
And you thought all you had to worry about your kids hiding from you was their sexting.
I’m honestly not sure what would win out in that scenario: Anger, terror or respect.
I loved snakes as a kid. I did not love my stepfather. My stepfather was afraid of snakes. So naturally I became adept at catching them so I could sneak up behind him and holler “HEY STEPDAD, LOOK!” and wave it in his face. Till the day I picked up what I thought was a particularly lovely, festively decorated brown snake and after I waved it at him mockingly, he said “You need to throw that snake as hard as you can and run”. And I was like why, I’m not a big BABY about snakes like YOU, hurk hurk and he said because that is a copperhead and you can die from a copperhead bite. FUUUUUU. I stopped catching snakes after that.
Still didn’t like my stepdad.
My point here I guess is no, don’t have kids, they are revolting.
And my sister and I were so impressed with ourselves for keeping a pair of secret pet mice in the attic because Mom didn’t like anything with long tails. I am humbled.
If I may suggest some recommended listening alongside this Serpentarium article: Snake Farm.
Snake farm, it just sounds nasty
Snake farm, it pretty much is
HOW DID YOU FIND THIS GEM?
YouTube playlists when you’re listening to Americana/country take you to some amazing places!
We had a snake when I was little, she lived in my room because I was the only one who didn’t mind sleeping with the light on. She used to escape regularly and I’d wake up with her in my bed as it was the warmest place in the room. I wouldn’t have another as a pet, but only because they’re quite dull, you can’t really build a relationship with them. They sit, and they eat, and they poo, and that’s about it.
According to the Google reviews of the Serpentarium, Dean has gone off the deep end with 9/11 trutherism and chemtrail stuff, and has big signs about this in the lobby. I am more disappointed than ever that I did not make it there while on my coastal NC honeymoon. I feel like Dean and Jim Bishop (http://www.bishopcastle.org/) are kindred spirits of a sort.
Yeah sadly the Serpentarium’s website is like “here are some cool pictures about snakes and some facts and oh click over here for THE TRUTH ABOUT CHEMTRAILS” so that’s a huge disappointment.
PARSELMOUTH!
I’m torn between amusement and terror in re: that pin story. It’s simultaneously completely inane (“doo doo doo doo, oops, inhaled a pin, I’ll just eat a cotton wool sandwich” and gravely serious (“never regained sensation in my right breast”). Like…confused laughter is all I can manage.
Lesson learned: if Nicole links to something with the single word “NOPE,” I know now that I SHOULD NOT CLICK IT NOPE.
I hovered over the link to see the URL and
I even saw the url before I clicked (I KNOW RIGHT?) but my still-sleepy brain is not as fast as my still-sleepy hand, a lesson I keep learning to my detriment.
I just love that GIF…
I can’t even read the pin article. My mother-in-law is a retired emergency room nurse and she has so many stories like this, which she always tells me in detail whenever she sees me with a pin in my mouth. She also has a variety of stories about things people have stuck up their butts, which are at the same time horrifying and funny.
My husband’s mother is a retired nurse, which means that I can’t even howl “NO SHUT IT STOP TALKING STOP SHUT IT” (which I would cheerfully do if she were my own mother) when a story gets too horrific for me. I imagine she’d take it in good humor, but I just can’t bring myself to scream “SHUT UP” at an in-law* like some sit-com cliché.
*Except that one time over Thanksgiving dinner when I toooooootally did. That story was the worst.
Luckily for me, my husband’s tolerance for these stories is much lower than mine. He usually gets her to stop way before it gets too horrifying for me.
SHE DOESN’T EVEN GO HERE
HONORARY DOCTORATE FOR GLEN COCO
Seriously though, who forgets about Glen Coco? Weak.
You go, Glen Coco!
Wait what’s Hyperbole and Nine-Eighths though?
It’s definitely Allie Mounce’s face, maybe because it’s such a weird one-off piece, she did that URL specifically?
There are more if you go to the root URL, though! Go back a few and it’s mostly links to pre-order her book.
Looking around the website more, I think she made it to promote this weird play mat thing?
isn’t that where the ninja turtles get their pizza delivered to?
I scrolled back through the entire blog trying to figure this out—it looks like she created Hyperbole and 9/8 as a separate blog strictly for promotional posts for her book, instead of inundating her main blog/readers with book promo, because she’s a hero and a real human being.
The Mean Girls link reminded me about Ladysmith Black Mambazo. Now I’m dancing in my chair.
That is one of my favorite lines in the movie and yet nobody quotes it. (I mean, it is funnier in context, but still.)
They played at the Folk Fest here a couple of years back and it was one of the greatest pop culture moments of my life. (Also: just really good!)
Ugh, that would have been such a great gig
If my 98% Southern Baptist hometown in deep East Texas can manage to keep religion out of its public schools, then no other public school district has any excuse for their blatantly illegal behavior. Pull it together, Utah.
This has nothing to do with public schools, but I noticed the bookstore at Zion National Park only had books about the Mountain Meadows massacre written by active members of the Mormon church, which kind of seems like a conflict of interest.
