Ann Friedman - Future imperfect

Seeing swathes of Florida reduced to rubble after Hurricane Ian this week—so soon after Hurricane Fiona pummeled Puerto Rico— made me think about something I wrote a little more than a year ago: "It's impossible to keep up with the pace of destruction."

Re-reading it now, that conclusion strikes me as both fatalistic and a little lazy. It's difficult—but not impossible—keep up with the overlapping incidents of our perpetual climate emergency. Difficult—but not impossible—to locate some attention, some empathy, a few donation dollars. So today I'm trying to find at least a little bit of each. 

I read so many great things about books this week:

Writing fellow Autumn Fourkiller has a lovely essay in Autostraddle on the thrills and limits of seeing yourself in a novel. Terry Nguyen parses the “aesthetic of bookishness,” wherein books are influencer props and status symbols. More specifically, Samatha Leach explains the "hot girl book." Andrea Long Chu asks, "Why does the half-Asian, half-white protagonist make us so anxious?" And Zeyn Joukhadar on translating while trans.

And some non-books links, too:

"No one can predict how a revolution starts," writes Roya Hakakian of the protests in Iran that are about women's freedom of choice and so much more.

Jamelle Bouie on the economic roots of white supremacy in the US. And Ruth Murai reports on what it would take for a state to actually close the racial wealth gap by compensating descendants of enslaved Americans.

Rhian Sasseen on the plight of the social-media manager and what it means to claim authorship.

Sally Wen Mao on silk: "A worm spitting and spinning itself into a new luxury, a sensation, finally, yes, a thing of value."

Plus, Autumn interprets a dream about driving.

All I'm listening to lately is Björk, whose new album is out today. Here's a track-by-track interview with her.

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