Azadeh Moaveni’s extraordinary look at the lives of women who worked for ISIS is something I hope everyone in the world reads:
The Islamic State has come to be known around the world by names like ISIS and ISIL. But in Raqqa, residents began calling it Al Tanzeem: The Organization. And it quickly became clear that every spot in the social order, and any chance for a family to survive, was utterly dependent on the group.
Not only had Raqqa residents become subjects of the Organization’s mostly Iraqi leadership, but their place in society fell even further overnight. As foreign fighters and other volunteers began streaming into town, answering the call to jihad, they became the leading lights of the shaken-up community. In Raqqa, the Syrians had become second-class citizens — at best.
Dua, Aws and Asma were among the lucky: The choice to join was available to them. And each chose to barter her life, through work and marriage, to the Organization.
Jealousy is a terrible thing. The triumphs of my sisters are my triumphs as well. That BITCH Anne Helen Petersen got to hang out with ENYA, are you KIDDING ME (also, the piece is incredible):
Her look, like her sound, seems to exist outside of time. In her songs, there are no references to objects, technological or otherwise: just emotions, swells, landscapes, time. In her real life, she checks her email once every few weeks, and even then, very quickly. “It feels so cold,” she says, making a face like she’d bitten into a lemon. “The energy is no good. I’d rather go for a walk.”
(sinks to the ground, makes quiet mewling noises)
Having hurled myself joyously into the depths of my Daniel Craig obsession, I rewatched him in the 1997 adaptation of Minette Walters’ The Ice House (I had seen it ages ago, but couldn’t remember if his character read Robert Burns’ poetry out loud with a sexy Scottish accent like he does in the novel: HE DOES NOT, which was a mistake.)
Guess who else is in this movie? A lil itty-bitty baby James D’Arcy!
These things are always super cheesy and aimed to soothe terrified Americans, but Buzzfeed’s “I’m a Muslim, But I’m Not…” video still made me smile and I’m glad it exists.
Why Mr. Snuffleupagas had to become real (this whole thing is the BEST):
Delgado: We were all amazed that this giant elephant-looking thing was actually real. You get a big reaction from everybody, and everybody was very happy Big Bird had been telling the truth all along. He was very happy people believed him.
Stiles: Big Bird [said] “Well, now what do you have to say?” You know, that was really hismoment, and I just loved giving him the opportunity to say that.
Rubin: It was incredibly respectful of a child. The conversation did not diminish Big Bird, it wasn’t dismissive or pandering. It’s how you hope a conversation with someone wishing to be heard would go.
Delgado: It was kind of a big party. And Big Bird has a child’s mind, so he was satisfied. Like, “See, I told you he was real!”
Near the end of the episode, cast member Bob McGrath makes a pointed comment: “From now on, we’ll believe you whenever you tell us something.”
Rubin: It was so honest. Some parents get caught up in authoritarian mode and don’t have the flexibility to retract, recant, or acknowledge a kid’s reality. He was the collective voice of parents—”Sorry, we should’ve listened.”
Highly NSFW, but this collection of Alvin Baltrop’s photographs of gay men cruising on the West Side piers in the 1970s and 1980s is so beautiful and wistful and tender and sensual, and if I were in NYC, I would be going to MoMA PS1 to see the “Greater New York” exhibition in which they feature.
Meredith Talusan spoke to Eddie Redmayne about The Danish Girl, and it was one of those interviews where I realized that I had taken my “ugh another cis dude playing a trans woman” irritation and put it on a PERSON instead of an industry, and I came away thinking that he was a thoughtful person, and I loved that Meredith brought such generosity of spirit to the table with her.
Beloved Friend of The Toast Heather Seggel wrote a piece on her ten years of homelessness for Broadly, and it will not inspire you to think the government handles housing well:
That tiny place in Ukiah I won’t be moving into was appealing for its reasonable rent, but also because I am on a waiting list through the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) for something called a Housing Choice Voucher. When I reach the top of the list, it means that if I find a place that will accept my voucher, my rent will scale up and down with my income, but the landlord is paid in full no matter what. It’s subsidized housing, just with more options for where to go. It also means the place has to pass a very elementary inspection that my rented trailer would never have survived, increasing the chances of my being in a safe home. To most people, maybe a home without mice and rats and as many as seven leaks is something to take for granted, but when you’ve experienced the alternative, it takes on special value.
When I moved back to Sonoma County I added myself to the waiting list here but knew it was a fool’s errand: A year ago the wait was estimated to be six to eight years; it’s currently seven to ten. I learned just recently that my own wait would most likely be even longer because my address (despite being a temporary one I must vacate) is in the county seat. This means I will be continually moved to the last place in line behind not just seniors, veterans and the disabled, but also those from rural zip codes. This news went hand in hand with my experience trying to get waitlisted for a low-income apartment through the county’s biggest supplier—they immediately denied me a spot on the list for low-income housing because my income was too low. That bears repeating: my income is too low for low-income housing. No matter that in a lifetime where I’ve never once made three times the rent in a single month, I have always paid on time and in full. Just, “Nope.”
