HELLO and welcome to the 160th 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 Radio Shack! 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.
History is a Weapon: A Question of Class, by Dorothy Allison, 1994
I mean what can I even tell you about an essay by Dorothy Allison about trying to conceal the class division and sexual desires that made her feel so far apart from her fellow lesbian feminist activists and why she started writing. What can I tell you about the story about everything that led up to her writing “River of Names,” which led to everything afterwards. Everything in this essay is golden.
Black, Gay And Shot Dead In His Own Car, by Zach Stafford for The Guardian, December 2014
“Dionte Greene’s body was found in in a predominantly black part of Kansas City, after friends said he was scheduled to meet a man unsure of his sexuality. Even the LGBT liaison in the case says the death is difficult to classify as a hate crime.”
Big Changes In Black America?, by Darryl Pinckney for The New York Review of Books, May 2012
An article about Who’s Afraid of Post-Blackness? by Touré that talks about so many things, like a broad economic history of black people in America, and the emergence and suppression of the black middle-class, and who has the power now and who can afford to look the other way and how “it would seem that although black people are in the mainstream, black history still isn’t, because certain basic things about the history of being black in America—American history—have to be explained again and again.” It’s really good you should read it.
Exclusive: Jay, Key Witness In The Adnan Syed Serial Case, by Natasha Vargas-Cooper for The Intercept, December 2014
Y’all, I thought Adnan was innocent. Then I read this, and everything made sense, and I wish this had been framed differently because everything about Jay’s involvement in the case and his testimony was a direct result of the fact that he was a black boy involved in dealing a drug that is now legal in many states but at that time and still right now today is used to throw black boys in jail for life. However, I think it’s been discussed pretty widely that he didn’t necessarily do himself any favors by doing these interviews, and the way he talks about Sarah Koennig in Part Two and Part Three is really unfair. La la la.
Prude Awakening, by Lisa Carver for Nerve.com, November 2014
I’ve been reading Lisa Carver for ten years now, including her memoir Drugs Are Nice. This is about how sex, which used to be a central tenant of her life and work, became less important after having a baby, and how she felt about that.
Playboy Interview With Dan Savage, by David Sheff for Playboy, December 2014
Chances are good you have strong perhaps negative feelings about Dan Savage, but this interview is interesting nonetheless. I don’t think I realized that he actually thinks human beings as a rule are not supposed to be monogamous? Because I disagree.
The Untold Story Of The Doodler Murders, by Elon Green, December 2014
In the mid-70s, gay men in San Francisco were being killed by a serial killer but nobody cared because they were gay.
Radio Shack: A Eulogy, by Jon Bois for SB Nation, November 2014
We were just talking about Radio Shack yesterday, I was saying how it seems so unnecessary these days and why would anybody go there, when Best Buy is so much bigger and has more things and there’s something consistently sketchy about Radio Shack. I think I’ve been a few times in the past few years, and every time have sort of been confused why it still exists but okay, it’s in the strip mall down the street so let’s do this thing. Anyhow I don’t know why I’m still talking about myself when the point is that this essay is both hilarious and intriguing.