I too am from there! And no one bothered keeping religion out. It was really hard being raised by atheists.
I’m pretty sure there was a fairly large dust-up regarding morning prayer in schools right before we transferred from the DFW area to my tiny town, and so by the time we got there it was all, “this JUST a moment of silence, pray or don’t pray, that’s fine, you can read Animorphs during this time too, whatever.”
Then again, recent lawsuits involving this school district involve a forced public outing of a girl and her softball teammate and then some desegregation issues so it’s not like they are in any way a model of how to run a school district.
EXCITABLE SNAKES! What could be better?
EXCITABLE SNAKES, THEY ALL SAID
That would be a much better Warren Zevon song.
He was just an excitable snake is my ear-worm for the day
Okay most people probably realize this already but don’t read the comments on that MFA vs POC piece, or at least brace yourself for a mixed bag. The most recent two are “go back to where you came from” and “but what about the white menz.”
and on the New Yorker! I don’t know why I expected better comments!
I expected better too!
I also clicked through to another New Yorker story they suggested at the bottom, the one about Heidegger being a Nazi, and the first comment was VERY UPSET that the author called Heidegger a Nazi. If we call Heidegger a Nazi, this person cleverly argued, then we have to call Karl Marz a Nazi, because he hated Jewish people even more!
…I did not continue reading to find out if anyone broke it to him that Heidegger was an actual member of the actual Nazi party.
The moral of the story being that I should lower my comment-related expectations.
“If we go around correctly noting who was actually factually a member of the Nazi party, soon we’ll be acknowledging all kinds of uncomfortable facts, and I for one am very uncomfortable with uncomfortable facts!” said INTERNET COMMENTER in an uncharacteristic burst of self-examination.
Ughhhh. It’s ok, comments sometimes get read even by the best of us. I managed to glide away from that piece on a Junot-Diaz-is-the-best high… seriously, everything that man writes is spot on and awesome. He is SO DAMN SMART. I saw him speak once and the entire time I couldn’t stop thinking, I am listening to an absolute genius.
Yes! I’m going to focus on this so I won’t be quite so depressed about the state of the world. Another happy Junot Diaz note — I work with a bunch of Latino teenagers who are struggling in school, and they all aggressively hate reading.
We read Drown, though, and they loved it — and then we went to an event where Diaz was speaking, and not only was his official speech amazing, he stuck around to chat with the kids and take goofy pictures. He is a pure joy. Many months later they still talk about him, and use his existence as the one example of how reading and writing might not be TOTALLY pointless.
Came down here to say exactly the same thing. The comments are awful, but at least there are a couple of sane people lurking to reply to the racist idiots?
I mean what is even the point of adolescence if you’re not going to be Janis?
She is the absolute best.
I’VE BEEN TO THE SERPENTARIUM (multiple times) AND IT IS SO AMAZING!!!!!!! But somehow I missed the gift shop!?
I like Junot Diaz, and I always love his essays even if I’m not in love with his fiction.
I’m sure this can be applied to every higher education institution:
“Simply put: I was a person of color in [workshop / law school / grad school] whose theory of reality did not include my most fundamental experiences as a person of color—that did not in other words include me.”
Every POC has these stories. A friend was recently asked by a career counselor if they knew any Muslims to help get them a job…because that is a thing???
In terms of race and writing I find myself reluctant, as a POC, to write only about my experiences as ethnic / multiracial / 1st gen / POC / whatever. I’m also paranoid that the only things [white] editors will accept will be those stories. It’s a balance of being honest and letting your own racial experiences organically come into your writing, and not getting pigeon-holed by the dominant force.
And not to be all “WHAT ABOUT THE WHITE PEOPLE” about it, because whoa is the comfort and education of the historically centralized people in this culture not the important point, but if your [workshop / law school / grad school] only has space to reiterate the same tiny collection of voices and perspectives, then your [workshop / law school / grad school] is culturally impoverished and self-limiting.
Diversity isn’t a goddamned favor bestowed upon more marginalized populations by the dominant culture; it’s a matter of social justice, but also a vital social need that makes every facet of our culture and education richer for everyone.
I was reading the excerpt about the school field trip and my jaw literally dropped. THEY ARE TELLING THIS TO CHILDREN???
Oh my god that Mormon one… I can’t read the death penalty one, I just know from mentions on social media I can’t.
I’ve been nope nope nope’ing a lot of news items lately, because I’m sick and fragile and just can’t freaking take any of it right now, and the death penalty event is #1 on the NOPETOPUS list.
PS – I declared today #SpaceWitchDay on Twitter, you should come play with us! <3
what does that mean? What do I have to do? I’m down.
come see me on twitter! same handle as here: @icebergmama
No, seriously, EVERYBODY COME BE A TWITTER SPACE WITCH IMMEDIATELY.
Seriously, there’s a lot of space-witchery happening.
