The Bluestocking, Vol XII: Vintage Biden, overshare overload and "Uber for laundry"
Evening all,
A relatively quiet week for me, as we gear up for the Non-Stop Funstravaganza that is Labour party conference. I shouldn't mock, because it's going to be a more interesting one than I've ever seen before: actual policy (for example on Trident renewal) looks set to be decided there.
Plus Jeremy Corbyn's speech is a big moment - although very few people will watch it live, clips will filter through to the news bulletin, and if he nails a great line or theme, it could cut through to busy people who have better things to do in their lives than worry over the machinations of the Labour party.
I'll leave you with not one but TWO longreads on the subject. The Guardian's version (highlight: the junior league Malcolm Tucker swearing heartily about the nomination process) and the Financial Times's, which features this immortal quote from Chris Leslie: "I keep thinking I will wake up and Bobby Ewing will step out of the shower.”
Helen
PS. They've finally killed the French royal family in A Place of Greater Safety, so I think I might actually finish it this year!
Death and the All-American Boy
"I’m a screaming liberal when it comes to senior citizens because I really think they are getting screwed. I’m a liberal on health care because I believe it is a birth right of every human being—not just some damn privilege to be meted out to a few people. But when it comes to issues like abortion, amnesty, and acid, I’m about as liberal as your grandmother. I don’t like the Supreme Court decision on abortion. I think it went too far. I don’t think that a woman has the sole right to say what should happen to her body. I support a limited amnesty, and I don’t think marijuana should be legalized. Now, if you still think I’m a liberal, let me tell you that I support the draft. I’m scared to death of a professional army."
This 1974 profile of US vice-president Joe Biden, and possible Democratic presidential candidate, is a reminder that people don't change much. He's still just as verbose and gaffe-prone and oddly endearing, four decades on. (For comparison: the New Yorker's epic 2014 profile.)
Life as a first-person essay human trafficker
"I’m about as far away from an 18-year-old porn star as they come, but as a former first-person human trafficker (let’s hope they use that in the headline; really clicky!), these days I attempt to give myself the same level of compassion that I gave to the writers whose pieces I commissioned.
Happily, what has changed for me since I first lay catatonic three years ago is an acceptance and a coming to grips with the seemingly endless stream of feedback — the outside world's and my own. And some of that feedback is good. I’ve had at least a dozen people tell me they’ve gotten and remained sober as a result of my writing; I receive about one email a month from people who have gone through a breakup saying my words comforted them; and in my greatest achievement, I somehow managed to jockey a story about reasons not to kill yourself into a good position on Google's search, and it's a regular event to get notes from people saying the piece helped them make a better choice."
Enjoyable writing on what it's like to commission for XOJane's uber-confessional strand It Happened To Me. The writer eventually concludes that mining your life for terrible experiences is actually good for you, although her alcohol problems and family fallout suggest that might not entirely be the case. (Also in today's unreliable narrator section, a person with diagnosed anger issues defends outrage culture because they enjoy shouting at people online.) ***
Check out these amazing photos (and the occasionally pretentious captions) from the NYT's Voyages Issue.
HOW TO LOSE WEIGHT IN 4 EASY STEPS
"That night, you deadlift your body weight. You sneak a photo of yourself in the mirror and email it to yourself with the subject heading “You Are A Warrior”. The next day you are disgusted with yourself and delete it."
Well, this was unexpectedly emotional. People kept sharing it on social media, and I was like: why is everyone so interested in losing weight all of a sudden? ***
Quick links: When people start talking about the transformative power of "Uber for laundry", count the spoons. The Stonewall movie sounds argh, unsurprisingly. Is Hamlet Fat? (No.) Why online newspapers need a "Spotify, but for the Titanic" so they survive the Adblockalypse. Is the concept of microaggression overused? (Yes.) Are rules about sexual harassment titled against men? (Maybe.) Why journalism is getting more emotional. Why annotating is having a moment (although please gods, let's not calling it "tating"). Donald Trump and the White Nationalists. The one caption that works on all New Yorker cartoons. People get really angry about disputed celebrity heights. "You had the Fappening, you had the Emma Watson Hoax you had Gamergate, you had the Ebola-chan thing . . . " Yeah, I'm not surprised Moot offloaded 4Chan either. Jonathan Franzen's arch, postmodern smugness is so powerful it can even permeate pieces by people castigating other journalists for going birdwatching with Jonathan Franzen while also going bird-watching with Jonathan Franzen. Lunch with the FT meets Ta-Nehisi Coates.
GIF OF THE WEEK:
... and that's it. Feedback to helenlewisbook@gmail.com (particularly if you know how to do Pocket links, because someone asked for them once and I completely forgot to look up how to do that).
Also, if you like this newsletter - tell your friends! Forward this on, and here's the sign-up link.