WWRTW – hurricane edition

Welcome back for the third installment of What We Read This Week, where your friends in Strode share what they have been reading.

Hurricanes Harvey and Irma have been on our minds, as they affect families, friends, and colleagues. Erin Goss shares a story from Houston that left her “more than a little in awe of the way that people can get themselves together when they’re able to recognize a shared catastrophe.”

Lindsay Turner writes: “I’ve been reading my way through Saralee Stafford and Neal Shirley’s Dixie Be Damned, which is about radical resistance movements in the south. The stories it tells are pretty fascinating — but if there’s anyone reading this who’s read the book and has thoughts, I’d love to hear them. The poet Sarah Stickney left a copy of her chapbook Portico (published by Greenville’s own Emrys Press!) at our house following a poetry reading,* and as soon as I’ve tied up all the Sunday loose ends I’m going to settle in with it and wait for the rain.”

JBF is still thinking about monuments, and interested in spending some time in thinking about what happens when you add films like GWTW to the equation.

Elsewhere, it is heartening to see the avalanche of folks calling bullshit on the English fellow who vowed to play the piano in a park until his ex came back to him.

Also in times like these, it is nice to remember when college presidents wrote letters like these to angry donors:

I can reply very briefly and very definitely to the inquiries of your letter, that it is based on personal prejudice and unjustified presumptions. In view of the fact that I concede none of your premises upon which you base your argument, I naturally cannot have any interest in your conclusion.

(The Orozco frescoes are amazing, and worth a trip to Hanover, NH., by the way.)

Finally, more of an exhortation than a reading, but Mr. Sam Sifton:

And it is Patriot Day, a national day of service and remembrance for those who died in the attacks on Sept. 11, 2001. Flags are flying at half-staff above federal buildings across the globe, and there were firefighters in dress blues on the morning commute, heading to ground zero to pay their respects, to grieve. Office chatter everywhere today will run to where-were-you-when, and olds will (always) shock to youngs recalling how the principal interrupted Mr. Griffith’s math class to deliver the news. Many will at some point become lost in thought, staring at the bluebird sky. This is never not a depressing day.

So, of course, you should cook tonight. You should cook to bring comfort to yourself and to others. You should cook because cooking is a civilized, cultured act. It is the opposite of violence, of hatred, of fear.

Planning to spend an unexpected day off in the kitchen, making a big pot of red beans, and also some kimchi. I might work through one of David Harvey’s Lectures on Capital while I do.

What are your plans?

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