NAMIBIA, JAPAN & TAIWAN

Fix Me (Fix Society?)

• “Under an L.A. freeway, a psychiatric rescue mission“(NYT): As a highly controversial intervention, some doctors are prescribing (and giving) antipsychotics to unhoused people in LA, despite the impossibility of proper diagnostics, the risks of medical side effects, and this population’s questionable ability to give true consent. The goal though, is to provide unhoused people with enough psychological respite to make better decisions: to accept free housing, to try to give up street drugs, etc. I’m not totally sure what I think of it all, but it’s an idea that’s stayed with me, and I’m very curious to learn more about the results.

• [podcast] Hysterical: The producers at Wondery describe it thusly: “Hysterical follows the outbreak of a mysterious illness afflicting otherwise healthy teenage girls in LeRoy, NY” — But in reality, it’s hard to describe — a sort of medical mystery and audio cultural essay smushed together. And, more importantly, it’s one of the best-produced and -written audio series I’ve heard in a long while. Funny, gripping, earnest, empathetic, etc.

What I’d Do For Money

• [podcast] “Can money buy happiness?” (Planet Money): I graduated in 2010, at the same time as one of Nobel Prize winner Daniel Kahneman’s research papers on happiness entered the cultural milieu, telling me (with scientific certainty), “money can buy happiness… but only until a point. After $60-90k, there are no happiness gains.” Turns out, that’s not quite right… (1) Money and happiness are correlated, basically with no max; and (2) Unhappiness does decrease around $100k in 2024 dollars (about $75k in 2010); and (3) The happiest people seem to get the best happiness returns from making even more money (their curve is exponential) because they know how to spend their money best, for most happiness improvements. This all sent me for more of a loop than intended. FIRE community, listen up?

• “Priscilla, Queen of the rideshare mafia” (Wired): A real scam artist / Robin Hood of our time, and sure to become a movie/series (?!), this is the story of a Brazilian woman who stole IDs (including SSNs!) to help foreign illegals sign up as Uber drivers in the United States so they could actually earn money.

• [book] Margos’s Got Money Troubles by Rufi Thorpe: A romp of a book, featuring an oddball cast of characters trying to navigate the economic (and romantic) consequences of teen pregnancy. Bonus points for a really satisfying business/startup-minded look into running an OnlyFans. Read it before the Apple TV series comes out (yes, it’s already been optioned.)

• [book] All That Glitters: A Story of Friendship, Fraud, and Fine Art by Orlando Whitfield (h/t Werner): An uneven but still fascinating look into the fine art world, the megarich, and the strange economics of aesthetics.

Out to Sea

• “The cloud under the sea” (Verge): An interesting (and nicely designed) piece on the shockingly small group of seafaring engineers responsible for keeping whole continents connected to the internet. Who knew maintaining & repairing undersea cables was such a dangerous and adventurous (and deeply thankless) job?

• [podcast] “Puffins” (Animal s1e2) - The miniseries as a whole was a bit flat, but this episode on puffins was a gem. Part cultural travelogue, part contemplative personal essay, and part (mostly) animal lover joy. Why listen? Two words: baby puffins. 😍

• [podcast] The Good Whale: A podcast mini-series on Keiko the whale, made famous by the Free Willy movies of the ‘90s. It was an interesting dive (pun intended) on the human-animal relationship, what we owe wildlife, and how much/little we can ever understand. The surprising episode 5 brought me an incredible amount of glee (also pun intended, but you’ll only get it after listening).

• “The cure for disposable plastic crap is here—and it’s loony” (Wired) : I read this shortly after finishing Wasteland (the previously rec’d book), and I thought it was a pretty good piece questioning the true compostability and second-order effects of bio-plastics; I also found it interesting to hear about alternative business models (e.g. Reusables) and how different types/use cases of plastics will ultimately need different solutions. (Plus, of course, we just need to all buy/consume less.)

Biding Time

• [podcast] Love Factually: If you (like me) adore both rom-coms and scientific research, this podcast is for you. In each episode, two behavioral psychology researchers specializing in “close relationships” analyze one rom com to say how correctly it portrayed dating / relationships / marriage.

• [book] The Ministry of Time by : In the near-future, Britain gets access to time travel, and to learn how it works, pulls a few people from “out of time” (1600s-1900s) and hires “bridges” to help them cope with modern times— both practicalities like the automobile and internet, as well as social changes like feminism and the fall of the British empire. Billed as a “time-travel romance,” but actually there’s very little romance—and that’s a good thing because it makes room for all the other things the book actually is: a spy thriller, a sci-fi “what if,” and a darkly comedic contemplation of modern colonialism.

• [book] How I Won a Nobel Prize by Julius Taranto: An incisive, wickedly funny debut novel about a graduate student who decides to follow her disgraced mentor to a university that gives safe harbor to scholars of ill repute, igniting a crisis of work and a test of her conscience (and marriage)

• [book] The End of Drum-Time by Hanna Pylväinen: Set in the 1850s in the Arctic circle, it follows two main groups of people—a Lutheran minister and his family; and a group of native Sámi reindeer herders, all trying to make money & meaning in the harsh Scandinavian tundra. At the time of reading, I found this book interesting more than enjoyable, as there wasn’t a whole lot of story to move it along, but evocative imagery from the book has stayed with me months later, so it’s made it to this list. (Several books about the Arctic Circle have, over the last few years, definitely piqued my interest to visit the region!)

