Shorts - Kate Degelau-Pierce

Monday Shorts

On becoming a rose gardener. Surprisingly enjoyable given that I am not in any way shape or form into gardening.
Amazon might be in talks to buy MGM? I don’t know why I didn’t see this coming.
Black women are more visible than ever. Now what?
Tidying up with Marie Kondo isn’t really a makeover show. We’re all just so sick of our houses and our stuff after spending 14 full months in and with them, I think. This article is a good reminder that we have our houses and our things because they help us.
Poor in Tech.

Why we speak more weirdly at home. In our house, we say goats when it’s time to leave. Don’t ask why.
Middle Class Pay Lost Pace. Is Washington to Blame? What would the world look like if newspapers had a labor section instead of a business section? Or in addition to?
America’s Is-Ought Problem. About news and media and how to be a smarter reader.
Related: Big Oil is trying to make climate change your problem to solve. Don’t let them. The same PR folks who brought you big tobacco and the gun industry are behind the tactics that fossil fuel companies are using to evade changing energy demand or take any responsibility for climate change.
Queens of Infamy: Boudicca. I love the the Queens of Infamy series!
What my Korean father taught me about defending myself in America. Alexander Chee is an amazing writer.

All of the ways Gen X is financially wrecked. There is an entire genre of articles about the ways in which Gen X is broken/screwed. I haven’t seen one in awhile. Welcome, old friend.
Burn all the leggings: what do you wear to the reopening of society? This is about so much more than the clothes.
I am intrigued by the Netflix series “Halston“.
Not a crisis, but a reckoning. I blame exactly no one for not wanting to have a baby at the moment – I mean, christ, have you looked around? Pandemic? Terrible childcare options? Still being expected to shoulder the bulk of the burden at home? Inadequately funded schools? Student debt issues? The fucking ongoing environmental disaster? Which is interesting – at the end of the newsletter, she posits: what if a lower birth rate is a good thing?

I recently read a book by Francine du Plessix Gray for the first time, and have become slightly fascinated by her. He mother was Russian, her father was French, and she and her mother immigrated to the US in 1940. Here’s her obituary from January 2019, and here’s an interview with her from the 1980s in the Paris Review.
Are Animated Dads Getting Hotter? (Yes. The answer is yes.)
A Climate Dystopia in Northern California (topic whiplash!) This is a super-in-depth look at how more fires in California causes more homelessness, and in a system unequipped to deal with that homelessness, that’s just not good (to put it mildly).
The Perfect Gift for Moms: Money. I have, on my mental get-around-to-reading-someday list, a tract about why government/society should pay all caretakers for all people.
The Sexist Backlash to Universal Day Care.

Why brown is so on trend in fashion and design. I don’t care why, I just care that it is. I look terrible in black and prefer brown and it can be hard to find. I’m stockpiling basics right now, because it will go out of fashion again.
“I have the career I started out wanting.” This is a really well-written profile of Ewan McGregor.
An article about how having a more diverse workforce at multiple levels makes a difference. And a related article about how white men will cover for white men.
I read an issue of GalaxyBrain about corporate culture, and then an article about Aunt Beast from A Wrinkle in Time. And maybe these two things close by in my brain reminded me that in order to be a good worker who cares, yes you need trust, but you also need kindness and respect amongst the people who work together. This can be for any kind of an organization, it doesn’t have to be a paid one. Hm. I will have to think about this more.

Coronavirus toys are going viral. You should click to that just so you can see the cute plague doctor stuffed toy.
Luc Sante, The Art of Nonfiction, No 9. From The Paris Review in 2016. He’s always a good read.

The Two Rules for Eating to Fight Climate Change. You know them, of course: waste less food and eat less meat. Waste less turns out to be more important, but both matter, a surprisingly large amount.
How useful is recycling, really? The short answer is less useful than you want it to be. Reducing and reusing are more effective (reducing your food waste!).
The dark side of the houseplant boom. Buying houseplants won’t fix climate change either, but it will make you feel better.
A Pandemic Romeo and Juliet Finds a New Language of Love and Loss. I watched this over the weekend and it was a delight.
Daughters of the Resurrection. Lemonade was released five years ago. Five?!?
Solar panels on California’s canals could save water and fight climate change. This is a super-intriguing idea. Let’s try it!

Three in the morning. Three in the morning is when you’re stumbling through, tired, worn out, probably at least a little bit drunk or high, trying to get home, trying to make meaning of something or not caring about meaning because you’re too tired. 3am doesn’t always happen in the middle of the night.
Dandies rebelled against social, gender, and fashion norms for 200 years. Caring about how you look isn’t frivolous.
Return the National Parks to the Tribes.
The Invincible Woman, Selma Blair. She seems delightful.
Are you ready for the roaring 20s? “There is such a hunger for joy and community and a sense of being fully alive; if we can feed that both with sequins and serious political change, then the 2020s might be a decade of growing opportunity and equality, rather than an era of excess barreling toward collapse.”