Loved this complex look at the student protests in South Africa and the political and generational fault lines they reveal, especially as the US watches what’s happening at Mizzou and elsewhere:
But there was also a powerful emotional component to the denial. What else had blacks fought for over so many years, if not their children’s release from a suffering black identity? When I flew into Cape Town to visit UCT, the Uber driver who picked me up from the airport, a black man from a township called Langa, spontaneously told me a potent story. His son was 14, he said; he was 50. Recently, his son had come to him to ask him what apartheid had done to him, his father. The question had made the older man feel angry. “I don’t want you to know about the past,” he had told his son. “You are free of all that!”
I’m sure you have all seen the video where Adele pretends to be an Adele impersonator, which made me cry for NO GOOD REASON, but if not, here it is.
Another cherished Friend of The Toast (he gives us money, and I love him) Randall Munroe explained general relativity in The New Yorker:
There once was a doctor with cool white hair. He was well known because he came up with some important ideas. He didn’t grow the cool hair until after he was done figuring that stuff out, but by the time everyone realized how good his ideas were, he had grown the hair, so that’s how everyone pictures him. He was so good at coming up with ideas that we use his name to mean “someone who’s good at thinking.” Two of his biggest ideas were about how space and time work. This thing you’re reading right now explains those ideas using only the ten hundred words people use the most often.1 The doctor figured out the first idea while he was working in an office, and he figured out the second one ten years later, while he was working at a school. That second idea was a hundred years ago this year. (He also had a few other ideas that were just as important. People have spent a lot of time trying to figure out how he was so good at thinking.)
Alana Massey wrote “Theological Scars” for Hazlitt:
My greatest fear in writing this is not admitting my lack of faith but being exposed to the weak faith of others. I have written before about my profound love of Christianity but the absence of God in my life, and I was bombarded with emails from men admonishing my unbelief as if I had any control over it—and worse, having the hubris to believe they would personally shepherd me back to the faith. Whatever puny god these men believe in that makes human instruction rather than divine intervention the pathway by which people recognize grace again is not the god I miss. Don’t they know that such requests for my faith to be restored ought to be sent toward the heavens and not into my inbox?
The only comforting words I’ve actually ever gotten in my inbox were after I sent an email to a religious literary scholar. I told him how much I admired his work because despite having no faith, I saw his reverence to the topic as the last hope for religious authenticity in America. He thanked me for my unprompted words and ended by saying, “And please recall that apostates honor the Church as heretics do not. Heretics do it the disservice of misinterpreting its Message, while apostates pay it the huge compliment of rejection. And of course the one who rejects can still be come the one who accepts, as the heretic cannot!” He wrote with warmth and hope without sacrificing any of his conviction. That was a man of God.
I still can’t believe Daniel Craig secretly learned to sing and accompany himself on “Being Alive” from “Company” for our wedding reception. — Nicole Cliffe (@Nicole_Cliffe) November 21, 2015
<3 Randall.
SPACE BOATS
I want to read Theological Scars but I fear it hits too close to home 🙁
It’s devastating. I’ve wrestled with religion and God’s place in my life, but I feel very fortunate to have never had a crisis of faith/dark night of the soul like the one Mother Theresa described. I’m having a bit of a rough time connecting with God and religion right now, though, so it definitely did hit close to home. But it’s written so beautifully.
About men who wrote to her, trying to mansplain it all, after a previous article about her loss of faith:
Whatever puny god these men believe in that makes human instruction rather than divine intervention the pathway by which people recognize grace again is not the god I miss.
Just breath-taking.
(understand before I say this that I am in sympathy with Massey here, I have always said that if God exists and wants me to think so, he can come tell me himself, he knows where I live.)
but: this is no recommendation of the faith, but it’s pretty standard Christianity, I thought, to understand human beings as instruments of God through which he may work his will. looking for other manifestations of “divine intervention” seems tailor-made to make people recite that dumb parable about the guy who prayed for rescue and sends the rescue boat away because God will provide and then God says, I sent you a boat, what were you waiting for.
(but please don’t think I’m making any defense of these awful men by calling them God’s instruments. a tool is a tool, no matter whose.)
“And of course the one who rejects can still become the one who accepts, as the heretic cannot”
WHAT, though. (this is the religious scholar she quotes, writing with ‘warmth’, supposedly.) what bizarro theology is this? It’s only God who doesn’t have the free will, or the nerve, to change his mind lest he seem insufficiently all-knowing before his creatures. everybody else can, even heretics.
I think the point Massey may have been trying to make there is that you can’t rationally convince someone to find something that is irrational by definition. If you look at my life and my conversion from a bird’s eye view, you can trace a line between all the people who explained parts of Catholicism to me before I converted, but even a bird’s eye view isn’t capable of spotting the “lightbulb moment” where it all clicked for me; that was and could only be divine.
The apostate/heretic thing is a bit more muddled, yeah. I believe God can do whatever He wants; it’s us religious types that try to box Him in and say “God only lets ______s into Heaven” or whatever. I think maybe the scholar was saying that heretics are defined as those who twist faith past its true meaning and apostates just fall away from the faith, so it’s easier for the apostates to come back to their old faith than it is for a heretic to untwist their errors. Problematic for sure, but I didn’t read it as antagonistic toward God.
…please tell me there’s a video somewhere of Eddie Redmayne as the Emcee.
Also, xkcd is one of my very favorite things and I’m so, so delighted to hear Randall’s a Friend of The Toast.
I love xkcd too and it makes me so happy.
