HELLO and welcome to the 218th 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 Empty Nose Syndrome! 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.
HI SORRY THIS IS LATE and maybe not my best TIRTL of all time, but I’m doing my best I promise. <3
My Year Covering Trump, by David Farenthold for The Washington Post, December 2016
This is an incredible and revelatory behind-the-scenes look at one reporter’s experience covering the Trump campaign — including Farenthold’s oft-crowdsourced investigation into Trump’s actual charitable activities (there are basically none) and the infamous pussy-grabbing video — up to the night when an entire newsroom was scrubbing paragraphs upon paragraphs about our first female president after Trump managed to win this g-ddamn election.
Harvard’s Eugenics Era, by Adam S. Cohen for Harvard Magazine, March/April 2016
Just a reminder that this period of history existed and a lot of people still think this way like… maybe the future president of the united states!
Between Loneliness and Imagination, by Harriet Alida Lye for Hazlitt, May 2016
About where we are and where we want to go.
Imagining myself out of the suburbs started with creating Barbie towns and evolved into secret clubhouses in the closet. That then turned into getting drunk in parks, watching Pulp Fiction at 13, and making out in basements. In a place where a primary evening activity for high school students is getting drive-thru Tim Hortons and sitting a parking lot, you have to learn to activate your imagination as a means of escaping a place you aren’t yet physically able to leave.
Darkness in August, by Buzz Bissinger for Vanity Fair, January 2014
Just a little murder in small-town Oklahoma for your New Year.
Monica Lewinsky: ‘The Shame Sticks To You Like Tar, by Jon Ronson for The Guardian, April 2016
You know what bless this woman for all the shit she put up with. Look at her still living and breathing and being herself and being a strong babe.
These days, she’s often approached by victims of online bullying, “when I’m on the subway, in line for coffee, at dinner parties.” Shamed people tend to seek each other out, the cure for shame being empathy. “Sometimes they’ll say, ‘I went through this, but it’s nothing like what you went through.’ But I tell them that, if I drown in 60ft of water and you drown in 30ft, we both still drowned. You either know what it’s like to be publicly shamed or you don’t.”
Is Empty Nose Syndrome Real?, by Joel Oliphint for Buzzfeed
Some patients who’ve had a certain nasal surgery are later plagued by Empty Nose Syndrome, which may or may not exist, but even if it doesn’t, it’s driving people to suicide so something is going on here. SOMETHING ISN’T RIGHT.
Commodification, Objectification, and the Corporatization of Exotic Dance, by Natassja Schiel for The Los Angeles Review of Books, April 2016
A review of a book about exotic dancing which is also sort of an essay on the topic because the person who wrote this review has a lot of experience working in many different types of strip clubs, more than the author actually, and all-in-all you leave this piece with a lot of answers and also questions. Which’s the point of good writing, I’ve heard.
Hello, Dollies, by Stephen Marche for The Walrus, February 2015
This is about Maplelea Girls, which are sort of like the Canadian edition of American Girl dolls and it’s also about Canadian culture in general and consumerism and history.
The Crazy Story of the Professor Who Came to Stay—and Wouldn’t Leave, by Ian Gordon for Mother Jones, December 2016
It’s true. This is a crazy story about a professor who came to stay and wouldn’t leave, it truly is. But the craziest part is the Judith Butler cameo, honestly.
Reign, Supreme, by Kyle Chayka for Racked Magazine, July 2016
It’s the history of “streetwear” as a concept and the brands that popularized it and Supreme specifically and the way the story is arranged visually is also really neat.
The 15 Year Layover, by Michael Paterni for GQ, September 2003
This is the story that inspired a movie I have never seen called “The Terminal.” But you know what I might want to see it now!
The David Foster Wallace Disease, by Sasha Chapin for Hazlitt, December 2016
This is when I caught a kind of mental disease—call it Wallacitis: the immediate desire to make one’s work as Wallace-like as possible. This, like the simple envy of his stature, was also not a rare obsession. Later on, in university, I met a lot of classmates who suffered similarly. We were all hungry for a chunk of whatever secret mineral powered Wallace’s brain. We wanted some of that neural gasoline which lit up even the man’s minor work.
