The Bluestocking, vol 255

the muffled thud of fire in the hole

Happy Friday!

I know what you’re thinking. Helen, have you been on any podcasts lately?

Great question. I recorded this conversation with Josh Szeps—about the ethics of circumcision, abortion and meat-eating; my answer to sex segregation in sports; and a frankly baffling 20 minutes at the start about America’s lack of kettles and the corrupt nature of journalism awards—last year, but it’s just come out this week.

Helen

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The Dark Power of Fraternities (The Atlantic)

“One warm spring night in 2011, a young man named Travis Hughes stood on the back deck of the Alpha Tau Omega fraternity house at Marshall University, in West Virginia, and was struck by what seemed to him—under the influence of powerful inebriants, not least among them the clear ether of youth itself—to be an excellent idea: he would shove a bottle rocket up his ass and blast it into the sweet night air.

And perhaps it was an excellent idea. What was not an excellent idea, however, was to misjudge the relative tightness of a 20-year-old sphincter and the propulsive reliability of a 20-cent bottle rocket. What followed ignition was not the bright report of a successful blastoff, but the muffled thud of fire in the hole.”

My editor described this 2014 intro by Caitlin Flanagan as perhaps the best he’s ever read. I have to agree, although I think he might live to regret implicitly encouraging me to include more crude humour in my articles.

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Quick Links

1. “[Curtis] Yarvin gained a substantial far-right following and became incredibly influential by insisting that . . .Real power in our country . . . is wielded by what he calls “The Cathedral”—elite media and academic institutions that collectively define and enforce in cultural and moral terms what counts as truth and lies, acceptable and unacceptable positions, with those distinctions sliding inexorably in a leftward direction over time.” Curtis Yarvin is sort of the American Dominic Cummings—except, like everything in America, way more extreme. (Persuasion, Substack)

2. “A more common way TikTok promotes irrational behavior is with viral trends and “challenges,” where people engage in a specific act of idiocy in the hope it’ll make them TikTok-famous. Acts include licking toilets, snorting suntan lotion, eating chicken cooked in NyQuil, and stealing cars.” The claim here that TikTok is a “Chinese bioweapon” seems overwrought to me, but there’s a lot of interesting nutrition in this piece about the CCP’s very different attitude to regulating social media inside China and what it will export to the west. (Gurwinder, Substack)

3. Where to watch all the Oscars contenders for free/cheap (Twitter).

4. “In Japan, houses are like cars. As soon as you move in, your new home is worth less than what you paid for it and after you've finished paying off your mortgage in 40 years, it is worth almost nothing.” The BBC’s outgoing Japan correspondent reflects on a country with £900 manhole covers and a deep suspicion of change (BBC).

5. Keir Starmer thought: the fact that the Labour leader’s office has had nothing to say about one of its MPs trying to intimidate a colleague is beyond dispiriting.

6. Additional Labour thought: delighted to see the party coming round to my controversial “don’t put rapists in women’s prisons” opinion. Welcome to the Intellectual Dark Web, Yvette Cooper.

7. “Sometimes, it is at the moment of peak achievement that we should feel the most compassion for the achiever, because it is just at that moment when they are learning that their great triumph doesn’t fix the deepest problem they’re grappling with.” This conversation was good enough to tempt me to read a running memoir. (David Epstein, Substack)

8. “Many people treat this controversy as duh-worthy because it’s so obvious to them that gender identity and sexual orientation are very similar things, and of course we wouldn’t want schools to out gay kids to conservative parents.” A very good discussion by Jesse Singal on the thorny issue of how schools should deal with children who want to transition socially—and whether it’s desirable or achievable to keep that secret from their parents (Singal-Minded, Substack).

9. “If you’re obsessing— over someone who ghosted you, over talking to someone, over anything— it’s usually not about them. What does that person represent to you? What emotion did they make you feel? What void are you trying to fill?” I liked this dating advice even though I’m not dating (Default Wisdom, Substack).

10. “‘She will probably ask you what comes to mind when she says the word Marlborough,’ a friend of a friend told me conspiratorially. If you were a true aristocrat you were supposed to say Chalkie—the nickname for the Duke Of Marlborough. If you were upper to middle class then you’d say, ‘Marlborough school.’ If you were a mere plebeian, such as I was, you’d think of the cigarettes your dad probably smoked. Red tops. Which was, of course, the worst possible answer of all.” Farrah Storr on her ambition to work at Vogue House.

11. “A few months ago, FT Alphaville thought it might be fun to host a Mastodon server. Boy, were we wrong!” (Financial Times, £).

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Bluestocking Recommends: Abba Voyage.

A series of great decisions lie behind the success of this Abba-themed concert. First, the venue is right next to a DLR station. It’s well-run, with the food stands keeping a tight menu (so short queues) and Abba have decided not to accept advertising or sponsorship, so the space is an aesthetically pleasing wood cabin, not a shouty billboard for some corporate human-rights abusers. The arena is well laid-out, and the light show is amazing.

The holograms of the band are so good that Jonathan spent half the show staring slack-jawed, like a medieval peasant being shown an iPhone. (There’s a neat trick where the lights go down but you can still see the occasional sequin on their clothes twinkling, as if they’re still there waiting for the next track.) Yes, there is some New Material in the middle, but otherwise the only crime on the setlist is the exclusion of Super Trouper.

Five stars, would go again. I can hear the drums Fernando, thanks for asking.

like it or not, this is what peak male performance looks like

I have to say, if Benny and/or Bjorn turn out to be perverts, I will be devastated. They are my only remaining heroes.

See you next time!