I also would like to see this. I want to see every emcee, honestly. After finding out about John Stamos’ run, I immediately watched a video of the opening number, and you know what? He was pretty good!
(Full disclosure, though: I saw the show twice during its recent revival, and Alan Cumming IS that character for me.)
Yeah, it’s all about Alan Cumming. I loved that when they revived the show in 2013 they were like “just come back and do the exact same thing.”
I bought tickets for Cabaret in 2013 the MINUTE they went on sale, solely because of Alan. He was… ineffable.
Okay am I the only one who teared up reading the Snuffleupagas article because…
No, I just teared up and came back her to ask the same question. Sesame Street is just so good-hearted TT△TT
…also, fuck some of the commenters on that article? What the hell? I don’t recommend reading them because what the hell, but like, some people are complaining that it was a “PC” reason to make him not-imaginary…
I got so emotional, I was like, EVERYONE BELIEVED IN HIM IT’S SO BEAUTIFUL *sobs*
And I did NOT read the comments, haha. NEVER READ THE COMMENTS (except here, and maybe at AAM, everywhere else sucks.)
God, yeah, so horribly PC to try and help abused children speak out about what’s happened to them. Political correctness ruins everything.
Def not, I cannot read a thing about Sesame Street without the eyes welling up. I still find it amazing how dedicated the writers are to the kids watching. It is very comforting thinking of all of these grown ups considering how their show can make a kid feel. I absolutely loved it as a kid, and I think that’s what I was feeling! My home life was horrible (to put it mildly) and it was awesome watching a show that had caring adults in it.
The fact that Randall Munroe loves and supports The Toast confirms my worldview and makes me feel safe and loved. Everything is good.
It makes me so happy! I love xkcd tremendously.
It is such a happy pairing of entities that it’s really baffling
But where is the picture of Sansa’s mum that feedly promised me?
go to the homepage of the Toast and it will be at the top.
if you go out to the main page it shows up.
So I think I definitely need to invest in a pair of THINX, because they seem like good people.
RANDALL IS AN OFFICIAL FRIEND OF THE TOAST?!
…….. Is there going to be an open thread on friday? because maybe that would be the appropriate time to tell y’all about that time i met him and he drew me a super amazing firefly related doodle based on the dvd commentary related conversation i had with him about my river tam costume………
It is always time for Randall Munroe stories now!
but i do not currently HAVE a digital version of the doodle right now, but I could CREATE one by friday.
(I was given this doodle in 2008, and i have never shared it digitally, ever. but I would be willing to share this with you folks).
I needs to see the doodle!!!!1!
This piece about Jonathan Franzen’s misogyny over at the Establishment is so good and so in line with Official Toast Stances: http://www.theestablishment.co/2015/11/21/jonatha…
(curious to see if the intensedebate comment system will autocorrect “Franzen” to “He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named” a la Voldemort)
He is insufferable, isn’t he?
And can we talk about something? I haven’t read Purity (though I might – I thought Freedom was actually quite interesting, if very flawed), but every review mentions the she’s-such-a-radical-feminist-she-makes-her-boyfriend-sit-to-pee thing.
Is that really that weird/emasculating? The boy sits – not because I asked him to, but because he realized long ago that sitting made cleaning the bathroom less work. Of his male friends, approximately half sit on the toilet too, for similar reasons (they probably stand when using public toilets, but hey, I would if I could). One of them even has a sign in his bathroom that says “Sit, whore! (m/f)”, and as you can deduce from the wording of that, he isn’t exactly super-pc.
Basically: I’m wondering if my friends are weird or if it’s maybe just a generational thing, with younger guys being more blasé about it.
I think it’s unusual, but it’s not something with weird cultural baggage attached? Like you say, a guy probably wants to keep the room clean, or hide out and play games on his phone for a minute. But I’ve never heard of women caring about it or something like “Real men…” attached. Everything I’ve read about this Franzen character just makes me picture Maud Lebowski laughing.
Also, wtf, why does every review mention the pee thing but this is the first time I have seen THIS: “Moderate” also isn’t the word that comes to mind for a scene in which the protagonist proves himself to be an unrepentant pedophile who learns there is more to life than himself and his libido when he falls in love . . . with a 15-year-old… Franzen said he hoped this “icky” character would be redeemed by the fact that he fell in love. If I’d been on the fence about reading the book that would have tipped me over!
Yeah, I’m as feminist as they come, but I don’t really care what he does. I mean, I sorta did when I was the one cleaning the bathroom, but now we pay someone to do that for us, so he’s free to do as he likes.
Also: you are completely right that that tidbit is way more disturbing. Humbert Humbert was in love with Lolita, after all. Doesn’t redeem him in the slightest.
I mean just the fact that he calls it “falling in love,” no qualifiers, is already super squicky!
(D’oh, apparently that scene is not in Purity, it’s a separate short (“short”) story. I forgive reviewers for not mentioning it!)
I don’t know. I read the story, and while I didn’t particularly like it, I’m wary of that kind of movie-blurb summary, because it automatically tends to equate the story’s content with its argument, and that’s rarely the case. The implication is that a story that shows a predator falling in love with a fifteen-year-old, and shows it from his point of view, is automatically arguing that preying on fifteen-year-olds is the right thing to do. That’s a very dangerous attitude to take toward any kind of literature, even if the writer is a tool like Franzen.
