“Do I no longer need to structure the chaos, for love not only structures it, but gives meaning to everything?”

Newly broken into sub-categories for your browsing convenience:

TOP THREE OF THE MONTH:

“A Republic of Front Porches” by Patrick Deenen. This is an old essay of his, but I think of it constantly: how public spaces, and their design, affect our daily lives and therefore our politics; how social capital is built and its importance in facilitating productive democratic communities.
“But the web is not just some kind of magic all-absorbing meta-medium. It’s its own thing. And like other media it has a question that it answers better than any other. That question is: Why wasn’t I consulted?” “The Web Is a Customer Service Medium” by Paul Ford
“Do I no longer need to structure the chaos, for love not only structures it, but gives meaning to everything? …You didn’t make a choice to go in that direction. Life—nature—pulled your strings. That is why you have no regrets about those years. And where did it land you? In a more interesting place. It resulted in a more interesting time.” “That Longing for a Holy Completeness” by Sheila Heti

LITERATURE & TV

“The writer sits at a desk (or somewhere) and expends many, many quiet, solitary hours of her finite life in exchange for the opportunity to build more lives, imaginary ones, cantilevering them off her own and out into the ether. The reader trades hours, too—for access to those lives and the irregular chronologies on which they are stretched like flesh over a skeleton.” ‘What Plot Is Grander or More Essential Than Time Passing?’ by Maggie Shipstead
“Scott McCloud on the Secret of Humor” by Joe Fassler
“But once Díaz was labeled a genius, his work was presumptively taken to be flawless and free of sin, which turned legitimate critiques into heresies and, ultimately, may have prevented Díaz from developing as a writer and a human being…What we need is an end to the myth of genius itself.” “Junot Díaz and the Myth of Male Genius” by Lyta Gold
An ICON, a force to be reckoned with: “Amy Tan: a life that’s stranger than fiction” by Jane Mulkerrins
A joy, a treasure: “Hot diggity dog! A forkin’ awesome conversation with the cast of ‘The Good Place'” by Glenn Whipp
“Post-Shawarma: On Avengers: Infinity War” by Aaron Bady, or, “What we want is not a particular, arbitrary thing, in other words; what we want is to want, in general.”
My love, my life: “How a Terrible Night in New Jersey Made John Mulaney the Comedian He Is Today” by Jesse David Fox
peak TV, peak TV, peak TV: what does it mean for you, a person who wants to *make* TV? “The Business of Too Much TV” by Josef Adalian and Maria Elena Fernandez
A pair of cats discuss adverbs, friendship, and puns with Meg Wolitzer. Really. “Shit My Cats Read: An Interview with Meg Wolitzer” by Scott Indrisek
“Twenty-One Love Poems [Poem III]” by Adrienne Rich

GENTRIFICATION & URBANISM & ENVIRONMENT

HOW TO BE A LESS SHITTY GENTRIFIER: A Toolkit for People Hell Bent on Being New Renters in the SF Bay Area (but it applies to all major cities too)
“Let’s be clear—gentrification is about displacement. But it is also a fight over dignity and identity…Once a place is ravaged, how can you keep what you love?” “Who Gets to Be “Brooklyn Born”?” by Naima Coster
“In the most dramatic account of concerto crime-fighting, the Columbus, Ohio, YMCA reportedly dissolved a sidewalk brawl between two drug dealers simply by flipping on Vivaldi’s Four Seasons.” “Bach at the Burger King” by Theodore Gioia
“The problem here is trying to treat people like interchangeable widgets,” he says. “They’re not. They’re human beings embedded in communities. We’re forcing cultural and social change on people, and people don’t like that. They don’t move three states away for a hypothetical job. They want to live where they are because their parents are in the same town, and their grandmother is in the next town, and they go to church there.” “Why Do Americans Stay When Their Town Has No Future?” by Alec MacGillis
“The meat, the coffee, the produce, the seafood, the booze, even the falafel: the market’s updated stalls tend to offer exactly the product their predecessors sold, only bougier, the replacement aimed at a clientele more concerned with aesthetics than efficiency. And if you happen to be one of those former tenants, an immigrant shopkeep ousted in the makeover, the feeling runs even deeper.” “Inside the Gentrification of Grand Central Market” by Jesse Katz
Here’s an interactive look at the woes of the New York subway: (Choice quote: “Protecting workers is an important part of the M.T.A.’s mission, but the tracks are still dangerous after these new rules. In the last five years, three more workers have died on the tracks, and near misses are not uncommon. The London Underground, a system of similar size and age, has had no track worker fatalities since 1998.”) “How 2 M.T.A. Decisions Pushed the Subway Into Crisis” by Adam Pearce
…and here’s a historic look — “Robert Moses and the decline of the NYC subway system” by Emily Nonko — because, of course, “[Moses] was hostile to mass transit and hostile to poor New Yorkers.”
Producing no seeds, nectar, or fruit, few creatures can use can use lawns as habitat. Biodiversity-wise “it’s almost like concrete,” because ““Lawns Are an Ecological Disaster” by Ian Graber-Stiehl.
“H&M’s “sustainability” report hides the unsustainable reality of fast fashion” by Marc Bain

