Though not these ones, these ones have been mended within an inch of their lives. This is a long and fairly interesting piece about the over-abundance of celebrities and politicians being invited to write a lot of boring children’s books. It starts out well…though gets rather in the weeds as it goes on. But I liked this a lot: This contemporary quote is an ill-considered retroactive framing device for a book about thirteen American women who lived during different times... Read more
Don’t do it. Don’t manifest. Being so ill (well, not that ill, but ill enough that I didn’t really want to read anything), and being spared the trouble of scrolling through Facebook yesterday, I took the obvious step of watching everything on youtube that there is about manifesting. Well, maybe not everything, but way more than I would normally ever be able to bear. There is nothing like not being able to breathe and not being able to think, to... Read more
It is gray and gently raining here in upstate NY. The leaves have hardly begun to transform themselves into their gemlike hues, and probably won’t, from what I hear, because of how wet it’s been. Apparently everything will go brown in the next few weeks and just blow away, which seems fitting for the kind of mood the world currently seems to possess. In acknowledgment of this fact we’ve done a shortish podcast about how dismal and bleak is the... Read more
It’s been a long week in which I’ve read and watched a lot of discouraging stuff. Somehow, in wandering around the internet learning about manifesting, I entered the realm of the so-called “happy” divorce and that curious idea of “conscious uncoupling.” So, let’s see, how ’bout some quick takes on the matter. One This piece in the NYT times that was going around yesterday has to be the place to start: But I’ve learned that divorce can also be an... Read more
I feel like I have produced a lot of content over the last few weeks and I might as well cash in so that I can trot downstairs and roast the two chickens I have shoved in the back of my fridge. So here are two things that I’ve done already that you can go listen to. One My gaslighting piece is out! It’s paywalled, so perhaps you would like to subscribe. Meanwhile, here is the podcast that Melanie I... Read more
A visual representation of Lasch’s “Consumer-in-Chief” To pace myself through Bjork-James’ The Divine Institution, which is a short but hard read because the lens by which she is evaluating American conservative evangelicalism is, by her own admission, Intersectionality, the least helpful way to understand anything I think, I picked up a copy of Christopher Lasch’s Haven in a Heartless World. As far as I can make out, Lasch was not a Christian or anything, but he was a historian (such... Read more
I don’t think I can get up to a whole seven takes today, but maybe there might be a few here and there. One After lots and lots and lots of rain, and even some flooding, the temperature finally shifted and everything is nice and chilly. This is wonderful because I don’t have any clothes for hot weather, and also, the humidity has been exhausting. This is called Middle Age, or Anne Gets Older. Two I am so close to... Read more
I have what feels like thousands of tabs open on my browser, hoping to work my way through a lot of interesting articles and long-form series of things but then constantly being distracted and also remembering that I planned not to read the internet. And then I get even more distracted and go over and find things like this: Glennon and Abby, apparently, have moved to LA, and Glennon has embraced the prairie dress option, which, personally, I applaud. I... Read more
I don’t know if I’m the guy with the coffee cup or the woman in the back freaking out. I am running so late this morning and everything is in chaos. The kitten is playing with a mouse–a good thing because we have so many mice and the big cats just sit and stare at them–the little dog is growling about something, children are dragging themselves into the daylight, and I’m trying to make a goldenly delicious cream sauce with... Read more
It is a bright, cool, sunny morning here in Bing (thank heaven). To celebrate we’ve done a longish and wide-ranging podcast about manifesting, my forthcoming review of The Divine Institution (but not till November), the relationships between men and women, colonialism, and Heidi Powell. Oh, and Matt talks about open theism and the supposed third way and all the various heresies of the day. Hope it’s all you need for a Monday morning. Let’s see, are there any links… Here... Read more
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