When I was in Germany I remember seeing signs in hostel bathrooms instructing men to sit. So I think it might very well be a regional thing, not just a generational thing.
Is masculinity really so fragile that peeing while sitting has the potential to rip it apart? Apparently so.
I hadn’t fully realized the potential of the new Twitter poll function until I wondered how best to ask my male friends how they felt about sitting to pee.
My advice is to re-read “The Corrections” rather than read “Purity.” That is what I ended up wishing I had done.
I read “The Corrections” and am fine stopping there and never reading another Jonathan Franzen, so I would recommend that route as an option as well.
(Tried to slog through “Freedom” but it’s all the insufferable parts of “The Corrections” and none of the fun interesting stuff in my opinion.)
Definitely don’t read Purity if that’s your feeling! Assuming I’m correctly guessing what you find insufferable, there’s a straight-line trajectory among the three of increasing insufferability.
also, idk if this is a “has not lived with a man since childhood home” thing, but I kind of feel that then. . .is the issue really about guys literally not being willing to wipe up their own pee? Or is the idea that feminists literally have nothing better to do than scrutinize men on the toilet? Like, it kind of seems like a thing where if they are covering their tracks, so to speak, how much is someone going to actually “force” the issue by watching all the time? In which case I would think “feminism” is probably not the problem.
I’m thinking way too much about this. So instead, just picture Franzen strutting into a lecture hall, trying to flip his leather jacket over his shoulder like a Cool Dude, and then realizing he didn’t want to hold it there the whole time and pouting until an English department professor scurried up to take it, and then him essentially tossing it in the professor’s face. That is a thing that happened.
I got such a visceral rush of glee when I started reading this. Franzenfreude is real!
+1000 Franzenfreude. He and I share an alma mater, and I probably have an unhealthy fantasy deep down at getting my novel sold, going to talk to students on campus, and being like. .. “oh, sure, Franzen. That’s. . .a way to be.”
He and I share an alma mater too, which means we do (unless grad school was a thing)! The arboreal campus mentioned in Freedom, yes?
haha, have not read Freedom, but from “arboreal” I will say yes! Last I heard, he still has a LOT OF FEELINGS about not being voted for graduation speaker.
I am sure Franzen has a LOT TO SAY to the youth of America.
oh hey, friends, heeeyy (i heard a lot of franzen-stories from professors. it seems the alma mater is equally ambivalent about him).
A+, high-quality ethering, will share, would read again.
That piece has only solidified my resolve to never read any Franzen.
Aww, it makes me unreasonably happy that Randall Munroe donates to the Toast. Very good plain word description of Relativity, too! (With a nice shout-out to Emmy Noether, whoop!)
Perhaps you are thinking of that Sylvia Plath biopic where Daniel Craig is Ted Hughes? I believe there is much sexy-accent-reading-poetry in there, at least enough to make up for Ice House.
No, this is from the book, when his horrid, cheating wife asks if he’s met someone else, and he says “she’s my red, red rose” and she knows it’s serious bc he reads Burns all the time and she never pays attention.
… How did I not know that there’s a Sylvia Plath biopic?
Because it has Gwynnie in it, back before she became Your Slightly Uncanny Girlfriend.
You guys! Saw “Hamilton” yesterday, and as promised, the show is amazing. Music, lyrics, sets, lighting — all incredible. But I am feeling like a bit of an ungrateful wretch, and would you like to know why? Well, I’m going to tell you anyway. We knew that Javier Munoz plays Hamilton at Sunday matinees, and I was actually excited for that because he’s a trained musical theater performer, which Lin-Manuel Miranda is not, and I’ve listened to Miranda on the cast recording **ahem** times and was curious to experience a different take. Here’s the “but” … Burr and Eliza were both played by understudies. They were of course amazing — you don’t get cast in any Broadway show, much less this one, without being at the absolute top of your profession. But it was a bit of a bummer, and that is my confession for the day, and thank you for hearing it.
How was Javier Munoz as Hamilton??? I’m so curious about that given their different backgrounds.
Very, very good. He’s conservatory trained, so he’s a fantastic dancer and his voice (even though he was under the weather, as mentioned below) is amazing. At the risk of sounding like Professor Trelawney, his energy is significantly different from Miranda’s — more reserved and somewhat more formal, which makes it all the more fun when he’s goofing around with his buddies — but he still has a majorly sexy spark with everyone he’s really connecting with: Eliza, Angelica, and especially Laurens. He also has a transcendent smile.
whispers *I’ve seen both and Munoz is better*
I would like to have a Sam Adams or three with you and the Marquis.
I am sorry! Burr AND Eliza AND Hamilton would be a bit of a blow to lose in one swoop.
Hmm. Interesting. I have a friend who is willing to join me for a trip up to NY to see it. It would be easiest to go on a weekend, and if we want to do it before May, that means Sunday matinee. I’m debating whether it is worth waiting or going during the week to have the full cast.
If you can get tickets, go! It is seriously a once-in-a-lifetime experience, and there’s so much more to it than you’d ever be able to pick up virtually, even if you’ve been bingeing on the cast recording and every video snippet you can find (who, me?). He doesn’t get a ton of attention, but Okieriete Onaodowan was one of our favorites — Hercules Mulligan and James Madison are SUCH different characters, and he’s entrancing as both of them.
