This Week
First of all, apologies for the slightly off-kilter newsletter schedule lately. It’s a consequence of vacation, illness and me not doing the publish scheduling right. I’ll normalize starting next week.
Anyway, fall is coming. Are you prepared?
Links
“I wonder if a new, more realistic image of old age might motivate younger and midcareer workers to save more for the future, and lead them to demand better retirement benefits from employers. For the first time, they may find themselves saving not for some hypothetical older person, but rather for a better version of themselves.” “Old age” is a made-up concept, and it’s hurting everyone.
“‘I don’t know if I could ever forgive all that Ike ever did to me,’ she said, but ‘Ike’s dead.’ Turner laughed. ‘So we don’t have to worry about him.’” Tina fucking Turner.
The hidden history of women film editors.
Sady Doyle on the man who insisted his wife was a malevolent fairy.
Here's where the Golden Girls house used to stand inside Star Wars: Galaxy's Edge. Just in case you were wondering.
Film critic Josh Spiegel is revisiting all of the films of the Disney renaissance.
Patti Smith’s current reading, favorite characters and most beloved volumes.
“This is success in America now, where the closer we get to whatever its manifestation is — whether it’s wealth or acknowledgment or something else — the further we get from our humanity. The only way to get out of it is to fundamentally understand that making it is a myth. Rather than making a pact with the devil, which is to say, buying into validation we know will never be enough, we have to reject the premise of the pact.” The myth of making it.
Reading/Watching/Listening
I read a lot of crime/detective/mystery fiction and for a while now I’ve had the impression that Sara Gran’s Claire DeWitt and the City of the Dead was a book that I should read. I finally did that this past week and I can’t believe it took me so long. This is an immediate favorite. A mix of the fanciful, the punk rock, the romantic and the clear-eyed, wrapped up in a tale about New Orleans, modern tragedies and lost souls. I borrowed this book from the library, but I plan to go out and buy my own copy and reread liberally.
Earlier, I recommended the first in Maureen Johnson young adult mystery trilogy, Truly Devious, and now I can recommend the second book, The Vanishing Stair. Funny, sweet and clever.
Season three of the HBO series about 1970s Times Square and the burgeoning porn industry, The Deuce, is ready to go, which reminded me I hadn’t watched the second season. So I did that, and I liked it even more than the first season. It’s very much about a much of flawed people trying to figure out how to make good in a dirty, complicated world, with varying levels of success. Maggie Gyllenhaal’s Candy, former sex worker turned porn performer turned visionary art porn film director, is a special treat.
Speaking of a complicated world, I listened to The Last Days of August, a relatively brief podcast series about the death by suicide of porn performer August Ames. It’s not what I thought it would be exactly, and it is deeply saddening, but also thoughtful and worthwhile.
Obviously we’re listening to the Highwomen this week.
Around
I’ve opened up two virtual mentoring sessions for beginning tech speakers from underrepresented minorities on next Friday, September 20. If you or someone you know is interested in having a chat with me about what it’s like to speak at tech conferences or meetups, head over to my mentoring page to sign up: jenmyers.net/mentoring/ If you’re not in tech but would like to talk about speaking in other contexts, I’m happy to help if I can, so also feel free to jump in.
Let’s do this, fall.
Love,
Jen
Connections
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Today’s quote is from John Cage.