Cruel compendium #4 ✊🏾
Everything I'm reading, listening to, and thinking about this week
ICYMI: In Tuesday’s post, I reflected on the #BlackLivesMatter protests in NYC and my own failures. I outline what I’m doing to be anti-racist now and in the future, and what you can do to be anti-racist today, too.
Friends, would you like to receive snail mail from yours truly? I want to connect with you and send some love out into the world. Reply to this email in your inbox, or email me at cruelsummerbookclub@substack.com and share your address, and a bit about what you’re struggling with right now. Or go off and send me your whole damn sob story. I’m here for you. The last time I offered this up, I sent mail to 14 people in several countries and states! (If you were one of those who sent me your address and for some reason did not receive anything from me, PLEASE let me know! Everyone who gave me their address should have received their cards.)
I’m reading
Whose grief? Our grief. by Saeed Jones
The grief that white Americans can’t share by Nikole Hannah-Jones
Why should single women “settle down?” by Shani Silver
The remaking of Steve Buscemi by Gabriella Paiella. Buscemi on grieving his wife, and how to correctly pronounce his last name.
Speaking to my Jamaican grandma about her depression taught me how to be a mental health advocate by Dana Fletcher
I’m listening to:
Vampire Weekend’s Father of the Bride was a surprise grief album for me over the last year. I enjoyed listening to this episode of the Broken Record podcast, in which Rick Rubin and Malcom Gladwell sit down with Ezra Koenig and Ariel Rechtshaid to dissect how the album was made. (I also liked this ep with Bon Iver.) This podcast is all about the intricacies and many failures of a successful creative process, plus Rick Rubin has an amazing voice.
Ann Friedman interviews Mariame Kabe about police abolition on the Call Your Girlfriend podcast. I learned a lot!
The Justice in America podcast explains why the bail system is inherently racist, classist and unjust. Go ahead and listen to every episode of this pod.
Questionable self-care advice
Support I got that you might need to hear
I enthusiastically endorse
The Foreign Bodies newsletter, which explores mental health within immigrant and refugee experiences. You will find a lot here you won’t see anywhere else, and it’s expansive. Monthly issues are free, full experience is $33/year.
Donating to: The Black Journalists’ Therapy Relief fund and the Homeless Black Trans Women Fund.
Exploring the data behind the New York Times bestseller list, which shows how overwhelmingly white the authors on the list are
This thread of useful tips for peeing in public, as someone who may or may not have peed her pants a few times in this city. (h/t Laura Olin’s newsletter which I also enthusiastically endorse.)
as someone with a tiny bladder and a love of wandering around, I have spent decades honing my “pee in public” techniques. a quick thread for protestors — and/or people who live in a pandemic where everything is closed — who do not have a penis:Would read a guide to peeing during protests
Kate Knibbs 🏄🏻♀️ @KnibbsThis thread of grief bops:
Minerva moment
Anthem of the week
The protest anthem of the internet, of course:
Go, go, go, go, go, go, go, WHO’S NEXT?
This cheered me up
Spending hours in Prospect Park in the week I’ve been home walking amongst the turtles and swans and chipmunks and frogs. Plus, I discovered a robin’s nest that’s on my walking path, so I can visit the chicks every day.
Mood
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