Reading List: Raise Your Hand If You Rocked A Striped Rugby Shirt And Low-Rise Jeans In The Early Aughts.

Dearests! Lots to read this weekend, so let’s get into it. And BTW, friend of the Missive Colin would like to remind you all that “they are making new content solely based on (an Amy) algorithm” (this is from 2021, but also how have I not watched this series yet?): Good news: Discovery says its new show is like "Game Of Thrones with otters" (AV Club).

TO THE LONGREADS

Eve Ettinger, Have We Been Thinking About Burnout All Wrong? (Bustle) - If you read one piece today, let it be this one. Because I felt this breakdown of the true symptoms and impacts of “burnout” after two years of pandemic deep in my bones.

Nic Robertson, After over three decades of covering Russia, I leave in despair. One man has extinguished the bright hope many once felt (CNN) 

and

Mikhail Zygar, How Vladimir Putin Lost Interest in the Present (New York Times) - Note: I haven’t read either of the articles above yet, but in skimming the first graf of each, I plan to read them together.

Claudia Grisales, New clues emerge about the money that might have helped fund the Jan. 6 insurrection (NPR) - Quite glad the House select committee on January 6 is getting deep into the financing networks that are fueling far right organizing and agitprop. 

Paul Fahri, His reporting on the Kennedy assassination made him a legend. Then a press group looked into his past. (Washington Post) - Add this one to the pile of similar stories of the previously-undiscussed consequences of the actions of accomplished and heralded men.

Julie Miller, Elizabeth Holmes and Sunny Balwani’s Secret Romance: What We Know (Vanity Fair) - Have YOU started watching The Dropout yet? As a formerly overachieving / anxiously ambitious woman of Elizabeth Holmes’s age who grew up in the late 90s/early aughts, the first ep cuts DEEP (the costumes! The makeup! The interior design!). I don’t know what that says about me that I’ve consumed so much content centered on this woman (Did I listen to Sounds Like A Cult’s Elizabeth Holmes ep this morning? MAYBE). So related to this VF piece: I can’t get over the fact that when she met Sunny Balwani, she was 18-years-old and he was 37. My friends, I was once an 18-year-old (shocking, I know), I —as a thirtysomething, to be clear—have dated 37-year-old men, and let’s just say I imagine that an age gap like that at THAT point in a young woman’s life must have… adverse effects. No matter all of the criminal activity and deceit she went on to engage in, the fact she was romantically linked to this man for 12 years starting at such an impressionable age is significant!

So yea, weird little grab bag above, but I hope that gets you through the weekend! Be kind to each other, and drink some water, won’t you?

xoxo Amy