Author: biancacockrell

• What Everyone Is Dying to Know: Books Bianca Read This Year

  As bad as I was at reading this year—because, well, *gestures at the world*—I was perhaps worse at keeping track of what I read. But here’s what I wrote down. Making these collages is a real treat at the end of the year; thanks for checking them out. Thinking of all of us in hopes for better…

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• “You’re awful lucky to be born into the world. Love should fit in as well.”

  Hi. I hope you’re okay. (Feel free to text or carrier pigeon me if not!) Below are all things that I found inspiring, immersive, or otherwise interesting that are not about Everything Going On. Admittedly, they are not all happy essays. But reading them may take your mind off of your current problems for a…

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• How many books, to pay back the world for my still existing, would I have to write?

  A glorious, gorgeous celebration of friendship and roller skates in a stunning layout and multimedia mix: “The Secret to Having the Best Summer Ever” by Jacob Moscovitch Me! I wrote a movie review for the first time in my life. I say things like, “Feelings are legitimate regardless of who sees” and “Victory does not allow…

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• Twaa’aa nehiino tehoovetmo – I count my blessings

  Quick note: I goofed and took an unintentional hiatus—therefore, this list is particularly lengthy. But the extra time has gleaned so many especially good pieces. Also, you have to read the latest NYT report about climate change. I don’t make the rules (but our planet, rapidly warming by our collective actions, does).  As delightful (in…

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• Love Is Not a Permanent State of Enthusiasm

    Preamble, Mike Wilkins (1987) We must, of course, begin with RIP 2018 (by Pete Reynolds). Consider the new stories we could tell if we decided that instead of fantasizing about killing our monsters, it would be worthwhile to imagine safe places for them in the fictional worlds they inhabit. Imagine seeing big summer movies where…

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• the future does not hit everyone at the same time.

  This is perhaps one of the most incredible stories I have ever read. It’s a love story, a prison reform and civil rights advocacy story, involving a middle-aged lawyer (one of the first women to graduate from Columbia Law) moving to Texas and meeting a brilliant inmate who, despite an eighth grade education, wrote a…

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• what we owe to each other

  How lucky are we that Danielle Allen is now a WaPo columnist: “We believe we live in a world that has left antiquity behind. This is because we believe that time moves forward in a steady upward march, an arc of history that bends toward justice. This view is a misapprehension. Human brutality lurks always just…

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• being a drunk, stoned, young, gorgeous ballerina living on Mars

  (Photo: Geoff Robins/AFP/Getty Images) TOP THREE OF AUGUST & SEPTEMBER I have sent this essay to everyone I know, and now you too. Because: “Give a man a makeover and you fix him for a day; teach a man that masculinity under late capitalism is a toxic pyramid scheme that is slowly killing him just…

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• “This is an interesting planet. It deserves all the attention you can give it.”

  TOP THREE OF JUNE & JULY: This is the best essay about sex I’ve ever read, and points to the myriad problems everyone, but women especially, grapple with when it comes to sex and partnership and identity and feminism in this country: “Sex Toys Will Never Be Able To Do The Hardest Work For You”…

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• “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…

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