Cool Things July 2022
Sharing the best of what I read, watched, and listened to in the past month.
Happy July! It’s been a hot one. I hope you’ve managed to keep cool and shaded as you go about your summer. As for me, I’m wrapping things up at my current job and preparing for the big move in August, when I’ll be relocating to a new state for law school. I’m excited but I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t nervous too. I’ll touch back with you next month about how it all went.
Next week, I’ll be camping in the Upper Peninsula with some dear old friends—it’s one of the last items on my bucket list that I want to knock off before I move. I’ll let you know how that goes too. Maybe include a couple photographs in the August Cool Things, assuming I snap any worth sharing!
Here’s the best of what I read, watched, and listened to in the past month.
Things I read
I’m a ridiculously slow reader. It took me six months to get halfway through Dune only for me to end up abandoning it then and there. So don’t be fazed when I admit I’m still working through Sally Rooney’s Beautiful World, Where Are You. I still solidly recommend it. As a slice-of-life novel, I wouldn’t say it has much in terms of a plot, or at least the plot isn’t really the focus—more of a backdrop for the characters’ reflections on modern society and for the relationships that blossom between them. About halfway through, I feel less like I’m being told a story and more like I’m peering into the brains of two very intelligent, very well-spoken Irish women. Still a treat, but I’ll let you know if it picks up in the second half.
Here are articles I read over the last month that I wanted to highlight:
“A New Deal for Public Safety” by David Alexis and Alexis Vitale in Gotham Gazette
David Alexis is running for New York State Senate in Brooklyn’s 21st District and one of the candidates on DSA’s Green New Deal Slate. From what I’ve seen he’s a good candidate and I ask that socialists and progressives volunteer for his campaign if possible. DSA Ecosocialism is organizing regular phonebanks for Alexis as well as their other candidates. More information here.
“Beware the Wreckers” by A. Robert Miller in Mass
I don’t know if I agree with everything said here, and in my opinion it spends far too long building a psychological profile of the hypothetical wrecker rather than doing something more productive, like laying out a framework for how we can attempt to reform wreckers or—if removing them from our organizations becomes necessary—how we can go about that in a way that is accountable and preserves internal democracy. But I’m very grateful someone wrote it anyway, because I do genuinely believe that we have wreckers in DSA (and across the Left), and that too many people are refusing to admit it. It’s about time we start talking about the issue in force.
“Beyond Birth and Death” by Thich Nhat Hanh in Lion’s Roar
Thay’s writing always comforts me like an old friend. This is yet another piece of his that has been like a salve for me when beset with fear and dread. I’d like to call attention to this passage specifically:
Who can say that your mother has passed away? You cannot describe her as being or nonbeing, alive or dead, because these notions belong to the historical dimension. When you touch your mother in the ultimate dimension, you see that she is still with you. The same is true of a flower. A flower may pretend to be born, but it has always been there in other forms. Later it may pretend to die, but we should not be fooled. She is just playing a game of hide-and-seek. She reveals herself to us and then hides herself away.
“Does Bail Reform Lead to More Crime?” by Ethan Corey in The Appeal
A great article that deconstructs the pro-carceral narratives around bail reform that establishment media and politicians have been pushing so shamelessly. I’d like to pull out this quote here:
[E]ven if bail reform did lead to a marginal increase in crime rates, the benefits of reducing pretrial incarceration could still be worth the cost. Across the country, nearly five million people go to jail every year. Any honest discussion of bail reform has to weigh these concrete benefits—fewer lost jobs, fewer evictions, fewer children in foster care—against the uncertain prospect that a small increase in crime might follow.
“Nonpolice Public Safety Alternatives Work. Denver’s STAR Program Proves It.” by Joe Mayall in Jacobin
“Police Departments Spend Vast Sums of Money Creating ‘Copaganda’” by Alex Karakatsanis in Jacobin
“The Supreme Court Has Always Been a Reactionary Body,” an interview with Aziz Rana, Amna A. Akbar, and Marbre Stahly-Butts in Jacobin
“The Only Way Out Is Through” by Eric Baker in The Bias
Things I watched
I watched two movies this month: Moneyball and 1917. As someone who finally learned how to appreciate baseball at age 22 (despite being named after a baseball player), I loved Moneyball. I found Brad Pitt and Jonah Hill’s performances—even Chris Pratt’s—to be refreshingly organic. It’s certainly the best acting I’ve ever seen from the latter two, although the former, of course, has plenty of excellent roles under his belt. Say what you will about Brad Pitt, but that man acts his heart out.
I also started watching Band of Brothers. I went through an enormous World War II phase when I was a younger (as I’m sure just about every male American pre-teen does) and a lot of the sentiments I held then have been reactivated as a result. I know consuming American war fiction is a fraught venture. It’s easy to fall into the rabbit hole of jingoism and American exceptionalism. But I’d like to think there’s an exception for WWII media where the antagonists are the two most successful fascist empires the world has yet seen. Maybe that’s just me clinging to the vestiges of my childhood naivete—my desire, rooted in me by culture and education, to see America as the good guys—but what can I say? It’s how I feel.
And you certainly can’t accuse Band of Brothers of glorifying war. No, on the contrary, it makes war look like shit. An absolute nightmare—hell on earth for everyone involved, which it is. So I think it gets a couple points for that. For what it’s worth, I think it’s very impressively written and shot, and Damien Lewis is excellent in it, although his performance is definitely another case of an English actor trying way too hard to sound American (see Dominic West’s James McNulty in the first season of The Wire). I’d say my favorite part so far has been the sixth episode, “Bastogne,” which follows Easy Company’s medic, Technician Eugene Roe, expertly played by Shane Taylor. Plus, you see a bunch of young faces popping up playing surprisingly small roles compared to what they’re up to these days—Simon Pegg, Michael Fassbender, James McAvoy, and Tom Hardy, from what I can remember. Looks like this show helped a lot of British talent to cut their British teeth.
Things I listened to
The following songs have regularly accompanied me in my commutes to and from work this month:
“Blood Bank” by Bon Iver
“Boots of Spanish Leather” by Bob Dylan
“Funeral,” “Garden Song,” and “Moon Song” by Phoebe Bridgers
“The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down” by The Band
I know this song is considered problematic by many. I respect that. However, I choose to interpret it not as a song glorifying the Confederacy, but as a song about how it feels to be totally and utterly defeated, and to have suffered for a cause that never deserved even an ounce of your pain. That I can relate to, even if I agree that the CSA was rightfully obliterated.
“Wagon Wheel” by Old Crow Medicine Show