I LOVE Okierete Onaodowan (which my phone knows how to spell because of my gushing over him!) — not only does he do two very different characters really well, he is always game for doing ridiculously silly things at the Ham4Ham shows!
Apart from Miranda at Sunday matinees, the leads aren’t routinely replaced by understudies on weekends–they must have just had a couple different conflicts or illnesses at the same time.
That does suck. One understudy is kind of a chance you take. But three in the same performance? Hmph.
Javier Munoz is technically an alternate, not an understudy, so we knew what we were in for when we got Sunday matinee tickets (though he had been tweeting about having the flu, which is a whole other issue … ). And as I said, the others (Sydney James Harcourt and Alysha Deslorieux, for the completists) were wonderful. But yes, “Hmph” captures the situation perfectly.
Thanks, you guys — I feel better after getting this off my chest and will now return to playing the cast recording on a loop and trying to picture every single gesture and dance step that goes along with it.
When they eventually take over the roles on Broadway or touring and we’re gushing over the new talents you’ll get to be the Hamilton hipster who saw them first!
That is SUCH a nice way to look at it!!
Okay, so I read the Toast first thing when I wake up, as a way to wake myself up especially when it’s pitch-black-shouldn’t-you-still-be-sleeping outside. This means that I normally don’t click through to the sad stories or clearly difficult stories because 6:30am is not the time for me to be sad. But I clicked through to Heather Seggel’s piece about being homeless, and it is so perfect and touching, and I am sitting in my cramped Seattle studio (about which I frequently complain) and am overwhelmed with gratitude for stability and warmth and space. Go read it, Toasties, and then go out and figure out how to change the world HUZZAH.
Something you can do immediately to help with homelessness (at least in DC): Casa Ruby, DC’s only LGBT-friendly homeless shelter, needs money for beds: https://actionnetwork.org/fundraising/help-casa-r…
Right now they only have beds for 12 people. The waiting list has FIFTY FOUR PEOPLE on it: http://dcist.com/2015/11/casa_ruby_seeks_support_…
Yeah, Toast, I’m counting on y’all! Seriously, though, thanks for this. Huzzah back at you!
The Snuffleupagus article reminds me of growing up with Calvin & Hobbes, and how every read-through got a little different as I got older. It was so unfair that the aliens always left right before Calvin’s mom or dad showed up!
I taught a volume of Calving & Hobbes one semester, and my students got in a pretty fierce argument about whether Hobbes was imaginary. On the one hand, C’s parents (and Suzy) see Hobbes as a stuffed animal, not as a creature as big as C himself. On the other, Hobbes can pounce on C and rough him up– can an imaginary friend do that?
it was everything I’ve ever wanted from a composition class.
THANK YOU, Toasties, for directing me to Mr. Robot last week. I told my boyfriend we should watch it “just cos!” and then giggled and blushed and tried to keep it discreet by hiding my face in my sweater which apparently just made it more obvious how smitten I was am with Rami!? He started the show very skeptically (the continued giggling and blushing whenever Rami’s face showed up did not help) but now he too is a convert.
TL;DR: I LOVE MY NEW BOYFRIEND RAMI MALEK
Thank you so much for sharing Seggel’s piece on her experiences and struggles with HUD, homelessness, and housing vouchers. To be honest, her piece and other, similar stories makes me wish we could tear down the current system of housing production and move to an entirely new, different system where we could actually have enough stable, safe, and affordable housing for everyone.
Also I wish many people weren’t such assholes about the idea of having neighbors with housing vouchers and assume criminality, dirtiness, lowered property values, etc., which is part of what makes it so hard to have enough places for people to live in these programs. And I wish most developers felt like they could build something other than “luxury” units, although my limited experience in that arena suggests to me that they are highly reluctant to do anything new.
I know, we are all trying to look out for ourselves, but in the current system where so much is tied to our own property values, which are in turn tied to a lot of cultural values and perceptions that reproduce systemic inequality. Not to mention that there are sometimes legit concerns with housing voucher landlords, but this particular thing is not my professional focus so I will just end my emerging rant here.
P.S. I was thinking more about Nicole’s comment about “government doesn’t do housing well” which is so true, but my initial reaction (and maybe it’s bc I’m defensive of people who work in positions to develop and carry out these programs, even though we all have our blinders) is it’s because we are a nation of people who are terrible at treating people well.
Many people push back at the idea of having landlords who accept vouchers in their neighborhood, or having mixed-income developments in their neighborhood, for many reasons that usually read as thinly disguised shields of “we’re uncomfortable around poorer people.” Many developers don’t want to build because they are afraid they can’t recoup their investments. And many of these people elect officials who create legislation or put in place to make it that much harder for gov’t staff to have more equitable programs. Blech.
Hi, I’m the Heather who wrote that piece, and you are painfully correct about people’s resistance to poor neighbors. Which has a degree of irony about it, since “we don’t want to live in a neighborhood where they take those vouchers” leads to most of downtown not taking the voucher, which in turn means repairs not being made because nobody’s monitoring what goes on, which in turn means the neighborhood turns to shit. It’s like If You Give A Mouse A Cookie, only even scarier than Mallory’s reboot.
Thank you again for writing it, and I really hope you find a good place.
“Thank you again for writing it, and I really hope you find a good place.”
