HELLO and welcome to the 123rd 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 Clueless! 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.
Grand Unified Theory of Female Pain (April 2014), by Leslie Jamison for The Virginia Quarterly Review – Fuck this essay slayed me. On pain, on cutting, on suicide, on who is the wound, on anorexia, on all that tough hurty stuff. It’s really long and hypnotized me. She even quotes Caroline Knapp, whose book Appetites changed my life. OBVIOUSLY it’s by the same person who wrote that amazing thing for The Believer about being a fake patient for doctors in med school. Leslie Jamison is a thing. I mean that.
Social Skills or Stereotypes? What My Autism Classes Didn’t Teach Me (April 2014), by Emily Brooks for Autostraddle – Okay, this one is actually on our website. But I would recommend it even if I’d read it somewhere else! It’s about social skills classes they teach autistic kids and how the heteronormativity of these classes can really fuck with a queer girl’s head.
My Childhood in an Apocalyptic Cult (April 2014), by Flor Edwards for narrative.ly – The main takeaway here is that Seventeen Magazine‘s “Are You in a Cult?” quiz actually was applicable to somebody after all. No really, this is some crazy shit.
The Legend of Vera Nabakov (April 2014), by Kida Beck for The Atlantic – “The rarity of spouses like Vladimir Nabokov’s, who dedicated her life to supporting his career, may be hindering gender parity in literature.”
What Life is Like Where Getting Your Period Means That You Are Shunned (March 2014), by Rose George for Jezebel – Photography and journalism from the village of Jamu, in Nepal, where “chhaupadi,” the practice of keeping girls and women apart from the rest of the village when they are menstruating, is still in effect.
I Packed My Knives And Went Aboard the Top Chef Cruise (April 2014), by Max Silvestri for Eater. ANNOUNCEMENT TO PEOPLE WHO PAY WRITERS TO GO ON WEIRD CRUISES AND WRITE ABOUT THEM: PLEASE E-MAIL ME. Really. I think America is SO weird and themed cruises are SO contrived and also so contained that I can’t help but be fascinated by what happens aboard.
A Star Player Accused, A Flawed Rape Investigation (April 2014), By Walt Bogdanch for The New York Times – Well, this is SO FUCKED UP.
Oh wow, so The Dissolve, which is this mind-blowingly good website about film, did its Movie of the Week on Clueless last week, so obviously I ate that up, especially 1990s Pop Culture and Teen Slang, As Seen Through Clueless’ Eyes. Then there’s also Clueless’ Big Confidence Sells Its Small Stakes, another winning piece. You can just immerse yourself in SO MUCH CLULESS.
That cult piece is great. I did a bunch of research a while back on the Children of God (who still exist as Family International) for a play I wrote, most specifically on the “flirty fishing,” when the women would have to prostitute themselves for Jesus. Creepy, heinous stuff. But that is AMAZING that she figured it out from taking a Seventeen quiz! I clearly never took those quizzes seriously enough.
I am a proud melodramatic person. I have some really strong feels in my feelings at times. :D
Note to self, don’t read absurdly articulate essays on female pain while mildly delirious with flu.
I may not recover.
Okay so I hope this is is common knowledge but I’m pretty sure it isn’t: autism therapy is super fucked, period. http://unstrangemind.wordpress.com/2013/01/27/no-you-dont
So I went to FSU and honestly this article didn’t surprise me at all. What did is how many of my friends cried “guilty until proven innocent” about the NYTimes article, which – it’s not even about Jameis Winston! It’s about the ridiculous police departments and the rape culture there. If there’s a hiking trail just outside of campus that students call “the rape trail” I think you have a problem.