Shorts – Page 2 – Kate Degelau-Pierce

Monday Shorts

Sleep Around Before You Marry an Argument. I loved this alternative to exhaustive reading about a subject: reading around a subject, in the hopes that it tells you something about how a person’s image is constructed and what that tells you about them.
Megan, Kate, and the Architecture of Misogyny. Speaking of reading around a subject and how narrative constructs meaning.
Thomas Cromwell is real and strong and my friend. Infinitely more intelligent than I could ever be about the Wolf Hall novels and the pandemic.
Private Schools are Indefensible. Yes, agreeeeeeed.
Stockton’s Basic Income Experiment Pays Off.

He Quit the Internet Two Months Before the Pandemic. It’s another in the genre of being-too-online-screws-with-your-focus articles, but given how much we’ve all been online lately, it’s worth thinking about how you can actively control your attention.
Goop She Did It Again. The upshot of this article is that as long as the medical establishment takes women’s health less seriously than men’s means that people peddling snake oil – even if it’s paired with advice that really works – will be listened to.
Gold, Eagle, and Default Sexism. Yes to all of this.
Everyone is beautiful and no one is horny. It’s, like, we’ve all sublimated our actual appetites – the work of our bodies – to fit a media image we’re all trying to fulfill. (Also I only skimmed this: Why the ’00s were so toxic for women, but there’s a think piece in the overlap between those two and the answer is probably porn.)
It’s time for localism in America.
Love and Death in the American Tiktok. I don’t know from TikTok (except what my teen shows me), but I am here for learning more about how to be a good reader and critic.

In the World of “WandaVision,” It’s Been Grief All Along. I haven’t watched this show – I haven’t seen the two previous Marvel movies either – but I am always here for smart thoughts about grief.
I Forgot How to Hang Out. The general mood seemed to shift last week from “I’m depressed and this sucks” to “Is there hope that we might be able to Do Things Together this summer?” and I think that there’s going to be a lot of awkwardness and being tired those first few social events.
Why I’m Trying to Cook Less in 2021. On realizing what’s really relaxing.
My pandemic year behind the checkout counter. Economic inequality is a HUGE problem.
Filmed in Paris: In the Footsteps of Lupin. This is mostly an excuse to look at pretty pictures of Paris, but there’s also a fun video at the bottom where Omar Sy puts up a promotional poster for Lupin in the Paris Metro, completely unrecognized.
Letter from a Region of My Mind by James Baldwin. Warning: this one is a long read, not made any shorter by the number of times I had to stop and think and let it work its magic on my brain.

The City Where Cars Are Not Welcome. This is a kind of dream – to live in a place where I could walk to run my errands and take public transit to work.
OCD is not a joke.
Stop Telling Women They Have Imposter Syndrome. Instead, stop being racist and sexist.
Feed Your Moths and Hide Your Trousers. Aka, how to take care of your clothes.

Figure skating is on thin ice. Here’s how to fix it. Overall a good article, though I don’t agree with the idea that the new scoring system is confusing.
How Black Girl Hockey Club emerged as a player in the push for diversity. Black Girl Hockey Club is the best. They do great work and I’m super-happy to support them.
Ancient Trees Show When the Earth’s Magnetic Field Last Flipped Out. Science is amazing.
Without this SF duo, some of the Bay Area’s most famous landmarks could be lost to time. It’s about clock repair. My favorite story is that when they service the clock tower at Stanford, it’s where people can come up and talk to them, and so they trade winding help from the tourists/students/whomever for stories.
50 million Americans are unpaid caregivers. We need help. There was a quote I read a couple of months back. “Other countries have safety nets. America has women.”
Texas Failed Because It Did Not Plan. This is rage-inducing.

Capturing the relentlessness of online life. I didn’t need another book to read, but I apparently have another book to read.
A Bohemian’s Guide to Greenwich Village, a Century Ago. I miss exploring weird little stores.

Florence Griffith Joyner Taught Me What It Means To Be Unapologetically Black And Fabulous. This article shows, I think, that it’s just about time for me to paint my nails again.
Zoom style. This is actually how do you dress a celebrity for a zoom press tour, but that doesn’t mean I’m not paying attention for my own personal use.
President Biden, appoint a fashion czar! This is the article about the environmental impact of fashion I was looking for earlier in the week.
Netflix’ Bridgerton is leading a romance novel renaissance. Good. We need more women-centered stories about love and friendship in this world.

A Forgotten Black Founding Father.
Rain. A short story about mothers and daughters and being who you are.
The Secret Essential Geography of the Office. “I once worked for a few weeks at a big, busy company, and one day I asked, jokingly, ‘Where do I go to cry?’ An hour later, I was taken aside and told in seriousness about a specific stairwell. Another person there led me on a five-minute walk through the skyscraper to a tiny, hidden conference room, and then made me promise to keep the location a secret, a vow I have kept.”
Who was I before the pandemic? And who am I now?
A Priceless Archive of Ordinary Life. This hurts my heart. I want to know where to donate and how to set up a library that will be a proper resource for these materials.
When I want to feel strong, I turn to Eartha Kitt.