My thoughts as well (and also, I really love your writer’s voice, you are so, so good! Always look forward to a Heathered Toast piece).
<3. Thank you! Your persistent kindness has made me less afraid of ponies.
Governments can do housing well if they want to. Here, they spent the middle part of the 20th century building an absolute crapload of well-planned, rent-controlled apartments. It worked really well.
The last 30 years they’ve built pretty much nothing, because they removed the tax incentive to build rentals. Some time in the late 90’s (I think) someone got the bright idea that people should be able to buy their rental apartments, thereby removing the apartment from the apartment pool forever while personally profiting from everyone’s tax money. And rent control is for suckers so I think that barely exists anymore? The result is that we’ve actually built a negative number of apartments in the capital in the last decade… which correlated with a population boom and the recession! And that is why I have lived in a billion weird places including a room with a window that wouldn’t shut in winter (the snowy kind of winter) and an actual closet. The waiting list to get an apartment in the capital is now eight years, and it used to be that you could move to the less nice parts of town just by phoning the local housing authorities. The last bright idea was to remove the cap on how much blood you can suck from people you rent a room to, because the geniuses in charge just knew that there must be a whole bunch of unused living spaces somewhere – after all, we never used to have a housing shortage!
So, in short, the government can do housing well, provided that it actually tries to act like a government. If the government tries to be a free market, it will succeed at neither. /social democrat opinions
Vancouver, BC. Nuff said! As much as I miss living there (grew up in the Van burb of Coquitlam) there’s no way we would EVER be able to afford what we have now in the West Kootenays: a small, 1950’s bungalow on a double lot that cost 110,00.00 around 1999-2000.
(Is this a humble brag? If so, I’m totally mortified…)
Where is “here”? I’m deeply curious–as you might guess, my background is more focused on US housing policy. What you’ve described is a goddamn shame.
Also, one of the things to ponder is whether or not the US might have taken these kind of steps if it wasn’t for the lifelong stain of racism that seeped through all of our policies* (and definitely in 20th century housing policy) that probably prevented the US gov’t from embracing a more comprehensive public housing program, instead of building it and creating conditions that would make it the least desirable and having the most significant stigmas. (My US Public housing history is a bit hazy here but pre-WW2 housing was for a broader income range. And they were also rigidly segregated.)
*Well, I’d say racism + Cold War fears of any significant display of public investment.
There is so much new construction in DC, and so much of it is “luxury” housing, and we don’t NEED that. We need affordable housing – studios and one-bedrooms that a single person working at a non-profit can afford, single-family homes and multi-family units that families can afford.
But there’s not as much profit to be made in building simple, bare-bones but well-made apartment buildings that don’t have fancy competitive amenities (that will be run down and sad in 5-10 years), or at least that’s what developers seem to think.
This is the same thing going on in Seattle. I had to move to the suburbs because I cannot afford to live in the city. Even around the university, they’re building nothing but luxury apartments, so that only students with families footing the bill can live there.
Baltimore has a lot of similar construction going on, which is both simultaneously laughable and infuriating.
DC does have “affordable” housing units built, but because it’s based off being affordable (which I think is defined as no more than 25% of a tenants’ income) to a specific percentage (I believe it’s 60%) of Area Median Income, it tends to remain incredibly unaffordable and out of reach for a big percentage of people.* I remember reading a few years ago about a development in DC where it was like, $1200 for a subsidized studio unit? It’s absolutely maddening.
The kicker to me is this–does it make sense economically for all of the developers to being chasing a relatively small group of consumers? (Maybe DC can sustain this growth of luxury units and the middle and working poor can move out an hour outside of the city.. but Baltimore certainly can’t, and I bet most of the US can’t.) Wouldn’t it make more sense for someone to build a large number of units on scale and sell them to a broader market? And I don’t really have any confidence that developers have actually compared the two because from my experience, they all tend to go off of what has worked for them (or their competitors) in recent memory. But YMMV, I am not a real estate developer, etc.
*sorry for the unprecise nature of this, it’s been awhile since I’ve been super immersed
same here, I see this kind of housing popping up all over Chicago (or worse, the monstrous SFH replacing the 3 or 4 unit building on a lot), and I’m frustrated knowing that I *should* be able to confirm or disconfirm my immediate “who is all of this even FOR? How can this be sustainable??” reaction.
anyway, yeah, the government might be lousy at doing housing but so is the market.
Yep. When I worked for the gov’t I made little enough to qualify for a tax-credit rate on my studio in SW DC, and even then I was paying about 50% of my income in rent (I also made too much to qualify for low-income health insurance but didn’t have insurance through my job because I was a “seasonal” employee).
I know these things go in cycles, and eventually all the people who want luxury apartments downtown will want single-family homes in the suburbs, which will drive up the price of housing in the suburbs and drive down the price of housing in the city center, but that’s not ideal either.
The median income in DC is $109,200, per the DC Housing website, but I can’t find a good definition of what counts as “affordable” for DC.
Same thing is happening in Chicago. Pretty much every new development sign I see has the word “luxury” on it, which causes me to promptly break out in hives. WE DON’T NEED ANY MORE LUXURY APARTMENTS.
