HELLO and welcome to the 322nd 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 know more about butt lifts!!! 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.
Will You Ever Change?, by Amelia Schonbek for New York Magazine, July 2021
In the field of restorative justice, survivors are consenting to face-to-face meetings with abusers (not necessarily their own abuser, but an abuser) to help their own process and a society “overwhelmed with bad behavior.”
The Aldi Effect, by Xan Rice for The Guardian, March 2019
I have never been to Aldi but now my curiosity has been PEAKED about this bare-bones German supermarket that slowly rose the ranks of the British grocery market. The guys who eventually founded Aldi were once the guys who opened Germany’s first self-service supermarket in the 50s! FUN FACTS EVERYWHERE. Like all good business profiles, this is about Aldi but it’s also about the supermarket industry in general.
The $5,000 quest for the perfect butt, by Rebecca Jennings for Vox, August 2021
How the Brazilian Butt Lift went mainstream and women worldwide are in search of an aesthetic “most often associated with the Instagram influencer, whose body exists to be consumed by the most people possible.”
What Happened in Room 10? by Katie Engelhart for California Sunday Magazine, August 2020
The Life Care Center in Kirkland, Washington, was the U.S.’s first COVID hot spot. This is how it happened. It’s a long story because it’s a long story and there’s also a lot to know about how the nursing home industry functions to begin with.
In the Food Swamps of LA, McDonald’s Was Our Lifeboat, by An Uong for Eater, March 2019
McChicken sandwiches tasted nothing like the Vietnamese food we knew, but they achieved something magical by being at once warm, filling, and cheap. There was a thrill in feeling so full after spending so little.
The Prescient Power of The Rosie O’Donnell Show, by Ashley Spencer for New York Magazine, June 2021
What a wonderful time to look back on The Rosie O’Donnell Show and how “as a gay woman running a talk show in the very much still white, straight, male TV milieu of the ’90s, O’Donnell confirms she sought to hire other women and “as many out gay people as we could.” She couldn’t be out, and Judy Gold tells Vulture, “I used to say, if Middle America only knew that this show was put on by a bunch of gay people and their friends, we would change the world.”
When Does an Accident Become a Crime?, by Michael Hall for Texas Monthly, March 2019
After a day of golfing and drinking and dinner and drinking at On the Border, James Fulton got in his car to drive home, crossed into oncoming traffic, and killed a young woman. Cops on the scene bafflingly declared it an accident and Fulton not at fault, but the Smith County DA and the victim’s family didn’t see it that way.
Gold Dust Woman, by Niela Orr for The Believer, August 2021
Few modern Americans embody this country’s fixation with quasi-majestic iconography like Whitney Houston, heir to the throne of a musical dynasty, and whose own battles with her father over money and personal freedom (he’d reportedly tried to pay someone to break her best friend’s legs) made her a kind of precursor to the Britney Spears we now know, although she is rarely regarded that way.
The Business of Marriage, by Linda Besner for Hazlitt, January 2021
I moved in with my partner not long before we got married, and for the preceding ten years, aside from a brief, sad stint at a previous boyfriend’s, I had lived alone. I loved living by myself. In the life I knew, I was dictator and sole citizen of my personal republic. Our national drink was instant Nescafé; our national dish was spaghetti. Our flora was a single valiant cyclamen. Our anthem was silence.
Ooh this is a hot bunch of links Riese!! I can’t wait to read that Aldi article. I once lived across the street from an Aldi in Chicago and it was fucking wonderful.
Ok, that whole article was wildly interesting and I was surprised by that quote about “you can’t do business sitting on your arse” (approx.) because at every Aldi I’ve been to the cashiers are seated!
https://www.mashed.com/219957/the-real-reason-aldi-cashiers-sit-behind-the-register/
Don’t supermarket cashiers normally sit in the US? You’re supposed to stand for hours at a job that can be done just as well sitting down? Why?
No they are usually standing! It’s pretty unusual for them to be sitting. They do move around a bit tho, like register to conveyer belt to bagging area etc. a lot of pivoting I guess?
Clicked on this VERY quickly when saw mention of Aldi/supermarket article. And although it’s very likely I have read that article before, I still feel my haste was justified.
I remember how mystified my (Canadian) wife was trying to get her head around the weird class/hierarchy we seem to have for supermarkets in Britain. Which shouldn’t be a surprise considering we have weird class/hierarchy for everything!
Here to plug An Uong and her other writing; she is a columnist at Catapult and her other work is similarly delicious. She is no longer living in LA, but all her writing is of LA.
https://www.anuonganuong.com/writing
Drinking (at least) 12 units of alcohol, choosing to drive drunk, and killing someone, is not an accident.
He also admitted to routinely driving while intoxicated. It wasn’t a tragedy; it was a crime, and an entirely predictable consequence of driving while drunk, *which is why driving while drunk is a crime*.
I cannot fathom why the Fulton family felt wronged, or how Audrey had the bare faced gall to stand up in a church and weepily demand sympathy from the other congregants.
And that so many commenters on the original article are attacking the family of the girl he killed, and denigrating the court system.
Do I think rehab is better than prison? Sure.
Does that make him innocent? No.
It’s still baffling and bizarre how many people are insisting that James Fulton is some sort of victim. I am horrified that he was released a year later.
church, the victim being female, and the perpetrator being male probably has a lot to do with how that scene played out. if he killed another white guy family man, innocence might have been a tougher sell there.
I wonder if social class is a factor here as well. Haile Beasley was a dental hygienist; Fulton drank at an exclusive club and owned multiple businesses. Maybe if he’d killed someone who went to his country club people would be less eager to pretend that choosing to drive drunk and killing someone = accident.
Seriously! I couldn’t believe this! Is the justice system corrupt? Yes. Did this guy drink and drive and kill a girl? YES!!!
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