Belated Reading List - There Are Two Types Of People: Those Who Jam To The Tiny Desk Concert, And Monsters.
Friends, for some reason TinyLetter didn't want to send this through on Friday. So lest you think I forgot you this past weekend, here's a start on your reading list!
Darlings! You’ve made it to August, you’ve made it to Friday, and you’ve made it to the Missive Reading List, which is undoubtedly as important as the former two. So, this may not be long enough to tuck into a blanket and dive into, but when TechCrunch writes an article about a font made from images of heavily-gerrymandered districts in the United States, I can’t NOT share it with you (20-year-old Amy just lost her damned mind over the combination of politics AND font nerdery, and probably just stood up and harassed her coworkers at Princeton’s New Media Center about it. Jon, this is for you.)
TO THE LONGREADS + one watch!
Lizzo, Tiny Desk Concert (NPR) - JUST WATCH THIS ALREADY IF YOU HAVEN’T. It’s 17 minutes of pure talent and sass and goodness and joy and love oh my GOD Lizzo is so damned amazing.
Molly Fischer, Maybe It’s Lyme (The Cut) - I tried to sum this story up with a clever anecdote or at least find a way to succinctly describe it, but it’s so hard to capture: there’s internet culture, doctor-patient relationships, distrust of the establishment, pathogen history, illness-as-an-identity, celebrity activism, sickness metaphors, and upper-class caretaker shopping. It’s fascinating.
Will E. Young, Inside Liberty University’s ‘culture of fear’ (Washington Post) - The former editor in chief of Liberty University’s student paper quit after being forced to apologize to the campus police department after attempting to acquire their crime logs. So he went to the Washington Post to describe just how actively university president Jerry Falwell Jr. impacted student paper coverage. Quite the read.
Boone Ashworth, The Terrible Anxiety Of Location Sharing Apps (WIRED) - When I finally figured out what was going on with my kidney stone, and waited until it was a time zone appropriate-moment to call my parents and tell them that I’d been in the ER while on vacation in London, my Mum informed me that she’d known I was there, but had assumed Find Friends was inaccurate. You see, I share my location with my Mum and Dad - I’m thousands of miles away, and it helps us feel connected, even if it’s just knowing when someone is at home or at work. Well, my Mum had checked the app that night and it said I was in a certain London hospital. But, as she later informed me, since my hotel was so close to that hospital, she’d assumed the blinking dot was incorrect. Luckily, all was well, but reading about Ashworth’s own anxiety reminds me that we’re in a weird time where we have unprecedented access to each other’s locations (I mean heck, I’ve been using Foursquare/Swarm for a decade now!) - how has that impacted how we relate to each other in space? Thank you for coming to my freshman seminar presentation.
Sean O’Hagan, Máté Bartha’s Kontakt – Hungary’s military summer youth camps (The Guardian) - A photographer spent 18 months observing summer camps in Hungary where young people learn to survive in the woods, have pride in their country, as well as shoot-to-kill. You can view the images here, but I think O’Hagen’s interview with Bartha as to why he chose this project is enlightening: while the camps have been around for decades, their purpose and message have taken on new and international significance after the election of rightwing populist prime minister Viktor Orbán.
You’re lovely. Slide into a mindful and nurturing weekend, and be kind to yourself, ok?
Xoxo Amy