Travel media

I’d actively recommend everything mentioned in the the sections above. But for this section, where I review some cultural media focused on the 3 countries I visited recently (Namibia, Japan, and Taiwan), unfortunately most of the items weren’t enjoyable in and of themselves.

• [podcast] [Namibia] "Tested” miniseries (Embedded): This is a total cheat for “Namibia,” but the podcast miniseries covered gender testing for track & field / sports, using one Namibian female runner and the Olympics as the main lens. To be honest, I didn’t enjoy this podcast much: while I think it did a good job laying out why gender testing is kind of impossible to do correctly (there are lots of different ways to assess “female enough,” e.g. testosterone level, chromosomes, physical presence of testes inside/out, etc.), there was a lot of (too much?) time on how it emotionally impacted athletes (important, but I guess didn’t feel like it needed as much airtime bc, duh of course it’s terrible), and there was close to nothing on where to go from here. That future-looking bit was just one episode, which felt incredibly rushed. Not recommended.

• [book] [Japan] Kitchen by Banana Yoshimoto: This is an old classic and was one of my high school friend’s favorite books. I, however, thought it was just okay. She’s known to be a “minimalist” storyteller, and fans of hers love how evocative she makes the everyday. I found it… fine and maybe a tad boring?

• [book] [Japan] Breasts and Eggs by Mieko Kawakami: Before my Japan trip, I had only ever read male Japanese writers (Murakami, Ishiguro), so I really wanted to specifically read more female authors, and this book was seen to be a good portrait of contemporary womanhood in Japan. I did find it to have quite interesting insights into the culture— as it touched on issues of parenthood, singlehood, hostess bars / the entertainment industry, etc. And, for example, I learned that single women are not legally allowed to undergo IVF, etc. Outside of that, I thought the book was also okay. In general, though, I tend to struggle with Japanese literature (with, at least for now, the sole exception of Kazuo Ishiguro).

• [movie] [Japan] Your Name: I haven’t watched much anime (nor read any manga), so I also wanted to educate myself on that front. Your Name was one of the bestselling movies in Japan, and was seen to create a whole new era of Japanese anime movies, particularly aimed at romance. I thought it was… okay but a bit too cringy/corny, and felt incredibly YA (less suitable for adults).

• [movie] [Japan] Totoro and [movie] Spirited Away: Highly recommend both of these! I watched Totoro for the first time (really stands the test of time; I can’t believe it’s from 1988!) and rewatched Spirited Away (liked it a lot more this time). Consuming all this Japanese content (books & movies) around the same time really gave me a better sense of contemporary Japanese art/culture; there’s much more of a celebration of “slice of life”; slow, meandering plots; and characters that behave somewhat strangely.

• [TV series] [Taiwan] Port of Lies: A Netflix show from a popular crime novel, about the death (murder?) of an Indonesian immigrant working on a Taiwanese fishing vessel operated by the indigenous Amis people. It was interesting to get a bit of insight into a different legal system, and the racial dynamics within the country (e.g. Mandarin-speaking Han Chinese Taiwanese people vs indigenous Amis Taiwanese people), and to actually hear Amis (we even spoke to a Taiwanese friend who said this series was the first time she’d heard the language!), but overall the series was poorly acted/shot and seemed to have some glaring plot holes.

Playing Catch Up (2020-2024)

It’s been four years (!!) since I last posted. So here’s a big catch-up… the articles are all from the last few months, but the books sample from the last few (missing) years.

On lobbying, profiteering, and regulatory capture

Coming from a northern hemisphere country with relatively intact institutions, for a long time, I believed that government regulatory bodies generally made the right safety/health decisions the vast majority of the time. Of course, I knew that firms would lobby regulators, and there were problems of (rotating doors, regulatory capture, etc etc), but I assumed these led to small issues. But in the last decade, as the US’ institutions get tested (and fail those tests), I’ve begun to realize just how much regulatory institutions have been failing all along. 

• “The Insulin Empire” (The Baffler )[article] - A sweeping overview of how insulin gets made, why it matters, and how capitalistic structures led it from being manufactured solely by nonprofit entities (The University of Toronto), to it turning into an “insulin cartel” run by  “The Big 3” pharma companies. Through it, I also learned about more generic pharma practices: “evergreening” to extend IP and block competition, the privatization of AMPs, and the debate over what constitutes a “biosimilar” generic. 

• [Book] Wasteland: The Secret World of Waste and the Urgent Search for a Cleaner Future by Oliver Franklin-Wallis - This was such a depressing read that I had to divvy it up into sections, reading full fiction novels in between. But it’s also important and fascinating, walking through all the kinds of waste–landfill, food/agriculture, plastics, recycling, fashion (fabric/leather), human excrement, chemical, mining, energy/nuclear, etc.-- and the ways waste cycles across the world. Written by a British journalist, I also found it interesting to see in particular how waste gets treated in (theoretically more environmentally-friendly) Europe. 

