Friday Links: Life Can Be Better Than This Edition
"What can I say about Jean-Pierre Léaud? When he's right, he's right." - Alex Miller, 'White People On Vacation'
Hot take coming from an unemployed writer, but I mean it anyway: life is good. Seriously—even with climate change, war, police existing, somehow yet another US election year, the raging anti-LBTQIA+ panic—life is good. I am not one of those who believe you can choose to be happy. I suffer from depression (episode this week, hey!) and am very good at being grumpy. To an extent, though, we can choose what we focus on. It’s no good getting mad at stuff you can’t control. The main character of the novel this week could use some of that perspective, and the podcast I’m recommending this week does an excellent job of keeping that perspective.
What I’ve Been Reading This Week:
A novel I’ve been really excited about ever since the homie Adrian Sobol told me the characters lived in Murfreesboro. A novel from Malarkey Books, one of the truly great small presses. A novel very accurately described on its cover as “a beach read for socialists.” A novel signed to me by the author with the inscription, “I hope all your vacations are better than the one in this book.” I’m talking, of course, about White People On Vacation by Alex Miller.
Alex does a truly excellent job of capturing what it’s like to be 22 in Murfreesboro—which is to say our narrator, Nate, is miserable. He’s been in a dying relationship since middle school, his big post-college ambition is to intern for the IRS (nothing against the IRS, shoutout IRS workers, go after some rich people), and he is fundamentally incapable of making a decision for himself or being an active participant in his own life. If you hated Holden Caulfield (I did not, I read Catcher In The Rye when I was 19 or 20 and really related), you will hate Nate (I only didn’t because I’ve been 22 before, 22-year-olds have not usually had the time to go through something really dark and difficult and come out on the other side with a new lease on life, like quitting drinking). But liking or hating a character is a boring discussion, and this book is anything but boring.
There’s something to hold up an exact mirror to a moment. This book takes place in 2019 and very much feels like it. I’ve known Nates, rendered helpless partially by the evils of the world but mostly by their own cowardice. I’ve known Rogers, douchebag women-hating homophobic future MBAs who think turtles deserve to die if they eat plastic. I’ve known Natalies, going to college solely for an MRS degree, throwing screaming tantrums because their ownership of something was questioned, their main joy coming from treating everyone interact with as a personal servant. And I’ve known Avrils, survivors who remain stuck in their shitty communities, for whom things might turn out okay for or might not.
This is not a book where anyone has any fun, despite all the drinking and sex and trip to Hawaii. Don’t go in here expecting fun. Well, it is very fun to read, it moves and there’s drama and the descriptions are great and it’s a truly beautiful book to hold. Read this book and try your best not to be these people. The world is full of wonder, even when bad-yet-preventable things are happening, and your friends deserve to be treated better. Also move somewhere that isn’t Murfreesboro, especially if you’re 22.
LINKS!
Gonna recommend some of my favorite episodes of the Secretly Incredibly Fascinating podcast, because it is “a podcast all about how being alive is more interesting than you think it is.” Alex (different Alex, Alex Schmidt) is legendarily cheerful and nice, but he really deserves credit for being an excellent researcher and someone who enjoys passing along information. Here’s a picture of a crab, for the hell of it.
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Soda cans: this week’s episode was interesting enough to spark this whole blog. What can I say that’s better advertising than that? An episode about infinitely recyclable soda cans, which the soda inside would dissolve if not for a thin layer of plastic lining the interior, was so interesting that I did a whole blog. The rest of these I literally came up with off the top of my head, that’s how much some of these episodes hang in my brain. | Link
Beavers: did you know the dam-building process can change and remake whole ecosystems? That’s a fact that’s stuck with me. This episode, featuring John Hodgman, honestly made me appreciate beavers more. | Link
Paprika: paprika is probably my most used seasoning. My chicken wing seasoning is just paprika and salt-free lemon pepper—the paprika chars well on the grill. Paprika is yet another point of pride for a European nation—Hungary goes wild for paprika—that is a product of the colonization of the Americas. | Link
Crabs and Octopuses: come on, you knew yr man the shipwrecked sailor was going to throw the sea monsters in here. Poor Alex has a phobia of sea creatures, so he’s a real hero for doing these episodes. | Link to Crabs | Link to Octopuses
Antarctica: one from before co-host Katie Goldin (who is a true delight with her own animal-based podcast, Creature Feature) joined the show. The most fun thing about this episode is Joey Clift bringing up how Indigenous Pacific Islanders were the first to reach Antarctica. Alex, who does land acknowledgements every episode, is delighted to learn something new mid-recording—a quality you want in your educational podcast host. That little tidbit sparked a new interest in Indigenous history and culture in me, as well. Not only is being alive more interesting than we think it is, the cumulative sum of human knowledge is deeper than Western traditions would have you think, too. | Link
What’re you still doing here? There’s a life out there to be lived. Look at this octopus!
If you work in the service industry, may you clean up in tips this weekend. May none of the characters from White People On Vacation be at your tables. Except, come on, all customers are characters from White People On Vacation.
Sorry you got an email,
Chris