Where I am it’s almost impossible for people on unemployment allowance to rent accomodation. Landlords explicitly refuse to lease to them, and will specify on ads that they will not be accepted. There is an allowance within benefits for rent, but it is fixed by the government, while the rental market shoots up at the whim of speculative landlords and property developers. The system tries to be both public and private and doesn’t quite manage to get either fully right. Homelessness is at epidemic levels in my city as a direct result. 🙁
Gosh I find religious writing so hard to follow! That Hazlitt piece had me scratching my head. Not to imply that it was the piece itself – she’s a fluent writer – it’s just the concepts are not within my grasp. I have an appreciation for transcendence and a kind of numinosity, especially as experienced through art or literature or the beauty of nature, but interpreting that experience as a specific deity with specific intentions for the world in general or me in particular is not something my brain can do.
It’s interesting to read about though – same reason I enjoy the Convert series, even though on the surface there’s nothing there that’s relatable to me at all.
The article about women in IS looks very good but I know I can’t read it. I only have the emotional capacity to stay basically informed about events in that part of the world. I hope these women manage to make the horrible situation work for them, somehow.
The Organization had made her a widow and wanted to do so again and again, turning her into a perpetual temporary distraction for suicidal fighters. There was no choice left, no dignity, just the service demanded by the Islamic State’s need to feed men to its front lines.
I was confused earlier in the article when they mentioned the women were all required to take birth control, because I tend to assume that the purpose of arranged marriages is to have children. I hadn’t connected it with the religious ban on sex outside of marriage.
It’s probably a cliche to bring up the Handmaid’s Tale in this situation, but the way those women’s lives went from relatively secular and free to essentially religious slavery is so like that book. It’s mind-boggling.
I went “the Handmaid’s Tale is real.”
Same.
I think Nicole’s comment that Hollywood casting is about the industry and not the individuals makes a lot of sense, and there’s a part of me that’s trying to figure out what’s going on with both this piece and Aziz Ansari’s story of meeting Fisher Stevens (the white man who played an Indian character in Short Circuit 2).
Because, yes, many actors prepare that much. They go to India and work with coaches and interview people and try to understand the character they are playing. It feels strange to read “did you know these actors do research?” in a discussion of actors playing roles that are not part of their experience.
Edit for clarification: obvs it would be a stronger choice to give these roles to actors from that experience, especially if those actors do not usually have roles available to them. My question is more “…do people think that actors don’t research their parts with this level of intensity???”
It seemed like for Aziz Ansari, it was valuable to know that the role had been approached with that level of respect, that when he watched Short Circuit as a kid he hadn’t been watching someone who thought of the performance as a caricature. I don’t know much about how deeply actors research their roles–most of what I have heard about this is anecdata about Method actors being intense–but Fisher Stevens was playing a comic, supporting character in a family movie, so it doesn’t seem obvious to me that in addition to his dialect coaching he would travel and read a lot of books and take up yoga for the part.
I don’t know whether it’s a question of not knowing, more than that a lot of times, these stories about actors preparing for their roles are seen as funny, or over-the-top. I’m thinking of the (possibly untrue) story about Sophie’s Choice, where Meryl Streep not only learned a Polish accent, but also German and the exact dialect (accent?) of Polish people in Sophie’s part of Poland would have spoken/how that would translate to pronunciations of English words. To me, that’s really interesting, but I feel like often, that story and stories like it are told more in the vein of ‘lol method actors’.
Also, there’s the idea that actors are being paid essentially to pretend to be other people, and whether they do it well or do it badly, they still get buckets of money at the end, so there’s, I don’t know, no point in immersing yourself unduly?
All I’m saying is: Daniel Craig in Tomb Raider. He and Angelina do sexy-angry-flirty-fighting, there’s magic, there’s butlers, there’s sled dogs. It’s easily one of the best movies ever made about all of those things.
THANK YOU, why don’t more people love this movie? Like blah blah boobs something video games something, but also it has been my dream since I was 11 (or whenever tomb raider came out) to live in a giant mansion where I exercise on sky ropes and sexfight with Daniel Craig on the reg. But also TR-era Craig, not Bond Craig, because I prefer more playfulness in my angsty brutality.
My contribution to today’s Link Roundup is this astonishing Etruscan statuette of a dancing satyr.
Truly we have much to learn from the ancient world. Can you believe this masterpiece is not on view??
DAT ASS
That pointed toe. Their ballet instructor would be so pleased.
That looks exactly like a character from Kate Beaton
Who are your favorite female novelists to serve as antidotes to Franzen and the like? Roxane Gay (I think??) suggested Meg Wolitzer but I haven’t enjoyed any of her work that I’ve tried.
I super highly recommend anything by Liane Moriarty (or her sister Jaclyn, if you prefer YA to adult fiction). I also adored Where’d You Go Bernadette by Maria Semple.
Oh, Jaclyn Moriarty is so great.
Lauren Groff!
Kate Atkinson, Nicola Griffith & Marilynne Robinson.
Lauren Groff
Edwige Danticat and Ruth Ozeki!
I’ve found myself whispering Edwidge Danticat under my breath all day today.
Chimamanda Adichie! Americanah is sooooo flipping good.
