#jamie you are so female coded in this episode I swear

[youwillfindilluminating]

I want to read several essays on the commodification of sex and Jamie seeing his body as currency.

For football, for pleasing other people through sex, for literally being on a show where the point is to have the most sex.

His dad taught him from the age of 14 that the most important measure of “being a man” was having sex (and winning games).

Even when Roy brings up how traumatic that must have been, Jamie’s first “joke” is basically, “oh don’t worry, she enjoyed herself.” He completely ignores his own feelings about the interaction and implies that it only matters if she had a good time or not. If he did a good job.

[reminiscent-bells]

what I’ve been reading V

I frequently save news articles, essays, short stories, etc. to my phone to read when I have time to kill. Here are my favorites from 2017.

I use the Instapaper app to read these on my phone. Previous editions are here: one two three four

BIOGRAPHIES, INTERVIEWS, AND PEOPLE OF INTEREST

How One Las Vegas ED Saved Hundreds of Lives After the Worst Mass Shooting in U.S. History - This is heavy on the medical jargon but is still a fascinating read.

Keepers of the Secrets - “I was told that the most interesting man in the world works in the archives division of the New York Public Library, and so I went there, one morning this summer, to meet him.”

A High-End Mover Dishes on Truckstop Hierarchy, Rich People, and Moby Dick - The weird world of a high-end moving company.

The princess myth: Hilary Mantel on Diana - Mantel could never release another novel and just blog about the British royal family and I’d read it every single day.

The Iconoclast - A doctor doggedly pursues a new form of cancer treatment that yields incredible results.

The Brutality of the Barkley Marathons - I think I put something up about the Barkley Marathon every year, but it’s endlessly fascinating to me.

Patrick Stewart Will Look Great Forever - A light celebrity puff piece, sure, but Stewart’s charm comes through even here.

The Librarian of Congress and the Greatness of Humility - A great profile on Dr. Carla Hayden, the first female person of color to be Librarian of Congress.

Alex Haley Interviews Martin Luther King, Jr. - See title.

FOOD

What Would it Take for an American Guy to Become Danish? - I rarely read travel articles that make me want to go to the place depicted immediately, but this is an exception.

A Last Dinner in the Jungle - Eating in France’s largest refugee camp.

Why the “Hot New Food Town” Must Die - See title.

Slop Machines - If you’re getting pork off a Vegas buffet table, it probably ate the same stuff you’re eating.

Revenge of the Lunch Lady - A very different perspective on Jamie Oliver and American school lunches.

CRIME AND POLICING

The Curious Case of the Disappearing Nuts - Thieves stage elaborate heists to steal nuts. Yes, like the kind you eat.

HISTORY

Beneath the Yew Tree’s Shade - On the association between yew trees and death.

The Long Way Round - The unbelievable true story of a Pan Am flight that essentially had to circumnavigate the Earth after Pearl Harbor, this will end up as a movie someday.

Untitled blog post on Roman inheritance law -  The sources on this are pretty thin, but the thesis - that all of Western civilization as we know it is predicated on Roman inheritance law - leads to some fascinating reading.

At War With the Rat Army - A family fleeing Nazi Germany wages war on a vicious rat population.

When Fairfield County Was the Comic-Strip Capital of the World - An intriguing look into the Sunday funnies.

SPORTS

A 15-Year-Old (Sorta-Maybe) Basketball Prodigy - What it’s like to be courted by Division I basketball programs before you can drive.

Colin Kaepernick is called a distraction, but from what? - Argues an excellent point about media coverage of Kaepernick.

Why President Trump ignites Gregg Popovich - I was not familiar with Popovich prior to this year - this is an interesting profile.

GAMES (VIDEO AND OTHERWISE)

The Uncanny Resurrection of Dungeons and Dragons - Tabletop RPGs seem to have had a great year, as this piece discusses. (Now if only I could get my buddy to pull the trigger on his Curse of Strahd game...)

