It's no coincidence that, during this week of record-breaking heat, I learned the term estivation. It's basically a summer hibernation, a state of torpor or dormancy during the depths of the hot, dry season. Desert tortoises do it. Crocodiles do it. Some worms and snails do it, too. As the planet bakes and the bad news permeates and vacation is more chaotic than restorative, perhaps there's something to be said for a natural adaptation. Finding a way, as a species, to burrow deep to a colder dark. Just for awhile, until the temps drop and the spirits lift.

The writing fellows have been up to great work: Celia Mattison has a delightful essay about the dance scene at the end of Napoleon Dynamite, and Autumn Fourkiller has instructions on how to live in a haunted house.

Jessica Sequeira on what translators and musicians have in common: "The question is how to take the cerebral element and turn it back into emotion for a new audience."

"It is no longer—if it ever was—sufficient for us to affirm that sex work is work," writes Benjamin Weil in an essay about the celebrity sex workers of OnlyFans, "we must build solidarity from top to bottom and explicitly demand permanent protections for sex workers on and offline."

"We can’t expect our bodies to always be 'better' than yesterday, but we can always expect them to be different." Katja Vujić on stretching.

I saw Baz Luhrman's Elvis biopic, and it prompted me to reread Lester Bangs' eulogy, which is really about the end of truly popular pop culture. "I can guarantee you one thing: we will never again agree on anything as we agreed on Elvis. So I won’t bother saying good-bye to his corpse. I will say good-bye to you."

 

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28ish Days Later, a podcast with the "whole bloody story" about the menstrual cycle. The process of making linen. The push to rename the space telescope for someone other than James Webb.

Azuma Makoto's time-lapse floral art. Wow.

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The word I was looking for last week was awe. Thanks to reader Emma who noted, "feeling good about feeling small is a hallmark of awe!" and sent me this great article about it.

Aug 17, virtual: I'm in conversation with Nona Willis Aronowitz about her new book, Bad Sex: Truth, Pleasure and an Unfinished Revolution.