(July 24, 2017) 

hey, world, here’s another monthly roundup of articles and fun. we’ve got a little something for everyone like ice cream, addressing homophobia, America, independent bookstores, Grapes of Wrath, and football!

• first and foremost, i have to recommend reading at least the first few chapters of “17776”. it is an.. essay of sorts that imagines a future world where we all live forever and play football with strange rule permutations. the three main characters are deep-space probes. it has a lot to say about America and the human condition and football which, though baseball is my one true love, is America’s game and _is_ America. https://www.sbnation.com/a/17776-football/chapter-1
• “Liberals Have Turned Trump into a Gay Villain Because Our Worst Villains Must Be Gay” http://www.slate.com/…/jokes_about_trump_being_gay_draw_on_…
• “The Vulgar Art of Liberal Narcissism” — “It’s the Nietszchean distinction between contempt and hate. You can hate an equal or someone with power over you. So conservatives hate liberals (hence their paranoiac victim narrative), whereas liberals have contempt for conservatives, which means they’re arrogant. Arrogant people are lazy in general and inept when it comes to empathy. If you can’t empathize with people, you can’t understand them. And if you can’t understand their worldview, you can’t hope to either win them over or defeat them.”
  https://www.pastemagazine.com/…/lectureporn-the-vulgar-art-…
• here’s Ben Schwartz reading “Why I Quit My Job” http://www.wnyc.org/story/why-i-quit-my-job-travel-world/
  (read along here http://www.newyorker.com/…/why-i-quit-my-job-to-travel-the-… )
• an essay written by a bookseller who talks about the politics of selling/recommending/discussing books and the political role of bookstores — especially independent ones! http://www.themillions.com/2017/07/a-booksellers-elegy
• a discussion of the cultural significance and meaning of our overlord, avocado toast http://www.newyorker.com/…/a-grand-unified-theory-of-avocad…
• “How Eating Ice Cream became a Political Power Play” https://mic.com/…/how-eating-ice-cream-became-a-political-p…
• in a similar vein, tracing the history of American food: “Americans accept and embrace immigrant good long before they accept the immigrant themselves… we take the flavor but reject the person bringing it.” https://www.washingtonpost.com/…/the-frequently-violent-r…/… 
• and last, ending with some good, good fun: https://www.newyorker.com/…/excerpts-from-steinbecks-novel-…