feature image via i think therefore i’m single

HELLO and welcome to the 131st 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 laundry apps! 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.

True to His Words (April 1992), by William Nack for Sports Illustrated – So this is the story of a Hurricane. Honestly the initial reason that I even knew this happened is the Bob Dylan song, so this was pretty interesting. Then I got sucked into a k-hole

Let’s Like Demolish Laundry (May 2014), by Jessica Pressier for New York Magazine – Cocky tech-savvy Ivy League bros want to revolutionize laundry with an app because dudes like that don’t want to do laundry and they all think they are the first ones to have this idea, so.

Imagining the Post Antibiotics Future (November 2013), by Maryn McKenna for medium – Honestly I’m not sure after reading this that I really did want to imagine the post-antibiotics future ’cause it sounds awful and I don’t really know what I can do about it besides buy more expensive meat so THANKS MARYN MCKENNA. I remember growing up my Mom never wanted us to use them because she said we’d become immune.

Inside the Milk Machine: How Modern Dairy Works (March 2014), by Mark Kurlansky for modern farmer – Welp. This probably isn’t new to you, but cows are mistreated! Organic farming is the solution! But it makes milk cost a lot!

The End of Food (May 2014), by Lizzie Widdicombe for The New Yorker – No but seriously um, at one point this guy who is creating this food-replacing beverage Soylent says we should be automating all farming work because it is very hard on the body and would be better done by machines. It’s a really interesting article though if you can avoid cringing at how fucking self-centered the narrator is.

Miss American Dream (June 2014), by Taffy Brodesser-Akner for medium – Duh it’s about Britney Spears’ tour. Again I think its’ weird that she totally brushed over the conservatorship, but obviously I found this whole article just FASCINATING AND PERFECT.

I’m Touching You Now (May 2014), by Lania Knight for The Rumpus – “Poverty and single motherhood have given me an odd kind of liberation. If I hadn’t been so poor after the divorce, I’d never have considered being a gynecological teaching assistant. If I’d still been married to my ex, though, I’d never have considered doing this work. He threatened me throughout our marriage—if I ever had sex with someone else, he’d kill me. No questions asked. He suspected me of flirting with men, always questioning my intentions, so the only significant contact I had with men for more than ten years was with him and, occasionally, my brothers. Now, once a week, I was lying in a hospital gown on an exam table in front of a group of young students, some male, some female, and I was teaching them how to respect a woman’s body. It wasn’t sex, but in my ex’s eyes, it would have been.”

Segregation Now (April 2014), by Nikole Hannah-Jones for ProPublica – All these years after Brown vs. Board of Education, many schools in the south are way more racially segregated than they were in the ’80s and ’90s. This wasn’t news to me, but this is a really thorough piece on the topic.

The Kentucky Derby is Decadent and Depraved (June 1970), by Hunter S Thompson for Scanlan’s – With commentary about the story before and after with quotes from relevant humans. Apparently this piece was a huge career turning point for Thompson, and inspired the first reference to his work as “gonzo journalism.” “Back at the motel we talked for a while about America, the South, England, just relaxing a bit before dinner. There was no way either of us could have known, at the time, that it would be the last normal conversation we would have. From that point on, the weekend became a vicious, drunken nightmare. We both went completely to pieces.”

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