HELLO and welcome to the 14th installment of Things I Read That I Love, wherein I share with you some of the longer-form journalism/essays I’ve read recently so that you can read them too and we can all know more about that guy who kept all these exotic animals in his backyard and then killed them! This “column” is less feminist/queer focused than the rest of the site because when something is feminist/queer focused, I put it on the rest of the site. Here is where the other things are. The title of this feature is inspired by the title of Emily Gould’s tumblr, Things I Ate That I Love.
I missed it last week ’cause I was buried in camp, so this one is particularly lengthy!
 The Plagiarist’s Tale (February 2012), The New Yorker – This guy took plagiarism to a whole new level, constructing an entire novel out of pieces from so many other novels!
A Family Erased: The Chris Coleman Story (August 2011), St. Louis Magazine – “Could a father strangle his wife and young sons just to keep a high salary and a sexy mistress? And if not, who did?” Good question!
The Book of Jobs: The Great Debate (February 2012), Reuters – I tend to read whatever Maureen Tkacik (aka “Moe Tkacik” from Ye Olde Jezebel) writes, so I read this, and honestly I’ve not read much about Steve Jobs, and this was unlike the things I’ve already read.
And Then There’s Me (February 2012), The Pacific Northwest Inlander – One man’s story of growing up Mexican in a white family –> “People aggravate Shane because, he believes, they possess innately something he worries he will never find — the calm that comes from being perceived by the world the way you perceive yourself.”
Man or Beast (February 2012), Cincinnati Magazine – Crazy story of the man who let all his exotic animals loose in Ohio and then shot himself in the head!
Left Behind (Feb 2012), Los Angeles Magazine – “As an actress, she never rose out of B-grade obscurity, but when her mummified corpse was found last year, Yvette Vickers drew the international headlines she’d always yearned for.”
Not the Phil Donahue Show (Summer 1993), The Virginia Quarterly – Surprise! This is actually fiction. I didn’t realize that either when I started reading it, and it’s a story about a mother whose daughter comes out to her in the first scene, and then all of these other things I think you’d appreciate, I really do.
Forever Dies Hard (February 2012), BlogHer – Did you know that diamonds are not actually worth anything? Also me and the girl who wrote this article were in a calendar together once, weird.
She’s Here, She’s Queer, She’s Fired (July 2005), Texas Monthly – On the firing of a beloved basketball coach on account of her being a lesbian.
Boy Crazy (May 2001), Boston Magazine – This article is so weird! It’s about NAMBLA, the North American Man-Boy-Love Association. I have no idea what is going on with the author of this piece or anything in it, I found the tone disorienting. Now you try it.
The Race That Is Not About Winning (March/April 2011), The Believer – A stunning ode to Michael Cera, of all people, and running, with lots of brilliant things in it like, “To the extent that running is about the self, it is the self nourished by solitude, not the self glorifying in narcissism.”
Listening to Books (February 2012), n+1 – My friend Caitlin used to make fun of me all the time for listening to so many audio books, but maybe she didn’t mean it.
The Angriest Man in Television (January 2008), The Atlantic – All about David Simon and The Wire.Â
feature image via its-becky.blogspot.com