Exit the Dungeon Master: Tonys Rehearsal Is Calling - See above.

Game Maker Avery Alder on the Mechanics of Care - A palate cleanser after all the D&D talk above.

Your load is too heavy: Zork deep reading - Analyzing inventory management in a classic text adventure yields some interesting insights.

How to Make an Escape Room - See title.

Far Cry 5 Is About Living Under Fear in America - An extremely good piece by extremely good guy Austin Walker.

Dwarf Fortress creator Tarn Adams talks about simulating the most complex magic system ever - A great check-in with the strange, wonderful Dwarf Fortress behemoth.

Quadrliateral Cowboy Points to a Different Kind of Intimacy in Games - I came to Quadrilateral Cowboy for the programming/stealth puzzles, but I stuck around for the little snippets of your crew between jobs.

PLACES AND TRAVEL

A ‘tale of decay’: The Houses of Parliament are falling down - See title.

Building in the Shadow of Our Own Destruction - See title (n.b. I did not intentionally start this section with these two)

The death and life of the great British pub - I swear to God, this order isn’t intentional.

What Happened to Worcester? - A good profile on a good city.

TECHNOLOGY

Modern Media Is a DoS Attack on Your Free Will - I’ve heard the premise of this article repeated multiple times, but this is the first time it actually clicked for me.

Something is wrong on the internet - I’ve proselytized for James Bridle here before, but this piece of his on children and YouTube that went viral (in my tech circle, at least) is required reading.

The Judge’s Code - On William Alsup, a federal judge who has become something of a celebrity for his handling of huge technology cases.

The Founder of Pinboard on Why Understanding Fandom is Good For Business - Another guy I’ve stumped for, Maciej Ceglowski, talks about his surprising success in working with fandoms on his bookmarking service Pinboard.

Where Pizza Rat, fake news, and art collide, there’s a wizard named Zardulu - “Art criminal” Zardulu seeks to break down the boundaries of reality. See also this excellent Reply All episode.

The Disappearing Computer - Legendary tech columnist Walter Mossberg’s final piece looks ahead to a strange new future.

Who is Anna-Senpai, the Mirai Worm Author? - A captivating piece on revealing the author of a malignant piece of software.

THE FINE ARTS

Do Androids Dream of Colossal Women? - On the preponderance of giant women in science fiction movies.

Ridley Scott breaks silence on replacing Kevin Spacey in All the Money in the World - See title.

Why Black Men Love Dragon Ball Z - See title.

The First Woman to Translate The Odyssey Into English - See title. I read The Odyssey this year in the Fagles translation, but I actually might go back and read Emily Wilson’s version looking at the excerpts here.

Outlawry, Supervillains, and Modern Law - An entertaining perspective on how supervillains might be handled by courts in the world of comics.

How the Palmer House’s Actual Homeowner Ended Up in Twin Peaks: The Return’s Final Scene - A fun peek inside the most unsettling scene on TV this year.

The Secret History of Dune - A hefty chunk of Frank Herbert’s inspiration is revealed.

I Grew Up in A John Hughes Movie - On the surprising accuracy of Hughes’ films.

The Persistence of Prog Rock - I’ll stump for The Alan Parsons Project until my dying day.

Margaret Atwood on What The Handmaid’s Tale Means in the Age of Trump - See title.

The Sad, Beautiful Fact That We’re All Going to Miss Almost Everything - On completionism, and why it’s impossible.

The Teenage Dreamland of Twin Peaks - Reflections on coming of age with Twin Peaks.

This Is Not an Interview with Poppy - See title?

Where It Was: Rereading Stephen King’s It on Its 30th Anniversary - See title.

The Jedi as samurai vs. the Jedi as ninja - Not exactly heavy intellectual material, but an interesting perspective on trying to make sense of Star Wars.

FICTION

The Woman of the House - Some housepainters find themselves in an unusual situation.

Under river, outside time: The Woolwich Foot Tunnel Anomaly - A crew of workmen discover some unusual qualities to a job site.