• “How 3M Executives Convinced a Scientist the Forever Chemicals She Found in Human Blood Were Safe” (Propublica) - This one was a doozy, with 3M playing an almost cartoonishly villain role: Gaslighting a young female scientist (if you’re finding PFOAs in everyone and in animals, then clearly you’re doing the science wrong), blatantly ignoring and not disclosing health risk information, adding known risky substances to all kinds of food-adjacent materials (not just Teflon but also takeaway containers etc), paying paltry fines for their decades-long poor behavior, and then simply replacing one known carcinogenic “forever chemical” PFOA with a less-studied chemical in the same class. The last one is kind of on us though, right? We want non-stick; they gave us another version. It’s difficult not to become alarmist after reading this. 

On bodily fluids & conception

I (quite vocally) don’t want to have children, but as a woman in her 30s, I’m surrounded by friends who are having children, already had children, or are battling to have children. And so the subject of parenthood has become at least somewhat interesting to me.

•  “Rags to Riches” (Mother Jones) - The idea is simple: We spend loads of money trying to monitor health and draw blood, but half of the population (aged ~13-50) emit blood once a month, and we do nothing to study it. This article goes through a bunch of scientific research projects looking to upend that. There are period pads that can be submitted for monthly testing (to track health vitals). There’s promise to solving endometriosis, which, despite afflicting 5-10% of period-age women, still receives next to no research attention. And there are scientists looking to better understand the uterus, which, as a perpetually self-healing organ (filled with stem cells), might hold promise for fixing infertility or other diseases.

• Sperm wails - Within weeks of each other, I was recommended two twin articles on how difficult it is for single mothers or lesbian couples to get sperm for artificial insemination. They both read like fertility horror stories: 

• “You wouldn’t believe how difficult it is to buy sperm” (The Guardian) 

• “Why would anyone look for a sperm donor on Facebook?” (The Cut)

• [Video / Spoken word poem] “Trying” - I’m a big fan of Harry Baker, and this meandering, funny and poignant piece is emblematic of why. No spoilers beyond that.

On what constitutes “sport” AKA does this really count?

• “Spreadsheet Superstars” (Verge) - Such a fun (and well-designed!) piece on the nerddom that is Excel spreadsheet contests, including–as in many sports–how to correctly assess who is really the “best.” (It weirdly reminded me of the debates on rock climbing to the Olympics – e.g. speed, endurance, complexity). I also loved the writer’s description of the poor audience experience: “the most problematic thing about competitive Excel becomes blindingly obvious to me once again: it is damn near impossible to figure out what’s going on. All eight players are moving so fast and doing so many things with keyboard shortcuts and formulas that there’s practically no way to see what they’re doing until it’s already done.”

• “Inside the Savage, Surreal, Booming World of Professional Slap Fighting” (Esquire) - One of my most stereotypical female traits is that I can’t handle violence: I have no interest in watching any sort of boxing, MMA, or ultimate fighting; I find the extreme bloodshed in Tarantino movies or the John Wick series to be grotesque; etc etc. And yet I find the fact of humanity’s interest in violence to be fascinating. So this piece into the subculture of slap fighting was as fascinating as it was disturbing. Part of the fascination was the psychology, and another was the actual biology/physics: Did you know you could pass out, and even die, from a single slap across the face?

On the interwebs

• “Age, Sex, Location” (Longreads) - On growing up online, anonymity, and mediated profiles

• [Book] Do You Remember Being Born? By Sean Michaels - The plot sounds perhaps a too of-this-moment (an aging poet is tasked by a Google-ish company to co-write a poem with a poem-writing AI bot) and maybe a bit gimmicky (some passages of the book, all marked in italics, were actually written by ChatGPT). But it was also surprisingly funny and beautifully poetic and… well, human. By the time I had gotten to the (lackluster) ending, I had so thoroughly enjoyed the ride that I began recommending this to several people. 

• [Podcast] Bonus companion: I listened to Episode 832, Act 2 of This American Life around the same time, and it was about a comic working with an early version of ChatGPT (from before it was told to not be creepy/rude) to write jokes and poems. Let’s just say that version was a lot funnier, and a lot creepier (reflecting its sci-fi data inputs in which we humans believe AIs are out to get us). 

On animals

• [Book] The Book of Eels by Patrik Svensson - Yes, this is a whole book on eels, and even more niche, mostly the European eel. And yet, it didn’t seem long. Part memoir, part history, and part science journalism, it’s a great look into one of marine biology’s great lingering questions (we’ve never witnessed an eel giving birth), as well as a wild dive (pun intended!) into animal classification. (There’s a sizable group of scientists who believe we’ve totally misclassified marine life, grouping everything into a category “fish” when they evolutionarily are completely dissimilar. It would be, as the author notes, like lumping all mountain-dwelling species, from eagles to bears, into a “mountain-ish” or “mish” classification.)

