Terrifying behaviors and creative unfoldings

The full text of my profile of Chaka Khan is now up at The Gentlewoman. I love writing about people who are this many decades deep into their lives. Not because it feels like they're offering a roadmap to success or happiness, but often because of the opposite: It allows me to see how each person's life and creative process has unfolded in its own way, with its own particular wrinkles and lucky breaks and devastating dips—which, in turn, helps me break away from the idea that there are any universal right and wrong directions for a creative life. What a treat it was to immerse myself in Chaka's unfolding.

Kay Gabriel on the widespread anti-trans moral panic and its goal to target "adults who make the lives of trans children more possible." And Charley Locke reports that some parents are protecting their kids by turning to homeschooling. Public education is in trouble, by design.

"Israel’s disregard for Palestinian life has never been more callous or more flagrant, and it’s being fuelled by a discourse for which the adjective ‘genocidal’ no longer seems like hyperbole," writes Adam Shatz. And Fabiola Cineas has chilling facts and figures on the rise in both antisemitic and anti-Muslim hate. 

"Some people remember childhood bike rides and ice-cream sundaes; I remember acetone and moon-slivers of nails." Gabrielle Behar Trinh on growing up in a nail salon.

The catch-22 of public pension funds: Workers pay in, writes Rachel Phua, and then the money flow to private equity-owned firms that union-bust, violate labor laws, and put workers’ safety at risk.

I hate how often I learn about a woman's lifelong artistic work through her obituary. Rest in power, Juanita McNeely.

We Never Close. Chris Colin with a dispatch from a 24-hour diner that stops the cosmic clock. 

The writing fellows have been up to great things, per usual: Paige Curtis examines climate celebrityhood, Vera Blossom eats through the grief, and 2022 fellow Celia Mattison defines Afropastoral film.

In a 9-part series, Bjork discusses each of her albums in detail. (I think I've linked to this before, but am really getting into it lately.) I love that each episode/album begins with a word-association list.

Why am I equally comforted and unsettled by these inflatable guys? 

"Thank you for your work! It’s my favourite weekend activity." -Radhika. Does every writer aspire to be someone's pastime, or is it just me?