fifty-fifth (2022-11-16)
“when the body escaped mutilation, seldom did the heart go to the grave unscarred” ― virginia woolf, in jacob's room
photo by steph byce of friends this summer because i miss outdoor hangs and because the hosts recently welcomed a beautiful baby into their beautiful home! mazel tov all around
shorts (click here for my full list of shorts on the docket for 2022)
Raymond Carver, “What We Talk About When We Talk About Love” (1981)
i was worried this was going to devolve into a ‘who’s afraid of virginia woolf’ hellscape as two couples talking about love got drunker and drunker, but the flirtation (rather then full dive) with darkness kept this story brief, tense, and enigmatic. i love a short story told in a single scene like a minimalist play.
book
everybody: a book about freedom, by olivia laing, 2021
this was a fascinating book that broadly examined bodies in peril from the lens of wilhelm reich, a jewish psychoanalyst who believed in the revolutionary power of sex and embodiment who later diverged from freud’s ingroup and became a target of the FBI for his unhinged theories and devices (like orgone accumulators and cloudbusters). laing traces through a notable (and eclectic) group of artists, activists, and writers on the theme of corporeal punishment, including bayard rustin, andrea dworkin, susan sontag, and nina simone. it was well-written and moved seamlessly from the civil rights movement to lone artists like agnes martin, and it’s worth the difficult onslaught of how cruelly we enforce punishments on “deviant” (gay, Black, sexual, female, trans, etc.) bodies.
interview
good and bad gamification with adrian hon, by anne helen peterson on substack
i was planning to write about duolingo and how my quest to learn spanish after moving to a largely spanish-speaking neighborhood was bumbling on when this popped in my inbox. i’ve been thinking more about the implications of gamification as i’m drawn to spent more time cruising through levels, acquiring points, and inevitably watching ads on the platform. this interview with a game developer delves into the subtle ways capitalism pushes us towards doing more on these tracking apps, not out of benevolence but for capital’s benefit.
show
the sopranos, on hbo
i am midway through my annual rewatch and loving/dreading every second of it. the sopranos set the foundation for the next generations of antihero narratives and it only gets richer, more intricate, and heavier upon rewatching.
thanks for reading - more to come -
bria
Have you seen Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu's 'Birdman". I would assume yes, but you don't mention it in "What We Talk About When We Talk About Love”. No spoilers, lol! I think oft overlooked is that the choice of adapting this story for the play within the film is it's considered unadaptable short story.
To be honest I could care less if it devolved into a ‘who’s afraid of virginia woolf’ hellscape, or anything else for that matter. Simply because it is the best title to a story ever?