• [Podcast] “Towers of Science” (99% Invisible) -  Zoroastrians have been practicing sacred sky burials for centuries, and in India, they have left bodies in these “Towers of Silence” for vultures to consume. But what happens when the vultures disappear? And why have they disappeared? A really excellent story linking religion, economics, public policy, and ecology (but, I suppose, those are always interlinked.)

On death and longevity 

• “Grief Guides” (n+1) - On death doulas and their work in guiding people, emotionally and practically, towards the end of life. I wasn’t sure how I felt about this piece in particular, but I had never heard of the idea and loved the concept of this new (to me) role.

• “The secret to living to 120? Nano robots” (Wired) - The headline is a bit kooky, but somehow I had missed all the buzz and medical visioning around nano robots – a not-yet-here-but-still-very-fathomable future. Couched in the techno bro dreamscape of longevity/immortality research, it seems cringe, but one can easily imagine the rewriting of this to instead focus on this technology’s implications for cancer or for reversing birth defects (to enable healthier, fuller lives from the onset). 

On magic and female escapism 

Since I last posted, a pandemic lingered, my startup got acquired, I got burnt out, I quit my job (two years after that acquisition), and I bought (and renovated) an apartment. All this to say, life has been a bit crazy, and for a long stretch, my media consumption took a sharp turn away from literary, thought-provoking reads, into pure escapism. Fast-paced, plot-driven narratives; magical powers; strong female protagonists; and epic love stories– these were the balms to my anxious, stressed heart. Within this category, here were some memorable reads:

• [Book] The Song of Achilles by Madeleine Miller - From the writer of Circe, a fascinating retelling of a classic Greek tale, turned into an epic friendship/ (gay) love story about the hero/semi-god of war. (This, from a girl who hates war books/movies.)

• [Book] Our Missing Hearts by Celeste Ng - A dystopic “what if” YA book, extrapolating from the current white nationalist / extreme right movements : What if the anti-China rhetoric turned US society against all Asian Americans? 

• [Book] Terrace Story by Hilary Leichter - An uneven but thought-provoking collection of interlinked short stories. Leichter uses magical realism to surface questions about the mundane: How does the physical architecture of our spaces affect us? Upon what are friendships or relationships based on? How do we check or double-down on our fears or basest instincts?

• [Book] The Book of Form and Emptiness by Ruth Ozeki - A very weird book that I perhaps enjoyed less than I found fascinating as an experiment in literary form. (Yes, how meta.)

Romance - I’ve always loved rom com movies, but over the last few years, I fell headfirst into the large, sprawling genre of romance books. Most are awfully written or trite, but those that get it right, get it so right— and make wading through the murk worth it. Here are some (first 3 recs) that build beautiful characters full of warmth and humanity and capture the beauty/pain/banter of relationships; and a couple others (last 2 recs) that were so much fun that I don’t care if they’re kind of bad.

• [Book] Romantic Comedy by Curtis Sittenfeld

• [Book] The Idea of You by Robinne Lee 

• [Book] Every Summer After by Carley Fortune

• [Book] The Charm Offensive by Alison Cochrun 

• [Book] Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros

Travel reads

Wow, it’s been so long since I read these that I have little to say about them besides a general lingering feeling of whether I liked them or not.

• Three Daughters of Eve by Elif Shafak (Turkey) - I actually started with the critically-acclaimed “Snow” by Orhan Pamuk (a Nobel Prize winner) and, ⅓ of the way in, bailed because I couldn’t care enough. This book is by Turkey’s most popular female author,  and I remember liking (but not loving) it.

• Catch the Rabbit by Lana Bastasic (Bosnia) -  I remember really disliking the characters and this book.

• The Heart’s Invisible Furies by John Boyne (Ireland) - I remember quite liking this one, which also came recommended by a British friend (h/t Will). 

• The Promise by Damon Galgut (South Africa) - The 2021 Booker Prize winner. I really liked it, though I know some other Saffer friends found it wanting.

• I skipped Madagascar – but there doesn’t seem to be any Malagasy-translated work available as an ebook, so instead I watched the David Attenborough mini-series on Madagascar.

I also skipped Hungary, but will rectify that (plan: The Door by Magda Szabo).

MEXICO CITY (Quarantine Reading)

COVID

Feel free to skip this category (I know we’ve maybe all read too much on the topic), but here were some of my favorite pieces about the crisis, which are not 100% doom-and-gloom:

• “In Veep’s coronavirus episode, Selena Meyer would be… competent?” (Vulture): For fellow fans the White House parody, one former show writer penned a plot summary of what would have happened in the coronavirus episode. It provides some much-needed humor.

• “We put too many people behind bars. This pandemic shows why that’s not necessary.” (Mother Jones): I wonder if one of the interesting ramifications of the pandemic will be whether we stop over-policing? (Then again, violently racist policing hasn’t stopped…)

• “Hotel Corona” [PODCAST EPISODE] (Rough Translation): I know that in the US, the pandemic has shown the socioeconomic divide more than it’s been an equalizer. But this is a story of how, in one building in normally-divided Jerusalem, it has managed to create community. All the warm and fuzzy feels.

