Shut The Front Door. Have A Seat

Shut the front door. Have a seat

Mad Men

"Why are you reading Shakespeare fanfic"

Maybe i'm just sad ok. Maybe i like the idea of Othello not having to deal with Iago's shit. Maybe i like watching Hamlet be a college student. Maybe i like Romeo dying painfully while Juliet lives happily. Maybe i like the idea of Lady Macbeth fucking me. Let me live.

misc reads

What's dark about dark academia? ana quiring, avidly

Necropolis, colin dickey, lapham's quarterly

Truth and consequences​: documentaries and the art of manipulation, blair mcclendon, the drift

A perfectly normal interview with carmen maria machado where everything is fine, theodore mccombs, electric literature

Can rilke change your life? kamran javadizadeh, the new yorker

A winelike sea, caroline alexander, lapham's quarterly

Vanitas, jordan kisner, the paris review

September notebook, 2018, daniel poppick, the paris review

Diary of nuance, adam thirwell, the paris review

I do not keep a diary, will rees, astra magazine

The gisoo tree, mojgan ghazirad, longreads

Politics of the archive, hito steyerl, transversal texts

The sacred word, sabiha al khemir, lapham's quarterly

What a year at university of oxford taught me about south asians, sumit samos, round table india

The cult of the imperfect, umberto eco, the paris review

Is it my body, lauren collee, real life

The delhi walla's vision of a possibly vanishing india, karan mahajan, the new yorker

The genesis of blame, anne enright, london review of books

A world without men: inside south korea's 4b movement, anna louie sussman, the cut

Crime of the centuries: michael steinhardt's exile from the world of antiquities, intelligencer

Desert hours, jane miller, london review of books

Controlled: annie ernaux and the millenial sex novel, noor qasim, the drift

Roach complex, chris randie, real life

Of rivers and snakes, xiaolu guo, the dial

Crush fatigue, alexandra molotkow, real life

On lacunae. (or: reading sappho at the eschaton), j.n., einsofist (medium)

Good immigrant novels, sanjena sethian, the drift

What can ancient spiritual poetry teach us about living, kaveh akbar, harvard divinity bulletin

Approaching gridlock: arundhati roy on free speech and failing democracy, lithub

Martin amis on the genius of jane austen (and what the adaptations get wrong), lithub

Blood ritual, enzo escober, guernica

Eating and reading with katherine mansfield, aimée gasston, the public domain review

Spider-Man Noir Spider Punk and Web- Slinger in a fight using increasingly obscure slang from their respective universes please please please

Boyfriends who threaten together stay together

The original percy jackson series is about cycles of abuse and neglect, right. Were introduced to percy as a kid who has clearly been left behind by a school system that has given up on him, restless and unengaged and self-defetist because hes been given nothing that works for him and no one even tries to meet him where he is. Then hes told no, listen, your neurodivergence is amazing and you just need to be given something that actually utilizes your unique palatte. And thats obviously the uplifting idea rick wanted for his kids, right. But once we get to know chb the same cycles are happening there too. There are kids "left behind" there too for one reason or another, because their parents dont want to claim them, because their parents werent important enough to get a cabin. Do you get it, all the kids who dont fit the most common neurotypes get shoved into the same closet. Kids are being left in a cruel world to fend for themselves without the tools they need. Theyre dying because no one bothered to accommodate them. Its such an obvious parallel that the first chapter introduces a teacher whos written to be especially hard on percys disability and she turns out to literally be one of these monsters trying to kill him. Meanwhile sally jackson tells him she named him after Perseus because she wanted a redemption for a hero whos story ended in tragedy. Meanwhile every book in the series replicates a greek myth step for step until the moment they break the cycle. Annabeth, playing Odysseus, is talked down from her hubris and grounded by her friends. Percy, playing Heracles, meets someone wronged by the original Heracles and rights his wrongs by refusing to go down the same selfish path as him. Monsters are reborn because they are--as the books explicitly call them--achetypes. These kids are stuck inside the cyclical nature of mythology because thats what happens to mythology, it gets retold over and over again. But these are the kids who have to live it. The series ends with percy being offered immortality and he rejects it because he wants to use his godly favor to force them to break their cycle of neglecting their kids. The series ends with a declaration that we cant keep letting this happen. The very first book offees the same choice. It ends with percy refusing to keep the head of medusa as a spoil of war, refusing his heroic reward. He lets his mother have the head and use it to kill gabe. Isnt that fucking crazy for a kids book? Gabe wasnt a Monster. He wasnt going to Turn to Dust and Disappear in a narratively convenient way. He was a living breathing mortal dude and percy and his mom killed him without remorse. Break the cycle of abuse!!!! Dont let this happen again!!! Anyway thats why the original percy jackson series is Hey where are you going with our breadsticks