To quote a line I read today that really resonated with me, "the inside of my brain is like a half-empty bag of gummy worms someone left on the street." Onward to the links so you can read brilliant things written by others!

An atheist reconsiders god in the pandemic. Articulating "ambiguous grief." On falling forward and letting the darkness in. The rise of the life coach. Are generations a helpful way to understand anything? Against "battle" metaphors applied to cancer. Life after Q Anon. Musk, Bezos, and Gates are climate colonizers, trying to create a new world that can handle current human behavior. William Shatner as space mascot. What it means for Black Americans to buy and maintain a home. An interview with How to Blow Up a Pipeline author Andreas Malm. True crime is rotting our brains. The racism of Facebook's "radical indifference," and what the company has in common with Ford. What to make of the wave of labor strikes—including the one at Dollar General. Sarah Schulman on the necessary will of lesbian mothers. What it's like to be Black, femme, and fat on Instagram. Saeed Jones on Dave Chappelle's betrayal. E. Alex Jung's truly stellar profile of Kumail Nanjiani, which will be of interest to anyone who has ever had a complex relationship with their own body and how it's perceived. Dressing for a body in limbo. A tool that strips your writing back to its punctuation. wow, modern pop stars love lowercase.

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Anita Hill and Christine Blasey Ford in conversation. Marcia Chatelain on the McUniverse. Night blooming flowers. And recently I've interviewed two close friends of mine for CYG—writer Jade Chang and writer/artist/designer George McCalman—who both said inspiring things about changing, evolving, and doing the work. In keeping with the theme of today's newsletter, George's episode title contains a metaphorical fart reference. What can I say? Sometimes a theme just... emerges, unbidden.

Grateful that a film exists in which Stockard Channing and Dianne Wiest make margaritas with witchcraft.

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The concept of the Michigan star. You've heard of Michelin stars, awarded to the finest of fine-dining establishments. Well, this is a different kind of restaurant praise, bestowed on the reliably good but not-fancy place in your neighborhood where you can always get a table without a reservation, there are at least a few delicious dishes on the menu, and everybody knows your name. (It has nothing to do with the great state of Michigan, which lends its name to this concept merely because it kinda-sorta rhymes with Michelin.) If a Michelin star is your favorite highbrow film—which you've only seen once or twice—the Michigan star is the consistently satisfying movie you watch again and again. 

Credit for this coinage goes to Peter Asbill, with a shoutout to Claire Mazur and Erica Cerulo's A Thing or Two podcast for introducing me to it.