• So many Planet Money episodes. Honestly, I felt like the podcast team was hitting a bit of a wall pre-corona, but its coverage of COVID issues has been spectacular. I particularly enjoyed “The Mask Mover,” “Making it Work”, “Buybacks and Bailouts”, and “J Screwed.”

• “I tried hypnosis to deal with my coronavirus pandemic anxiety, and got something much weirder” (Vice): I know, this title/story is so Vice, but I fell for it. And honestly, it provided me with an entertaining read that was sort of akin to watching reality TV. I was fascinated by what people think they will get from “past life regression” (when a hypnotist helps you “remember” your past lives) and the techniques used to get patients to this kind of suggestible state. I also found it fascinating that they draw this clear moral red line against helping patients “remember” occurrences from this lifetime, as it’s been proven that people can easily fool themselves into false memories. (The strength of belief and the delicacy of memory are topics I could read about endlessly.)

GOOD THINGS COME IN… PAIRS 👯‍♀️

Here are pieces I read that I think are better together, than apart:

• Whale song: Invisibilia’s “Two Beats a Minute” discusses how machine learning might help us decipher whales’ language. Then, the first half of 99% Invisible’s “The Natural Experiment” discussed how whale researchers will be able to listen to how whale song/communications might change when the animals are not constantly navigating around noisy cruise ships in Alaska.

• Swimming extremes: Men’s Health’s “What it feels like to compete at the biggest ice swimming race in North America” is a joyous romp with a band of crazy misfits (think: Hash runners crossed with ultramarathon runners). And Hakai Magazine’s “Born to Swim” takes a look at the physiological research on the Bajau sea nomads in Indonesia, including what makes humans capable of free-diving and whether it has evolutionary roots. (I have literally never given my spleen so much thought. I also never considered that humans, unlike other primates, have a layer of fat under our skin, like marine animal blubber.)

• Death and invincibility: Perhaps more of us are contemplating our mortality now than ever before. And perhaps that’s why these twin stories were particularly interesting to me: Invisibilia’s “The Reluctant Immortalist” (about a scientist who discovered a small creature that the scientific community believes to be immortal) and Outside Magazine’s “The frontier couple who chose death over life apart” (about end-of-life decisions and the beauty/pain of getting to decide when enough is enough).

THE (POLITICAL) SHOW MUST GO ON

• “The agonizing story of Tara Reade” (Vox): The journalist-author learns of the Tara Reade story a year ago, but didn’t find enough to corroborate a story that, perhaps unfortunately, requires an insane burden of proof in order for the public to believe. Regardless of whether you believe the accusations, I find the actual journalistic ethics of the story interesting. When do you publish this kind of accusation? What the burden of proof needed? Is that right?

• “Putin is well on his way to stealing the next election” (Atlantic): Like many Americans (and others), I’ve been reading bits and bobs about Russian interference, but this article lays things out in a stark, startling way that frankly, freaked me out a little. If 2016 was just Russia “casing the joint,” what will the 2020 elections bring?

SUNDAY NIGHT MOVIES

My partner Werner and I have brought back an old South African tradition from his youth: Sunday night movies at 8pm (previously shown on MNET, now streamed from Netflix). As a result, I’ve been watching more movies than usual and these two have been my favorites:

• Dark Waters: A based-on-a-true-story movie on Dupont chemicals, Teflon, and the awful inadequacy of “self-regulation”

• The Peanut Butter Falcon: A feel-good, laugh-out-loud indie movie, from the same writers/directors who brought the world Little Miss Sunshine

LONGER THAN LONG FORM (aka BOOKS)

I’ve read five books in a row that I’ve quite liked:

• Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens: Not even going to explain since everyone seems to have read it

• Running with Sherman by Christopher McDougall: This was actually on the plane ride back from Ecuador, and it was the perfect, page-turning delight. From the same author who wrote Born to Run (which led both barefoot running and ultrarunning to take off), an older (and thankfully less bro-ish) McDougall decides to rehabilitate an adopted, formally maltreated donkey by teaching it to run.

• The Dutch House by Ann Patchett (h/t Netta): This book is a bit like a twisted modern Cinderella story, but where happy endings don’t really exist, and where Cinderella is actually a pair of siblings, and the book is about their bond to each other and to their childhood. That’s a very bad explanation, and mostly it’s because the plot doesn’t really matter (and is actually pretty dull). Instead, it’s all about the characters, who come to life and are so fully and clearly drawn that you inhabit their lives and world incredibly easily. I could barely put it down; despite long workdays, I finished it in 3 days flat.

And two books by Mexican authors:

• Lost Children Archive by Valeria Luiselli: This great-American-road-trip book was on just about every Top 10 Books of 2019 list, so I was determined to finish it, but not gonna lie: it was a bit of a slog. That said, I 100% understand why it’s so critically acclaimed. It’s one of those novels that’s also a set of random philosophical essays, that “samples” from other famous literature/essays in a way you might see in music (songs sampling other songs) but is rarely done in books. It also shape-shifts. About 70% of the way through, it switches gears, from the slow meandering rhythm of a Richard Linklater movie, to a plot-driven adventure story. And the ending was just so perfect that I was tempted to read it again, this time knowing where Luiselli was going. I very rarely feel this way about endings, but it was absolutely perfect.

