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HELLO and welcome to the 159th 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 Reese Witherspoon! 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.
Reese Witherspoon Has Always Been Wild, by Anne Helen Peterson for Buzzfeed, December 2014
I think that my ability to read extensive things about movie stars basically comes down do this: did Anne Helen Peterson write the thing? If yes, then okay, I’m on board. This was good. Also y’all need to see Freeway if you haven’t already, it’s a really cool movie.
Does The Handmaid’s Tale Hold Up?, by Adi Robertson for The Verge, December 2014
This was an intense and glorious look back at the book I was reading the week of 9/11, which creeped me out then and continues to. It lingers. And Margaret Atwood is the best and continues to be. I didn’t necessarily agree with all of this author’s points, but they were worth thinking about regardless.
Why I Still Love Rent, by Sandra Allen for Buzzfeed, December 2014
On loving RENT, then and now and forever, even if, in retrospect, some of it seems kinda dumb. This article can live in my house and I’ll be its shelter.
The Personal and The Believable, by Tiana Reid for Full Stop, October 2014
“This summer I felt like I was trying to make sense of a senseless place. Most of the time I wanted to shout, “People are dying! People are dead!” but I was alive so I felt somehow indebted to a sort of logic of tempered feelings, which isn’t so much about being alive but about being dead and breathing. So I didn’t shout. Instead I enveloped myself in the work of two very different creative producers, the poet Fanny Howe and the hip-hop group Shabazz Palaces. This summer I believed in them, at a particular moment when I felt very much like not being in the world at all.”
Inside The Universal Life Church, the Internet’s One True Religion, by Aaron Sankin for The Kernal, December 2014
The story behind that place that gave me the certificate that enabled me to marry these crazy kids earlier this year. It is not the story that I expected, that is for damn sure.
Why We Love Crime Fiction, by Neal Conan for NPR, August 2009
In which Neal Conan talks to Law & Order executive producer Rene Balcer and mystery writer Walter Mosely about why I’m addicted to Law & Order.
Life On The Land, by John Camp, May – December 1985
This took me a while to get through but it was worth it, if you want to read about the life of a family farm circa 1985 and how to dry hay and shit like that. I loved it.
The Limits of Jurisdiction, by Erin Siegal McIntyre for Guernica, December 2014
A couple adopted a child from Guatemala, where giving up one’s child for adoption to American parents is often the best way to make ends meet, but they believe that the child was abandoned when in fact she was not, her parents are alive and want her back and she was kidnapped. So this is how that happened and what happened next.
That RENT article spoke to my whole heart! I posted a Facebook status on exactly December 24th 9PM Eastern Standard Time that from here on in I shoot without a script… I felt like it was under appreciated as far as statuses go, but I was pretty happy about it
Live in my hooouuuuuse/
I’ll be your shelterrrrr/
Just pay me baaaaaaack/
With 1,000 kisses.
Be my loverrr,
And I’ll….. Cover you.
——————
(I taught myself that whole soundtrack in 7th grade. And I can still do any number on command.)
So I just sang I’ll Cover You alone in my house and I fucking WENT for it because when it comes to loving Rent you just gotta give it up and have no shame
ohhhhhhhh lover
I’ll cover you
yeahhh-eahhh-eahhh-eaahh-eaaa-aaa-aaaa-aaa-aaaaah
Ughhhh you guyz that song gives me all the feels. What am I saying, the whole soundtrack does that… I just opened so many tabs to read when I can see straight again.
It’s simply indescribable what Tiana Reid’s essay made me feel- thank you for that, Reading that piece was a sensory experience, kinship found in this feeling of the world burning all around us, while everyone seems content with what is directly in front of them.
My favorite line, “What does it mean to cry during the morning news? And should I be worried when I don’t?”
I’ve said this somewhere before, but this may be my favorite part of Autostraddle, this curation of weekly essays that just makes me feeeeelllll all typa things
RENT saved my life, ruined my life, and made me gay. The show was my life when I was 15-16, when I was sickest (and in some ways caused me to get so sick)… The first time I realized that a) I was attracted to women, and b) that it was okay was through RENT. I could write a whole essay on my relationship with RENT…I probably already have.
so far i’ve read two of these. the one about the adoption from guatemala…wow. i can’t believe stuff like that can still happen, although i guess i shouldn’t be surprised.
and the reese witherspoon one made me think about how i categorize actors that i like too; WHY do i like them? not because i know them, but because of how i perceive their personalities to be because of the media and the roles they take. food for thought.
great picks, as always.
Thank you for that RENT article. The first time I ever saw the show was with my first girlfriend; I was 18 and I still remember being in standing room behind the orchestra section of the Nederlander theater, and kissing her during “I’ll Cover You.” So much of my late teens and early 20s was wrapped up in that show and the people I met because of it, that I don’t think I’ll ever stop loving it.