Angela Flournoy
Helen DeWitt
I love Jaclyn Moriarty’s books so much.
most of my favorite contemporary people have been mentioned, so: mary mccarthy
The Theological Scars piece was quite interesting, and I thought extremely well done. I have many thoughts that I could record here, but I’ll record only one: if you go to divinity school, you will have your beliefs picked apart, and you will have to decide if and how you will put them back together. You will also have to decide if you will get new ones and/or leave behind old ones. You will not come out the other side the same way you were.
That’s why I’m terrified of divinity school. I’d really like to go someday, but I would concentrate on an area – feminist intersectionality with a system that has evolved patriarchially – that I know for a fact will shake my faith. I have questioned my faith over and over, and others have questioned it with and for me, and I know my relationship with God is long-term okay, but confronting it so systematically (and probably antagonistically) is a frightening concept.
I tried to reply to this earlier but hit the wrong button on my phone and my whole response deleted. Blergh.
The good news is, there are a lot of feminist/womanist theologians who keep the faith and do the questioning work. The bad news is, every person is going to have faith questions triggered by different things.
Critical exploration has never made me question my faith the way that the actions of people around me have. The times I have nearly left the church or school (and I’m too close to graduation now to consider leaving school for any reason other than end stage disease diagnosis or death) have been because people behave in such awful ways while professing to follow Jesus. It’s not just the big ticket shit, it’s the small, petty uglinesses, the way that the things they say cut vulnerable people to death in 1,000 tiny ways. For whatever reason, that is what gets to me.
I sincerely hope that you can find a way to study while maintaining your faith. If you survive, you’ll come out much richer than you’d possibly imagine.
Hello, Toasties! I’ve been deeply confused that my last couple of Amazon “We think you’d like these books” e-mails have recommended Ayn Rand to me, despite not purchasing or browsing any of Rand’s work from Amazon (or, frankly, any other bookseller or library). And then I realized: this has only happened since I turned off Ad Block and Ghostery for The Toast. To which I have to say:
She’s constantly confusing, confounding the data analysts
Everyone give it up for America’s favorite writing mischievist
MALLORY
LOL, brilliant!
Like many of the other commenters already, I am so happy to hear that Randall Munroe is a Friend of the Toast. He always seems so nice, and this just reinforces that. <3
This is a pity party for one but I have to vent somewhere.
Mystery kidney infection is still acting like one but testing negative. I have been running fevers since oct 30. I get no sleep, everything hurts, and nobody can tell me why. My kids come home on Wed, which is when I have a follow up appt. with a 3rd doctor which is very likely to turn into a “go the ER, ultrasound, blood test, day before a major holiday” nightmare. And im afraid I’ll end up bankrupt (at the least my parents and I will be paying a long time) and im just done. This has ruined an entire month, will wreck my holiday, and I still have to work, parent, and function and this sucks.
Lack of sleep may be making me melodramatic. But I want to cry.
:/ Sorry.
Being mysteriously sick in stressful circumstances is top of the list of Reasons to Be Melodramatic and Cry. Crying is the natural response to feeling overwhelmed and not in control. And it’s a plea for help. Go ahead and cry–maybe it will get you some help–get through this, and cope with the repercussions later, when you’re not ill.
Sending you virtual unsweetened cranberry juice and raw garlic with a yogurt chaser, and sincere hopes that you feel better soon.
Busy today, but just hopping on to say if you want to spend some of your Monday looking at Lin-Manuel Miranda, you would be doing yourself a favor to go here.
😀 😀 😀
Ten hour day not so bad now because I finished this before bedtime. I had to learn a lot of new app stuff but it was SO FUN.
me = certifiable lintrash
This was my first feeling when listening Enya for the first time, too:
“When the intro to “Echoes in Rain” plays, the exec sitting in front of me goes nuts, in a subdued, candlelit way. “This is the shit!” he whisper-shouts.”
You know it, anymonous music executive. You fucking know it.
I have loved Enya since I was a small child and finding out that so many other people love her as well has been such a joyous revelation.
I love that Enya article; it has great lines such as “the aural approximation of a warm bath” and “She looks like a mix of Deanna Troi and my mom, which is to say, she is the most beautiful woman in the world.”
my job has been totally bananas lately and i fucking miss you guyz. i am now trying to steal some time to read this link round up *hides from work*
Enya not only has a castle but named it MANDERLEY. The world is amazing.
We will start to read Wonkette only for Pinkham’s column. I am riding a realizion that that even the northern Louisiana voters freaking hated everything with David Vitter ran with. I am running on a high here though I am well aware our new Governor is still a conservative. He does still promise to open to quarter a million people in LA to have Medicare. Unlike our our last. Can we call it a start
I listened to so much Adele yesterday that I invented a new Adele song in my sleep. (I’ve forgotten it by now though.)
My mom has only just discovered Adele. We listened to “hello” three times in the car on Saturday!
I listened to so much Adele yesterday that I invented a new Adele song in my sleep. (I've forgotten it by now though.)
this is a stellar link roundup. I haven’t even finished reading everything yet! it’s been A Day.
however: that interview with enya is killing me in all the best ways. when I was a wee inkwash, all through junior high and high school, I would listen to her on my little stereo and just dream and draw and dream.
tonight I am cooking dinner while listening to enya pandora and it is winning. she is amazing.
My mom has only just discovered Adele. We listened to "hello" three times in the car on Saturday!
Thanks for sharing, hope that it can be a goodness for us all. be a modest muslimah , Keep istiqomah. ^^