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:
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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.
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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.
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Roxane Gay is on FIRE.
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Shipping Fifth Harmony.
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When your parents want to bring a date to your wedding.
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Want a shinier home for your fanfic?
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WHAT HAPPENED WHILE I WAS AWAY? Solange? Jill? The world is collapsing. Catch me up.
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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.
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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:
Tags: feminism, hail the conquering heroine, link roundup, miami, the internet
NICOLE NEVER LEAVE US AGAIN
I want to spray manatees with hoses at MY wedding!!! Siiiiiiiigh….
Maybe it could be incorporated into the ceremony somehow, like instead of lighting a unity candle, spray the unity manatee…
That bio of Catherine the Great is also what I’m reading! I’m thoroughly enjoying it. I love how every time you think it’s a normal biography, there will come a part like “…and then so and so was exiled to Siberia” or “…and then her servant BURNT DOWN HIS HOUSE so that she could give birth in private” and you’re like God bless the Russians.
There is a made-for-TV movie about CtG starring Catherine Zeta-Jones as CtG that we watched in my high school Russian class. I probably wouldn’t remember it at all except it had one perfect line: “The emperor of the night takes many positions, not all of them political.”
OMG. Must find that after I’m done with the book.
Yes! You can buy it on DVD, I own it!
It’s so wonderfully misandrist.
The whole section where she’s plotting against her husband and takes over the throne is like a how-to guide for the rest of us.
I didn’t quite realise how much I’d missed Nicole until I saw Vacation Lestrade and my heart came crashing down with relief. CAPTAIN, MY CAPTAIN.
I have two today:
A sciencey (and slightly graphic) take on menstruation.
A dissection of Nellie Bly’s famous undercover asylum expose.
That first link is AWESOME (and horrifying, oh so horrifying). Natural selection does the craziest things
For a minute there, I thought this was in response to the article. The thought of the selective pressures that must trend towards Mitch McConnell is… disquieting. Though I suppose not a million miles from the ones that yield mind-controlling lamprey babies.
Thank you so much to linking to that first article. I devoured it, cringed a bit over lunch, and reinforced my decision to nope not ever get pregnant, but thanks for asking.
Nope. Nope Nope. Nope.
No getting pregnant now. Nope.
AGHHHH why did I read that first one? So fascinating, so horrifying. And now I’m resisting the urge to send it to my pregnant friends. (Don’t worry, I won’t, I’m not a monster. )
Neeeeeeat, placentas are crazy.
I particularly like this line: “In other words, it’s just the kind of effect natural selection is renowned for: odd, hackish solutions that work to solve proximate problems.” Menstruation: a fabulous argument against intelligent design. (Unless the intelligent-designer was a typical, rushed grad student or software developer.)
Kind of an argument for a clueless male Creator, as a women would NEVER have arranged things in such a Rube Goldberg way
“Human pregnancy, on the other hand, is run by committee.” This explanation underlies so very many of my complaints about pregnancy. Between this and that other article a few weeks back about how baby humans are born so immature because they literally cannot be sustained by the mother’s metabolism any more, I am very, very ready to be done being pregnant now, please.
Aahhhhh the second link is so awesome! I mean, horrifying, as the original is, but, also neat.
Welcome back Nicole!
I am so excited. I got the Roxane Gay book this weekend and I am going to see her talk tonight and get it signed. Woo Hoo!
As a representative of the Great and Noble Commonwealth of Kentucky, here is my official stance on our turkey-necked, turtle-faced state senator:
Fuck Mitch McConnell. He is the worst in every possible way and here is a link to his (35-year-old, Democratic, female, great) presumptive opponent’s web page if your rage has inspired you to give money to take his ass down.
Cosigned! Sometimes I wish I were a registered Republican so I could vote against him twice, but at least this year there’s someone pretty good to vote FOR twice.
Major props for a Bela Karolyi reference. MAN, DOES NICOLE KNOW HER AUDIENCE.
I read that Captain Awkward last week (among several good CA entries last week, I thought) and felt very bad for the LW and the parents’ partner-person. That situation seems really tricky and poorly handled by the parents.
SO EXCITED FOR BAD FEMINIST!
Foreskin’s Lament is my jaaaaam. Sorry to hear that Hope: A Tragedy isn’t as good.
Throwing my hat into the ring to chat about any and all Romanovs. I read and enjoyed the Catherine biography, but it paled in comparison to my one true love, Nicholas and Alexandra.
I also throw my hat into this ring.
Oh man I was sooooo obsessed with the Romanovs in high school, yes particularly Nicholas and Alexandra, and every once in a while I will spend an afternoon revisiting them on the Internet.