So the father of a particular co-editor of this *very* website has a kindle monthly deal…(My favorite thing to do on the 1st of the month is go through all the new kindle monthly deals bc books)
Oh man, that BitterSoutherner piece is amazing. My inner dirtbag teenage San Francisco goth scene of the 90s is jealous. We have the Rocky Horror Picture Show and all its associated dirtbaggery in common, but they look like they-all had more fun. We were too busy being serious and fashion-catty, and deep for deepness sake.
Junot is killing it this week and thinking I need to do my annual I’m getting a year old lets read Oscar and cry and debate whether I’m Junior or Lola. But, no, seriously, I saw some of his quotes from Fan Bros show and had to stop myself from just reblogging over and over again.
I want so badly to be Lola, but I know that I am at least 35% Oscar…
Better than being Yunior!!! (No Yunior it’s ok I know you have a good heart in there.)
There are some extremely choice quotes in that snake article, such as
…the local attitude is perhaps best summed up by a resident of a snake-plagued Wilmington apartment complex, quoted in a recent story in the Wilmington Star-News: “I don’t like those fellows with no shoulders.”
Yes yes perfect.
Yes! Followed almost immediately by: Yet Dean has gotten no complaints from his neighbors (he says they’re grateful for the business he brings to the area), with the sole exception of a group of cat lovers who once confronted him after hearing a rumor that Dean stalks downtown alleys at dawn, collecting cats in a basket to feed to his snakes. “Ludicrous,” he tells me. “I never get up before 10 A.M.”
LUDICROUS
oh my god I just got to the part about his friendship with William S. Burroughs this is TOO MUCH/maybe the best thing I’ve ever read
The dude is just a factory for enigmatic one-liners. DREAM GUY.
I have absolutely no problem understanding how he managed to get three people to marry him.
THEY DON’T HAVE ENOUGH FAITH FOR MY SNAKES
I don’t think it gets any more badass than that.
!!!!!!!!
A coworker of mine was recently discussing how he usually wakes up around 5:30 (in the morning, even!) and can’t get back to sleep so he just gets up and does things, and I was like, “I understand the words you’re saying, but they do not make any kind of reasonable sense.”
Which is to say, I buy that alibi wholeheartedly.
My partner is like that too. He just… stops sleeping and then gets up and reads or whatever. I don’t understand it at all. How can a human being dislike sleep or not want to be in bed at all times???
I hit my snooze NINE TIMES yesterday. And then I still didn’t get up for another 20 minutes.
One of my co-workers (like me, in his mid-20s) arrives every day at around 7.15. Work starts at 9, the building opens to staff at 8 and h has a commute of about an hour. I don’t understand what is going on.
Also the idea of somebody being able to smoothly & without attracting attention catch multiple cats and put them in the same basket is just laughable.
Or like the cats would go quietly.
I’m afraid to read the Junot Diaz piece because I already feel guilty enough about some of the things I wrote and said while I was getting my MFA.
EAT A COTTON WOOL SANDWICH
Re: Botched Executions
My press just published a book on the history of botched executions in the United States. http://sup.org/book.cgi?id=23979
60 Teens Arrested for Breaking into their High School; peeing on the walls
http://gawker.com/60-teens-arrested-for-breaking-…
“Teaneck High School was open this morning, albeit with balloons and streamers still all over the floors. No word on whether all the grease and urine got cleaned up before first period.”
My senior year of high school our senior show was Mean Girls. Senior show is traditionally super-low-budget and amateur, so when Regina gets hit by a bus it was actually a Barbie car with a dying battery that took a solid minute to cross the stage. When Janis drives by Cady towards the end it was just her riding a tricycle through the orchestra with the kid playing Damien standing on the back.
I am kind of embarrassed by how much I miss high school theatre (<3 you forever, set-movement dirtbags)
From one former techie teen dirtbag (ok, more like a dirtbag wannabe) to another – that sounds AWESOME.
I cannot stop laughing at the weird Lawrence Welk comment towards the end of the snake enthusiast piece.
I work at a nonprofit that advocates for the separation of church and state, and we received several complaints from families about that field trip and are sending a letter to the school district about it today!
Good madam or sir, I salute you and your organization’s mission.
"If we go around correctly noting who was actually factually a member of the Nazi party, soon we'll be acknowledging all kinds of uncomfortable facts, and I for one am very uncomfortable with uncomfortable facts!" said INTERNET COMMENTER in an uncharacteristic burst of self-examination.
And not to be all "WHAT ABOUT THE WHITE PEOPLE" about it, because whoa is the comfort and education of the historically centralized people in this culture not the important point, but if your [workshop / law school / grad school] only has space to reiterate the same tiny collection of voices and perspectives, then your [workshop / law school / grad school] is culturally impoverished and self-limiting.
Diversity isn't a goddamned favor bestowed upon more marginalized populations by the dominant culture; it's a matter of social justice, but also a vital social need that makes every facet of our culture and education richer for everyone.
Oh gawd – the Guardian thinks Go Ask Alice ought to be made into a film. Seemed topical this week!! http://www.theguardian.com/film/2014/apr/25/class…