HELLO and welcome to the 162nd installment of Things I Read That I Love, wherein I share with you some of the longer-form journalism/essays I’ve read recently so that you can read them too and we can all know more about IKEA! This “column” is less feminist/queer focused than the rest of the site because when something is feminist/queer focused, I put it on the rest of the site. Here is where the other things are.
The title of this feature is inspired by the title of Emily Gould’s tumblr, Things I Ate That I Love.
Pam and Tommy: The Untold Story of the World’s Most Infamous Sex Tape, by Amanda Chicago Lewis for Rolling Stone, December 2014
The most interesting part of this for me was honestly remembering how different internet technology was back then, how relatively new it was to leak a sex tape to begin with. VINTAGE.
House Perfect, by Lauren Collins for The New Yorker, October 2011
OH SO MUCH INFO ABOUT IKEA AND HOW THEY DO WHAT THEY DO AND HOW WE ALL HAVE BILLY BOOKSHELVES YOU’LL LIKE THIS.
Nicholas Sparks Has Been to Bed with 97 Million Women, by Andrew Corsello for GQ, October 2014
I’ve still managed to not read any of his books or see any of his movies but my, what an earnest man this man is.
Say what you will about Nicholas Sparks, the man knows his audiences. Both of them: the millions of American women who love his books and movies, and the millions of American men who are increasingly, inexorably, book by book and movie by movie, having their manhoods measured and molded by Nicholas Sparks and the code of morality, lovemaking, and letter writing his male heroes follow.
The Day I Left My Son in The Car, by Kim Brooks for Salon, December 2014
This lady left her son in the car for a minute ’cause he didn’t wanna come in to the store and her son is okay but she has been paying for that moment for the rest of her life. It’s very interesting, w/r/t helicopter parenting, what can we ever really protect children from, etc.
Eventually, We All Become Members Of the Dead Dad Club, by Erica Price, December 2014
I too am in the club, I too have used the term “Dead Dad Club.” Here we all are in our club. The author of this essay has a very different relationship with her father than I did but there were still so many things in it that rang true, I guess that’s from being in the club, isn’t it.
The Failure of Bystander Intervention, by Lauren Chief Elk and Shaadi Devereaux for The New Inquiry, December 2014
“Relying on who is most physically capable on a given day and on the unpredictable response of the perpetrator is not the answer to ending sexual assault. In fact, bystander intervention further serves to uphold a culture of patriarchy in which whoever can most effectively carry out violence, on institutional and physical levels, is most able to successfully carry out his agenda. There can be serious consequences to physically intervening. Bystanders who “did what they were supposed to” have ended up injured, incarcerated or killed.”
Tarek Mehanna’s Sentencing Statement, by Tarek Mehanna for History is a Weapon, April 2012
“Everything I learned in those years confirmed what I was beginning to learn when I was six: that throughout history, there has been a constant struggle between the oppressed and their oppressors. With each struggle I learned about, I found myself consistently siding with the oppressed, and consistently respecting those who stepped up to defend them – regardless of nationality, regardless of religion. And I never threw my class notes away. As I stand here speaking, they are in a neat pile in my bedroom closet at home.”
My issue with Nicholas Sparks is that he is a copy and paste type of writer. All of his main characters are interchangeable. He writes a certain kind of white woman and a certain kind of white man. And they all live in a certain kind of small Southern town. The Notebook was good but I haven’t cared for many of his other stories because they all feel like the same story over and over with a few things changed. I mean good for him I guess for sticking with what works and making a shit ton of money. I’m just saying he’s not an interesting writer and I’m over reading the same story from him.
i heard a statistic that ikea accounts for a third of the worlds wood consumption, some obscene number like that. I’m an environmental science major,ikea has me torn. i suspect i’ll be all in the feels about that article
I read a week or so ago, that Nicholas Sparks and his wife are getting a divorce. I wonder how that will impact the popularity of his books.
I saw that, too. He spoke at our library once (waaaay long ago, when he was new on the scene, i.e. cheap to bring in), and he made a HUGE deal of being the ultimate husband, etc. and told all sorts of I-love-my-wife stories. I know things change, but I’m giving that whole talk a side-eye now.*
*attended as an employee
A friend of mine’s dad just died a few weeks ago. Upon reading about the “Dead Dad Club,” my first thought was that I should forward her the article.
On second thought…better not. :P
There was no IKEA close by here until recently, so I’ve never had anything from there (it’s still nearly 2 hours away). Because my entire family (many generations) is collectively preparing to be on Hoarders, I only have two new pieces of furniture (do not read as “antique”– just read as “old”) that I didn’t scavenge from someone, so the whole modern aesthetic kind of leaves me cold, anyway.
Of course, that does mean I’m sitting here using a washstand (missing a mirror) as a side table . . .