HELLO and welcome to the 201st 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 Oxy! 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.
The Short Corridor: How the Most Isolated Prisoners in America Took on the System, and Won, by Alessandro Camon for The Los Angeles Review Of Books, May 2016
Are we reaching a turning point in the fight against the cruel and unusual punishment of solitary confinement?
“I’m not talking about screaming, like, Oooh … I’m talking about if you could put every emotion of the human spirit, of hopelessness, pain, agony, hatred, all these emotions in.”
Gender-Segregated Public Bathrooms Have A Long, Ugly History, by Shannon Keating for Buzzfeed, May 2016
It’s considered a fact of life but never really has been. The only thing it’s ever been is fucked.
Love In The Age of Big Data, by Eve Fairbanks for Huffington Post Highline, August 2015
Where John had once felt hopelessly bewildered by love, he began to feel as if he could eavesdrop on a couple sitting across from him in a restaurant and get a pretty good sense of their chances of divorce.
Pioneertown Wants To Be The New Old West, by Alyson Krueger for The New York Times, May 2016
In 1946, a group of actors in Westerns, including Roy Rogers, founded Pioneertown in Southern California, where they could shoot their films, live, and work. Now Pioneertown has become a hotspot for a certain kind of traveler, resident and/or entrepreneur. IT LOOKS SO COOL I WANNA GO. There’s a lesbian couple who own a cute restaurant, too!
Life in Chains: The Luxury of Quitting, by Saxon Baird for Eater, May 2016
I expected this to be mostly about curly fries and beef ‘n cheddars, but it wasn’t, it was about undocumented workers and being a teenage American citizen with more freedom than that, and it was more interesting than sandwiches and fries regardless, it turns out.
The Death Of The Great American Sporting Goods Store, by Chavie Lieber for Racked, May 2016
Sports Authority is filing for bankruptcy and other stores are struggling to stay ahead with competition from specialty retailers and e-commerce. Unfortunately, they did not talk about Dunham’s, and I have a lot of questions about Dunham’s. Interesting read, though!
As Women Scorned, by Lauren McKeon for Hazlitt, January 2016
A writer realizes she was better off without the husband who couldn’t seem to stop cheating on her, and does not find salvation in The First Wives Club or the traditional narratives around her situation.
Rent: The Oral History, by Rebecca Milzoff for New York Magazine, May 2016
YES PLEASE THANK YOU I’m sure I’ve read all of this information before but that has not stopped me from wanting to absorb it all once more.
You Want A Description of Hell? Oxycontin’s 12-Hour Problem, by Harriet Ryan, Lisa Girion and Scott Glover for The Los Angeles Times, May 2016
So basically the addiction epidemic happening with Oxycontin is partially created by the drug company itself, because they claim the drug lasts 12 hours and it definitely does not last 12 hours. This is a big investigation and one of the most buzzed-about stories this month.
From Belief to Outrage, by Eli Saslow for The Washington Post, May 2016
The factory that had kept so many workers in this Indiana town financially afloat announces it’s moving to Mexico — what happens next?
The Ups & Downs of Jodie Foster’s Very Unconventional Directing Career, by Kate Arthur for Buzzfeed, May 2016
When I was a kid I wanted to be Jodie Foster when I grew up because she directed Little Man Tate and starred in it and I too wanted to be a writer/director. That didn’t work out for me but it has continued to work out for Jodie Foster!
Cool, so I guess I’m forgoing working for the rest of the day and just reading all of these articles. WOOT.
I think last TIRTIL was #201! This edition is #202!
OOPPPPSSS
Really interesting stuff as usual, thanks!
I have SIX MONTHS of these articles saved up in Pocket to read on my downtime at camp!
What if I don’t have any downtime at camp?!
You won’t have any downtime at camp. (Unless you specifically schedule it in.)
Yeah you won’t, but if you save to Instapaper you could read on your phone while lying in bed
Thank you so much for posting these!
Today this was posted by ProPublica, just the title can give you a stroke: “Machine Bias: There’s software used across the country to predict future criminals. And it’s biased against blacks.”
Don’t you just love how the world evolves? Now we’re using high-tech phrenology…
https://www.propublica.org/article/machine-bias-risk-assessments-in-criminal-sentencing
PD: after reading this the only thing I could think about was “Things I Read That I Chocked on”