• The Murmur of Bees by Sofía Segovia: A Mexican magical-realist fable about a strange orphan boy who gets adopted by a wealthy farming family in northern Mexico, with the backdrop of the Mexican Revolution, Spanish Flu, and socialist/agrarian reforms. It’s supremely well done. It manages to create the same feeling (bewitching righteousness?) that great fables bestow on children, but in an adult audience. The plot moves at a quick pace. At the same time, there’s an interesting political/philosophical undercurrent: You’re made to root for the wealthy landowner, but also morally compromised for doing so.

ECUADOR (and a big catch-up)

Whooo it’s been a while. Since the last post, I returned to each of my three “home bases”: the U.S., South Africa, and then (now) Mexico City. And I also got a full-time job, as well as a couple part-time aerial acrobatics teaching gigs. So I forgot to post. So here’s a bit catch-up post, PLUS some Ecuador reads (first international trip since being back in Mexico!):

ECUADOR

I cheated and read two books in English, and only half of them is by an Ecuadorian. BUT they were both great:

• Savages by Joe Kane: Environmental activitist and journalist Joe Kane tells the story of a small (c. 1500 person) Amazonian tribe called the Huaroni, whose ancestral land the Ecuadorian government has just agreed to open up to oil exploration. This book was AMAZING. Joe travels deep into the forest, befriends members of the tribe, and is therefore able to gain access to both fascinating descriptions of everyday life in that environment, as well as the many ethical quandaries that “development” brings up. To what extent does the government get to choose what a “good life” or “education” is? To what extent do 1500 people get to decide the economic fate of a country? Who gets to speak for (and make deals on behalf of) the Huaroni, who are a spread out, diverse group without a singular chief? If such oil exploration is inevitable, is there a “right” way to do it? This book was at turns funny, suspenseful, and deeply sad. I feel I am a better human for having read it.

• The Queen of Water by Laura Resau and María Virginia Farinango: Author Laura Resau collaborates with Ecuadorian María Virginia Farinango to tell the latter’s story. In the 1980s, it was common for poor Quichua families to give away (sometimes for money) their young children to mestizo couples, to act as nannies/cooks/cleaners. María was one of those children, except she was also clever and feisty and managed to make something of herself, despite her circumstance. This is a YA book and sometimes felt overly simplistic, but in general the story was so amazing and enjoyable, that mostly I got over it. It was also an interesting book to read after Savages because in the former, the Quichua (the largest indigenous group in Ecuador, and the most “integrated”) were often described as powerful and sophisticated, compared tot he Huaroni. In this book, you got to see how they were still, until pretty recently, quite disenfranchised.

I also listened to a really great Radio Ambulante story about Ecuador:

• Los extraterrestres: In the 1940s, Radio Quito transmitted a radio play version of H.G. Wells’ The War of the Worlds, and it was so realistic that residents began to believe that it was actual news: that the world, Ecuador included, was indeed being invaded by extraterrestrials. Fear, chaos, and violence ensue. This is a remarkable story that might seem “silly” (how could people believe such a thing, you might say), but I think actually sheds light on this amazingly important and delicate trust we have in journalism to tell us the “truth.” If the New York Times, Washington Post, Guardian, CNN, etc etc. were all reporting the same alien invasion story, I too would believe it. (After all, what happens when you don’t believe it? Then you become a conspiracy theorist, decrying everything as “fake news.”)

BOOKISH FUN

• Washington Black by Esi Edugyan: I’ve been recommending this to friends as “The Life of Pi, but with the moral heft and complexity of slavery mixed in.” Yes, I know that’s weird. But the book has some of the same fantastical, page-turning narrative that I remember from Life of Pi, with the gut-punch of historical wrongs. It was, in other words, great.

• Three Women by Lisa Taddeo: The author chronicles the lives of three (real) women, and the role of relationships and desire in each of their lives. One is a young girl who had a relationship with a teacher, another is New England WASP in an open relationship, and the last is a women in an affair. I found the focus on women’s desire refreshing, but was unable to muster too much interest in two of the stories. The teenage story, though, fascinated me. In the age of #metoo, I found the questions it raised about power, agency, and consent really difficult. (The author has a very specific, and strong, stance on the story—and I found myself sometimes diverging from her point of view.)

• Fleishman is in Trouble by Raffy Brodevser-Anker: Most reviews describe this as a hilarious romp of a mid-life crisis, with a now separated man trying to navigate the landmines of modern romance. That’s true, but it also misses the main point—which is the ending you don’t see coming. It’s therefore hard to accurately describe this book without giving it away. So all I’ll say is this: I thought the book was just fine until the last 30 or so pages. And then I was like, whoa.