Empress Catherine is a misandrist role model for us all
I love how as she got older, she kept having these hot young boyfriends, and she was always like, “No, it’s cool. I’m educating him, the little dear.”
Nicole we missed you!!! I have An Untamed State and am going to start it immediately upon finishing Save The Date, which I’m in the middle of right now. This likely means I’ll be reading An Untamed State during my honeymoon, and part of me thinks I should read something fluffier during that, but also fuck that because I need to read this.
Just don’t read “Gone Girl” during your honeymoon, you’ll be fine.
I mean, you could, we just don’t want to be responsible for what happens after.
I kind of want to spray my cat with a hose now, except that if I did he would definitely kill me in my sleep.
Over the weekend my daughter started calling our dog a land manatee. She is a bull mastiff so the description is pretty accurate. I now want to spray her with the hose.
Totally squeeing over “land manatee,” that is adorable.
…seems legit.
Nicole! I am mainly here to say that Samantha is great and you were missed. Welcome back!
So I was actually living in Alpine (the county seat of Brewster County, the county in which Terlingua is located) in February and it was a HUGE deal. Those towns (Marfa, Terlingua, Alpine, Fort Stockton, Presidio) are so intimately intertwined, and everyone really does know almost everyone. Plus, La Kiva (and Starlight Theater) were THE places to go in Terlingua.
It’s very hard to understand how incredibly bizarre and incredible Terlingua is until you actually see it, just because it truly is a tiny community that sprung up in the desert around an old mining ghost town. Everyone there has been completely lovely to my husband and me everytime we’ve gone out there, but there is definitely a “type” of person who chooses to make their home in such a place. For example, a man from Terlingua once described to me his plans to turn his ranch into a home for young girls, so that he could “raise them up right” and train them in “the right kind of skills.” He was very adamant that no young men be allowed on his ranch, because they were corrupting influences and might impregnate the young girls before he could. So. It’s a weird place.
So. It’s a weird place.
“For fun they host Chihuahua races or build giant volcanoes with propane-fueled lava flows. Most parties are costumed.”
I haven’t been to Terlingua since the early ’90s and it was super weird then (in the best possible way). I can only imagine what 20 years have created. I really enjoyed that article and now I kinda wanna go back.
I adore ZZ Packer’s book, Drinking Coffee Elsewhere! So glad to see it somewhere other than my heart and my bookshelf.
And, um, I found this on some BUST link somewhere, this #selfie parody, which I CANNOT stop listening to, called #daguerreotype: http://youtu.be/8UqC6n2jwu4
Man, I am so excited for both of those Roxane Gay books. I’m starting to build my summer reading list now, late, and they’re both right on top. I’m just finishing Night Film by Marisha Pessl, which was incredible, but also I want to talk about the Male Narrator with someone – has anyone else read it?
Also, what else should go on my summer reading list?
OH WILL YOU EVER REGRET ASKING ME!
a) Yep, I’ve read Night Film & wow, yes, superb, but I have thoughts about the narrator and the way he expressed himself and also that ending and more.
b) Summer reading!! Well. If you’re looking for more ‘new in 2014’ log in to your library & request: Helen Oyeyemi’s Boy, Snow, Bird, and also Anthony Doerr’s All the Light We Cannot See, and also Siri Hustvedt’s Blazing World – those last two I’ve only glanced at so far but my Goodreads group (y’all feel free to join!) has been raving & I trust them (they’re how I found the Pessl, after all.)
Also, Aisha Tyler’s Self-Inflicted Wounds is so great (especially in audio – I’m loving her narration.)
Oh, and the entire world is raving about Andy Weir’s The Martian, plus I’m waaaay down on the hold list even though I requested it as soon as the raving started, so I think it must be that good.
Oh jesus, the narrator ruined that book for me. I was so sick of his shit by the end of the book, I was ready for him to fall off a cliff. I never could tell if Pessl intended for us to like him, or if she hated him as much as I did.
I’m not sure either! He was so awful, and I feel like she HAD to be aware of it. But I still have like 20 pages left, so maybe he will redeem himself…?
It’s almost ten years old now but I’m rereading PopCo by Scarlett Thomas and my goal is to meet people who loved it as much as I did because it’s just the best thing ever. Every word, every idea, every morsel of it is better than food. So read it, but be careful because if you like it a lot I’ll probably turn up in your driveway at some point.
ME, LET’S TALK ABOUT NIGHT FILM AND ITS ITALICS
Apropos of nothing except it being here, this weekend I witnessed some real quality teenage dirtbaggetry. A teen boy in no shirt and no shoes attempting to do skateboard tricks (and not succeeding very well) in front of his friends, a bored girl smoking cigarettes and a male friend trying to show him how it’s done. It was great.
