History is brutal and unfinished: A working letter

Hi, I’m back from an extended break. The weather in Philly is hot soup and it doesn’t look like it’s gonna break soon. We took the pup to the farmer’s market first thing this morning, and then practically collapsed on the floor as soon as we got home. (Good tips for hot dogs: rub an ice cube behind their ears and under their armpits to cool them down; put Musher’s Secret on their paws to protect against scalding asphalt.)

This newsletter has been through a few different phases, and this will be yet another one. I still like spending time processing and thinking about the week’s reading (and sharing those thoughts), but not long before the election last year I started to become immensely weary about it all. So this new version will include some sharing, but with a mix of reading fast (articles, essays) and reading slow (books). The former keeps me moving while the latter keeps me sane.

I started this newsletter as a lifeboat: Twitter is the only social network I’ve ever really loved, but it increasingly feels like an old house where the landlord keeps repainting the walls while water pours in through the roof. As everyone has already pointed out (and more than once), releasing a superficial redesign but failing to address the harassment problem reflects a grotesque arrangement of priorities. But Twitter and other networks have also backed themselves into a very dark corner: social networks require scale to work (read: to make enough money to keep the investors at bay) and there just isn’t any way to scale up safe, humane communities. I find myself thinking a lot about what will change about my life when Twitter inevitably collapses. For nearly ten years, it’s been where I’ve made and maintained friendships, found writers I admired, and learned from people (especially black women) wiser than myself. I both love it and hate it. The steady drip of feelings and news is a kind of mind-altering toxic drug, but the ability to filter events through the lens of people whose experiences are different than my own is something I’m not sure I’ll ever replicate elsewhere. I find myself mourning Twitter while simultaneously anticipating its demise.

Reading, fast

“Facebook cannot keep control of its content. It has grown too big, too quickly.” On Facebook’s incomprehensible moderation guidelines.

“The punishment from Isis for working in counter-terrorism is beheading. All they’d need to do is tell someone who is radical here.” On a terrifying Facebook security breach.

“It’s making it easier for people to gain notoriety instantly without gatekeepers. I definitely think there’s a mimetic effect.” Violence on Facebook Live is worse than you thought.

“It is not about taking something that belongs to someone else and making it serve you but rather about recognizing that history is brutal and unfinished and finding some way, within that recognition, to serve the dispossessed.” Teju Cole on photography and appropriation.

“He must know somewhere below the surface he skates on that he has destroyed his image, and like Dorian Gray before him, will be devoured by his own corrosion in due time too.” Rebecca Solnit on Donald Trump.

“In reality, though, it’s more concerned with the interiority of white women at the expense of people of color who recognize that Gilead isn’t a possible horrifying future, but the reality of what America has always been.” On how The Handmaid’s Tale fails to deal with race.

“The desire to maintain whites’ dominant position in the racial hierarchy of the United States was at the root of the rediscovery of Confederate symbols.” On the return of the confederate flag.

“Our daily lives take place in a network of technological, socio-technical, and social systems that we barely notice, except when things go wrong.” Deb Chachra on invisible systems.

“There’s a rich history of excluding certain types of creators from compensation for their contributions to culture.” Jenna Wortham on stealing ideas.

22 Corgis Who Will Patiently Explain Quantum Entanglement To You. Seriously, this is brilliant.

Reading, slow

Zeynep Tufekci’s astonishingly good Twitter and Tear Gas. (If you follow me, you should be reading this already.) Durga Chew-Bose’s gorgeous and unique Too Much and Not the Mood. George Turner’s prophetic The Sea and Summer. Rereading: Octavia Butler’s Parable of the Sower and Parable of the Talents; each time I read these books they feel more like the present than before.

Cocktail recipe

I had a bottle of sparkling rosé and some gin and a desire to do something with them both; some googling led me to this recipe, and let’s just stipulate it was a great discovery. The recipe calls for Hendricks, but I had Tanqueray around and it didn’t disappoint.

Sepia French 75

1 1/2 oz gin
3/4 oz simple syrup
3/4 oz lemon juice
Dash of orange bitters
Sparkling rosé
Orange twist

Pour gin, simple, lemon, and bitters into a shaker filled with ice; shake vigorously, then strain into a chilled coup glass. Top with sparkling rosé and garnish with a twist.

Variation: This drink is pretty boozy, but it’s not hard to lighten it up. Drop the gin to 1 oz, pour into a tall glass with a lot of ice, and on top of the rosé add a good-sized glug of club soda.

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—m