• Exhalation by Ted Chiang: Sci-fi short stories that feel accessible and important. As with all anthologies, it was uneven, but the story about digital pets was breathtakingly good (yes, I know that sounds weird). Here’s the best way I can explain it: You know your most eccentric friend, who gets obsessed by some very niche idea and then really gets into it, and it’s kind of awesome how well-versed they are in all the aspects of that idea? Ted Chiang is like that friend, obsessed with speculative futures, based on surprisingly in-depth research on current technologies (there are FOOTNOTES, people!)

• Liked, didn’t love: The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt (I know I’m so late to that one), Trust Exercise by Susan Choi (though I did rip through it in a day)

• Didn’t like (though critics did): The Overstory by Richard Powers (too long for a book about trees), The Topeka School by Ben Lerner (ugh, I tried to care, but couldn’t), American Spy by Lauren Wilkinson (didn’t seem very well written).

LONG-FORM & PODCASTS

This is probably what’s taken the biggest hit since I’ve started working, but some memorable ones since July 2019 are:

Policies and Interventions:

• “The Scourge of Worker Wellness Programs” (The New Republic): This is effectively a well-thought-out op-ed against “wellness” programs at work— you know, stuff like free gym memberships, free healthy lunches, or even fitness competitions at work. This piece caught me off-guard because I mostly think of those kinds of policies as good, especially in the U.S., where obviously health is a real issue. But (1) I hadn’t thought about how they often are blanket policies that ignore disabled or older workers, (2) I didn’t realize that sometimes bonuses are attached to things like weight loss, and (3) I hadn’t considered the full picture, which is that companies are doing these wellness programs not actually to help workers, but because it improves productivity to have workers with fewer health issues, even as a popular source of our health issues is the focus on productivity (that is, stress and long hours at work).

• “The Power to Kill” (The Intercept): Prosecutors wield enormous power in the US, as they get to decide what cases and charges to pursue. What happens if one woman decides that capital punishment is unjust and refuses to ever request it?

• "Season Two: Curtis Flowers” [PODCAST SERIES] (In the Dark / APM Reports): This is the best true crime and investigative reporting I’ve heard in podcast format, maybe ever. (Yes, I think it’s better than both Serial and S Town.) Like the link above, it’s about the power of prosecutors—but also, the problematic nature of juries, especially in small towns.

• “English towns are installing ‘chat benches’ to combat loneliness”: This is the charming-est of interventions!

• “Homeward Bound”: The network of volunteers that enable interstate dog rescues—basically taking them from one city with too many dogs at kill shelters, to take them to areas with more demand (and less supply) for rescue dogs. Sure, you can say that this kind of enormous effort should instead be amassed to solve other pressing problems like intense poverty or the Syrian refugee crisis, but you know what, I choose to celebrate anyone who cares enough to volunteer (or donate).

• “The untold story of the 2018 Olympics cyberattack, the most deceptive hack in history“: This piece is recommendable because (1) I had no idea there even was a hack, (2) the way it’s written is just plain good storytelling, and (3) the questions it raises at the end about how deceptions in hacking will likely cause political havoc for countries that don’t have the technical capability to keep digging until they get to the real truth. I mean, it’s pretty crazy how long it takes to get to the bottom of hacks like this, and the media (and public) run away with a given narrative, long before the cybersecurity officials have even completed their investigations.

• All the excellent reporting ProPublica has done on Turbotax (I think I’ve read a few pieces over the last year, but here’s one).

Tech doesn’t care about you

• "The story of a Lyft ride gone wrong” [PODCAST EPISODE] (The Cut / Gimlet / NY Mag): If there’s one thing you listen to this week, please make it be this. It is SUCH a well-produced piece about a girl who wakes up to a Lyft bill that seems way too high—and with a sinking feeling that something happened last night.

• “I accidentally uncovered a nationwide scam on Airbnb” (Wired): The author gets scammed, and then is determined to get to the bottom of it. It’s both a great whodunnit and also an infuriating read. Basically, it’s easy for hosts to use fake pictures, get bookings, take people’s money, and then when they get shut down, just post a new listing. And Airbnb doesn’t care.

• “Technopolis” [PODCAST SERIES] (Citylab): In general, I love Citylab’s wonky emphasis on data, and so when they released this (sadly only one-season) podcast series about how technology is reshaping our cities, I was all in. Although the co-hosts’ exchanges can be a bit hokey, in general, they have really interesting things to say.

I pretend to know about crypto—and so should you

• “The Trillion-Dollar Lawsuit” (Alex Danco, h/t Werner of course): Everything you didn’t know about the market manipulation that underpinned that massive Bitcoin rally in 2017. Even if you’re not into crypto (I’m not, really), it makes for a fascinating read.

• “The Hard-luck Texas town that bet on Bitcoin—and lost” (Wired): Sometimes we forget that fake digital currency also is related to physical place and real incomes. But then there are stories like this one.

Legends (and happier things):

• How to boil the perfect egg? (NYTimes) by the chef/writer who conducted “the largest-ever double-blind egg-boiling-and-peeling experiment in the history of the universe” (involving 700 eggs!) I love when science is applied to very stupid things.

• “A retired teacher found some seahorses off Long Beach. Then he built a secret world for them” (LA Times)

• “The World’s Fastest (Old) Man” - Need I say more?