RACE / LGBTQ

“With their kneeling, these biblical figures say: Something is desperately wrong, please hear us and use your power to help us. Their act of submission signals their faith that healing will come and their prayers will be answered.” “All Colin Kaepernick Ever Did Was Ask” by Elizabeth Bruenig
“How did the presence of a black man in the presidency make any difference when unarmed black men were being shot across the country at a higher rate than anyone else?” “The Collapse of Racial Liberalism” by Nils Gilman
“All of these [other, older “queer”] films search in-between the lines of the historical record, for the people that history forgot. Even today, they ask: Who keeps the historical record?…Hollywood liberalism and the marketplace have converged to create an environment where being “the first” is confused with innovation, when actually, it’s just evidence that gay people can be commercially viable, too.” “What’s Happening to ‘Queer’ Cinema in the LGBT Film Boom?” by E. Alex Jung
“‘Segregation’s Constant Gardeners’: How White Women Kept Jim Crow Alive” by Rebecca Stoner
Ida B. Wells: anti-lynching activist and so much more: “Why I’m Raising Money To Build An Ida B. Wells Monument” by Mariame Kaba
“Posting Your Hike on Instagram? Now You Can Tag Your Location’s Indigenous Name” by Isabelle Morrison
“Canon Fodder” by Viet Thanh Nguyen, or, “Books by immigrants, foreigners and minorities don’t diminish the ‘classic’ curriculum. They enhance it.”

MUSIC

“Love Itself: Leonard Cohen’s Holy Touch” by Ann Powers
“The tailgating soundtrack was having its day, while hard times, relational strife and emoting in general receded from country radio playlists. But in the midst of that beat-driven bluster, noteworthy new arrivals on the margins of the mainstream forecasted shifts in momentum.” “How The Sound Of Country Music Changed” by Jewly Hight
“Rihanna on Body Image, Turning 30, and Staying Real—No Matter What” by Chioma Nnadi
“This Is America” openly appeals to an America that loves to be told about itself—I am overjoyed, truly, for every white person on Twitter who “gets it.” They ought to: the video is tilted toward a liberal pop-culture intelligentsia so in love with getting spanked by black truth-tellers that even an artist such as Glover—who as recently as that New Yorker profile reminded us that he prefers to be excluded from the expectations of “woke” art—is answering the call to put us all in our place.” “Donald Glover’s “This Is America” Is a Stylish, Ambitious Provocation—But What Is It Actually Selling?” by K. Austin Collins
“15 Years After ‘Titanic,’ Does The Power Ballad Go On?” by Ann Powers
“Doctors explain Michael Jackson’s impossible dance move”

POLITICS

“Feminism isn’t about blind support for any woman who rises to power. The real political duplicity here is Republicans’ continued efforts to co-opt feminist language while actively curtailing women’s rights.” “The Myth of Conservative Feminism” by Jessica Valenti
Michael Tubbs is extremely impressive, extremely young, and extremely inspiring. “Stockton’s young mayor has bold turnaround plan: Basic income and stipends for potential shooters” by Steve Lopez
“The entire movie can be read as a parable of postwar consumerism, with Dior as the fairy godmother. The Axis Powers of wicked stepmother and ugly stepsisters are vanquished and humiliated. Underemployed farm animals benefit from a sudden job boom, and victory garden pumpkins become slick new rides. What better metaphor for this fragile peace and prosperity than a glass slipper?” “Cinderella: The Ultimate (Postwar) Makeover Story” by Kimberly Chrisman-Campbell
“Today, Traverso observes, we live in an era that suffers from this “eclipse of utopias.” In the twenty-first century, here and there, the left still finds itself burdened with a sadness it cannot dispel…Is it possible that action and irony, conviction and doubt, might somehow coexist in a single soul?” “Mourning in America” by Peter E. Gordon
“Save Barnes and Noble!” — for the sake of saving our country from giant corporate monopolies — by David Leonhardt
On being uninvited from events as soon as Bill Clinton RSVPs yes: “What seemed like a social gaffe actually said a lot about our attitudes toward power—and who deserves it.” “What We All Can Learn from My Disinvitation Debacle” by Monica Lewinsky
“Mr. Farley described the Mustang as a “mind-set” vehicle. “Mustang means freedom. It means taking a road trip in a convertible down the West Coast. That’s what people all over the world imagine America to be. Why would we ever give that up?”” “‘Mustang Means Freedom’: Why Ford Is Saving an American Icon” by James B. Stewart
“The childless Nietzsche is often painfully astute in critiquing the parenting of others,” indeed. “Nietzsche Wishes You an Ambivalent Mother’s Day” by John Kaag and Skye C. Cleary