Last week it finally got warm here and my borough, which I had previously named Borough of the Elderly Zombies, showed its secret identity as Borough of the Teenage Dirtbag. They were everywhere, and all the boys were walking around shirtless, with the discarded shirts thrown over their shoulders, smoking eighteen cigarettes at a time, and hanging out at the skate park by the library. It was both beautiful and terrifying.
“The Bible left me a little cold, I have to admit. Maybe I came to it at the wrong time? I was reading a lot of dirty realism, and all the genre stuff in the Good Book was a real turnoff. So many fantastic elements. Angels? I mean, come on. And it was really trying hard to be “experimental,” with all those multiple P.O.V.s and jumping around in time. If I were in workshop with the writer, I’d say, “Hey, hotshot, ix-nay on the egat-bays.””
I LOVE YOU COLSON WHITEHEAD
But please never describe to me the sound of someone’s fingers breaking ever again
seriously
Those manatees were there to take Nicole to the sea. Thank goodness for the magic appeal of dancing instead.
Welcome back Nicole! I am glad you got some time away and had fun, time away post child-having is the best time of all.
I’m confused about the AU Almanac. I thought maybe it was for highlighting and disseminating fanfic that the editors think is of high literary quality, but the “about” page says “We believe all fan fiction is good fan fiction. Above all else, we believe in the inherent value of collaboration and exchange.” So…why the Almanac? An edited journal seems much less well-suited to collaboration and exchange than the online fora that fandom already has.
Yeah, I’m confused by the very nature of this. Also, I very rarely share my fic with anyone, because 1) it’s never polished, 2) I don’t want the entire world to know exactly how I feel about fake men kissing other fake men, and 3) it’s not representative of how I write when I’m at my best.
That Fifth Harmony piece reminded me so much of my college years. Now, I went to UC Santa Cruz, home of the fighting banana slugs, which had at the time (late 80s, early 90s) a stat about being the campus with the most out lesbians or something, and even there, in that couldn’t-hardly-be-more-PC-yes-we-said-‘PC’-all-the-damn-time-it-was-smug place, there was a heavy air of “not that there’s anything wrong with that” and snickers about those two gals who’d roomed together for a few years now, nudge nudge.
Acceptance based on the separate but equal principle. We thought it was damn progressive 20+ years ago. (My friends back home in Texas thought it was somewhere on the startling-to-horrifying spectrum.)
So what I’m saying is that Lauren O’Neal’s interactions with the 5H fans was a nice look at how the baseline has shifted, and explains why it’s been so easy to raise open-minded kids – that’s just how kids are now. That’s cool.
Welcome back, Nicole! I would also like to know what the heck was going on with Solange, I apparently missed it in the flurry of cleaning my house for incoming guests last week (which went SUPERBLY, thanks to Jolie’s book. I <3 U JOLIE)
re Roxane Gay: may we all someday destroy our Scrabble nemeses
I missed everything that happened in the last week because I was caught up in commencement activities that took my attention and made me write inspirational speeches and schmooze with parents. A digest of events would be much appreciated.
Also, I never, ever get to name-drop, so I’m taking full advantage of this opportunity to say that ZZ Packer is great and you should read her book and wait anxiously for her novel. My husband did a fellowship with her and I still kind of want to grow up to be her, despite the fact that she’s younger than I am.
I just got an e-mail from Teespring! My Ronbledore t-shirt will be shipping soon! Hurrah!
Meee tooo sooo excited!!!!!!
Literal manatees, my favorite kind! Welcome back, Nicole.
“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 decided earlier this week that if/when I get married, I want to wear a gold dress. (Too clumsy for white, not a huge fan of pastels, and normal colors just don’t seem right for a formal wedding.) I think this is a sign that that is a great idea!
Or maybe some kind of giant gold brocade creation. Basically, something shiny enough for a 16th-century coronation.
Going to do a little plug since people are all excited about Russian royalty (and with good reason): my friend Jennifer Laam wrote a novel, The Secret Daughter of the Tsar, which was published last year and which is tangentially about Nicholas/Alexandra:
http://www.amazon.com/Secret-Daughter-Tsar-Jennif…
A thousand times yes to this! Red flags either way.
Time and Chance by Sharon Penman! I read it when I was 16 though.
YARDBIRD. I was in Miami in December and ate at that place like 3 times in the span of a week. it seemed like everyone was a fan, even the cab drivers.
It's almost ten years old now but I'm rereading PopCo by Scarlett Thomas and my goal is to meet people who loved it as much as I did because it's just the best thing ever. Every word, every idea, every morsel of it is better than food. So read it, but be careful because if you like it a lot I'll probably turn up in your driveway at some point.