Did you miss me terribly? I missed you! Many thanks to Samantha Powell for her dynamite guest-blogging (I assume she was amazing, as always; I tried not to read the site or my emails, and mostly succeeded!) and to Mallory for sending me plaintive and flattering missives about the gaping hole my absence left in her life, which is all anyone ever wants to receive on vacation. If you emailed me, I have created a very elaborate and precise timeline for my return to Inbox Zero, so expect a response in the next week, and I also hope you enjoyed my very, very vivid and GIF-y out-of-office message, which was dominated by Vacation Lestrade:
Where was I, anyway? I was in Miami, for my friend Tina’s wedding. I ate a great deal of food, and would like to heartily endorse both Yardbird and Michael’s Genuine Food and Drink. Before I went to Miami, I marathoned all of True Detective over the course of 36 hours, which changed me profoundly as a person, probably not for the better. On the flight itself, I read the Zodiac book and Shalom Auslander’s Hope: A Tragedy, which is not as good as Foreskin’s Lament, but what is? While in Miami I read nothing, not even street signs. I merely ate, and danced like I was cursed by a witch. I danced so hard, I had to tape my feet like a Romanian gymnast working under Bela Karolyi. The wedding was on a dock on Sunset Island, and literal manatees came and we sprayed them with hoses and they drank from the hoses and were merry, and I channeled their energy and danced with the beauty and anger and sensuality of the manatee for many, many hours. The bride was a vision in multiple tattoos and a perfect mythical fishtail braid and a metallic gold Nicole Miller dress that made her look like she was sent by God to rule over us justly and well.
I am now on my flight back from Miami, and am reading Robert K. Massie’s SUPER-TIGHT biography of Catherine the Great. Make it happen, it’s on the Kindle. Now, enough about me, on to the LINKS.
The best part of this Mitch McConnell profile:
The power couple’s story is told on the walls of the McConnell-Chao Archives, located at the University of Louisville. On one side are McConnell family artifacts illustrating how the future senator overcame polio to play baseball and lead his high school class. There is no mention of his first wife, Sherrill Redmon, who went on to become a feminist scholar and collaborate with Gloria Steinem at Smith College.
“Big surprise there,” Ms. Redmon said sarcastically in a brief interview.
Roxane Gay is on FIRE.
Shipping Fifth Harmony.
When your parents want to bring a date to your wedding.
Want a shinier home for your fanfic?
WHAT HAPPENED WHILE I WAS AWAY? Solange? Jill? The world is collapsing. Catch me up.
This is a good interview with Colson Whitehead, but they buried the lede, which is that ZZ Packer is finishing up a novel (buy the collection I link in the blockquote, k?):
What’s your favorite book to teach?
One favorite is “Drinking Coffee Elsewhere,” by ZZ Packer, toggling between the stories “Brownies” and “The Ant of the Self,” depending on my mood. She’s nearing completion of her first novel, which is very exciting. And “Autobiography of Red,” by Anne Carson, even if it has no relation whatsoever to what the class is about. Especially if. I’d love to hip Red to some Joy Division records; I think he’d get a lot out of them.
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A death in the Texas desert.
I have been listening to “Such a Night” for a few weeks now, because it’s amazing, and here’s Doctor John performing it during The Last Waltz:
