Friday Links: Catching Up On Podcasts Edition
"A bad fairy tale has some simple goddamn moral. A great fairy tale tells the truth." - Victor LaValle, 'The Changeling'
Back when I worked a warehouse job, podcasts were a lifeline. I could have my headphones on for a whole shift and feel like I was learning something while lifting heavy boxes and judging the quality of used books. At first, parenting was like that—babies sleep a lot, mine strapped to my chest—and now parenting has forced me to be judicious about podcast time. As such, with school starting, I’m catching up!
What I’ve Been Reading Lately:
But first, a detour into books. Still my favorite way to learn. You that reference to my brief stint in a used bookstore? You catch how I mentioned parenting a new baby? As Richard Blais would say, we’re stacking themes here. This week’s book is about parenting (and used books), but comes with a big ol’ trigger warning to any potential parent reading. If you know anything about changeling myths, you can probably guess why. If you can read the back of the book and read the words “commits a horrific act” said about a mother, you can probably guess why. Knuckle through it, parents, because the novel is well goddamn worth it. I’m talking, of course, about The Changeling by Victor LaValle.
The biggest thing that sings to me about this book is: LaValle has succeeded in writing a novel-length contemporary fairy tale. There is a dreamlike tone maintained even as we see contemporary language like “dancers on the A train” or “Rikers Island” or “dog shit,” there are children’s story hallmarks (such as section being titled “then comes marriage” and “then comes baby in a baby carriage”), there is the third-person narrator gently nudging exposition and the occasional adverb at you. But I mean fairy tale as discussed on page 244-245, when Apollo first meets Cal.
“Fairy tales are not for children…These were the stories peasants toldd to each other around the fire after a long day, not to their kids. This was how adults talked with each other. Fairy tales became stories for kids in the seventeen-hundreds. Around that time this weird new group started appearing in parts of Europe. The merchant class.
“Merchants were making money, and they wanted to live better than the lower classes did. This meant there were new rules about how to behave…Fairy tales changed accordingly. Now they had to have a moral, something to train those children…A bad fairy tale has some simple goddamn moral. A great fairy tale tells the truth.
“…How do we protect our children?…That’s what Rapunzel is about. That’s the question it’s asking.”
Forgive the long block quote, which is all dialogue from Cal. The heart of this story is this question. Monsters, witches, author-signed books, the East River—all of these are in service of that question. Sometimes it’s cool when a book gives you a key like this. With this key in mind, I’d recommend it unequivocally to any parent.
If you can handle that one horrific act, that is.
LINKS!
But first, some music? Sure, Brendan turned me onto the Chicago-based Options, so let’s check out “Hold Out”:
Been sitting on this a couple weeks, but I really loved Alec Karakatsanis on The Daily Zeitgeist earlier this month. Pay attention particularly at 33:00 for the discussion on how copaganda warps our understanding of safety in general. Then again at 50:00, when they discuss how the carceral system replenishes itself, especially the mechanisms that re-assure otherwise well-meaning people (Dr. King’s white moderate archetype, say). Did you know, after the 2020 Protests, police killed more people in 2021 than they did in 2020? Then more people in 2022 than they did in 2021? Did you read an article in The New York Times about how ‘defund the police’ was hurting progressives during that time?
Absolutely loved this episode of Curious City on Soul Train’s Chicago roots. Hosted by Arionne Nettles, we get a look at Don Cornelius’s roots as a capital-p Personality for local radio and TV. Plus, Arionne traces a linage of Soul Train as a kids’ dance show up to cultural icons like Chance The Rapper and by extension things like Young Chicago Authors and YOUmedia. Chicago might not always do right by Black and Brown kids, but the culture that grows out of this city is undeniable. I passed a guy in my neighborhood yesterday wearing a shirt that read THERE IS NO CULTURE WITHOUT BLACK PEOPLE and well? Is he wrong? Hey, speaking of West Ridge, my neighborhood—
Curious City again, this time with Jason Marck hosting, researching the history of the Orthodox Jewish community in West Ridge. I’ve been in this neighborhood less than a year, but lived in Edgewater and Rogers Park before then. I still didn’t understand the scope of the diversity in this neighborhood. Little India is a landmark, of course, but there is a Croatian Catholic Church up the street, a lot of African immigrants, especially Somalis, and yes, we do see our share of Orthodox Jews walking around. Learning about the initial influx in the post-WWII era, and debates between Orthodox and Reform Jews on How To Live In Chicago, is fascinating. I feel proud to live in a neighborhood where so many different people feel welcome, and am grateful to learn this history.
The lovely and well-researched Secretly Incredibly Fascinating is a favorite of this blog. Speaking of parenting, it’s a clean show, no swears, and the theme song by The Budos Band was the first thing I ever heard my kid sing along to in the car. Here’s Alex and Katie going long on the subject of Octopuses—and giving you permission to say ‘octopuses,’ or at least not be weird about the plural of octopus. They’re probably my favorite animals—octopuses, not Alex and Katie—and this is a great listen.
It’s right there in the name: Behind The Bastards is a podcast about the very worst people in all of history. Often, this means the murder’nest, rape’nest, racist’nest jagoffs you can think of. Sometimes, it’s clowns. This is latter: remember Dilbert? Remember how it got cancelled the creator went on a racist rant? Dilbert Guy had been losing it for a long time, and frankly, was kind of always a morally bankrupt opportunist who seems to have never had an experience he couldn’t make himself the Main Character of. Here’s Part 1, here’s Part 2, here’s Robert reading Dilbert Guy’s book, if you can stomach it. Fun fact: I read God’s Debris senior year of high school, my big “in real danger of becoming an irritating philosophy bro” stage. Even then, The 18-Year-Old Version Of Chris Who Watched Fight Club Too Much, even then I thought God’s Debris was missing something. Later, I would write about Bill Watterson.
yes, this is Scott Adams’s house, and yes, it is shaped like Dilbert (credit: Popular Science, Heartwood Studios)
Jurassic Park turns 30 today. Service workers: may people treat you like human beings this weekend, especially if you’re working a double shift at the Margaritaville next to the pterodactyl enclosure.
Sorry you got an email,
Chris