MEXICO: Yucatan Peninsula, Tabasco, Veracruz, CDMX

Now that I’ve been in Mexico a while, and the travels are coming to a close… I’m going to have to figure out what to do with this blog! Perhaps each month I read stuff by an author from a different continent?

Anyway, until I figure that out, here are some things I’ve liked, with no particular geographic focus:

On things that need to change (and isn’t it crazy they haven’t already?)

• “Tax Hero” (Planet Money): As someone who has done taxes in multiple countries, American taxes are indeed insane. This is a story of one professor proposing an easy solution to make American taxes SO MUCH better, and the TurboTax (and other accounting) lobbyists who shut down his campaign. It is everything that is wrong with policy / politics.

• “Save Our Food. Free the Seed.” (NYTimes): This opinion piece deftly argues (1) against patents on crop traits (“Utility patents restricted farmers’ freedom to save and exchange seed and breeders’ right to use the germplasm for research.”) and (2) for greater government R&D investment in organic plant breeding (After all, “Organic growing reduces the use of harmful chemicals, improves the soil’s ability to sequester carbon and retain water, and strengthens biodiversity.”) I’m personally both pro-GMO and pro-organic farming methods (yes, that’s a possible stance), and I worry about the ability of our monoculture food systems to handle the environmental changes to come.

On slow-moving environmental disasters

• "If Seeing the World Helps Ruin It, Should We Stay Home?" (NYTimes): Of course I knew that my carbon footprint from this year was terrible. And yet, I still didn't quite expect this stat: The extra carbon emissions from one person's share of a one-way NY/LA (2500 mile) flight, shrinks the Arctic summer sea ice cover by 3 square meters, or 32 square feet. And that's a one way flight that isn't actually very long. GAHH.

• “Depave Paradise” (99% Invisible): A two-parter about Mexico City, and the fascinating water problem that now plagues it. The city, situated in a natural basin with plenty of water, was constructed to get rid of all its rainfall to prevent flooding. As a result, now the city doesn’t have enough water to sustain its growing population, and tapping groundwater aquifers has resulted in the city shrinking. The piece also discusses some potential solutions for this problem (depaving, rainwater capture, etc.). The podcast was particularly interesting for me, having lived through Cape Town’s water crisis before AND now experiencing rainy season in Mexico City.

• “Highway of Riches, Road to Ruin: Inside the Amazon’s Deforestation Crisis” (Globe and Mail): A gorgeous multi-media piece by investigative journalists following the BR-163 highway through the Amazon rainforest. They speak to loggers, farmers, miners, conservationists, and government officials, to try to better understand what’s happening on the ground, and why.

• “Ocean Noise Pollution, Whale Ears, and a Humpback Beached on Cape Cod” (BU): There’s growing concern about the noise pollution in oceans, and how human sounds (from sonar, boats, oil drilling) affect marine animals, especially those who use sound to navigate the waters, e.g. whales. This piece follows a team of marine biologists rushing to the site of a beached whale to do an autopsy and gather new science about how exactly whales hear (by extracting whale ears, yes there are photos, and yes they look bizarre). In the process, readers learn all kinds of fun facts, like that pilot whales seem to like the sound of sonar, and actually swim towards it, trying to mimic its sounds. (Doesn’t that give you a great mental image?)

On public policy

• “Better Public Schools Won’t Fix Income Inequality” (Atlantic): A pretty convincing article (by someone who built a charter school network) about why American elites are wrong to believe that education is the way to fix income inequality. The piece is full of compelling facts, like that the main growth in jobs (and the main gap in labor) is not actually in skilled labor, even for the next couple decades. The solution to income inequality is therefore redistribution: policies like higher (wealth) taxes and higher minimum wages.

• “‘They Were Conned’: How Reckless Loans Devastated a Generation of Taxi Drivers” (NYTimes): This is an infuriating read about how lax regulation and unchecked greed can create a crazy bubble (similar to the housing market bubble that led to the 2008 recession), whose bursting mostly affects poor, non-English-speaking immigrants. The two-parter is also a masterpiece in investigative journalism.

• “Denmark’s Paternity Leave Problem” (The Impact) and “After men in Spain got paternity leave, they wanted fewer kids” (Quartz): An interesting set of pieces on paternity leave. In Denmark, where moms/dads can split their leave, fathers rarely take much. In Finland, where each has an allotted amount of leave, they both take it. In Spain: “Spending more time with their children—or the prospect of having to do so—may have made men more acutely aware of the effort and costs associated with childrearing [and shifted their preference to having smaller families...] At the same time, women started showing preferences for slightly larger families—perhaps a sign that having more children seemed more desirable with a slightly more equitable balance of labor at home." And all the female readers go 🙄.

On complicated men

• “How did WeWork’s Adam Neumann Build a $47 Billion Company?” (NY Mag): “In 2017, Neumann declared that WeWork’s ‘valuation and size today are much more based on our energy and spirituality than it is on a multiple of revenue’ […] In this mode — which is his usual one — he can sound like a satirical version of a start-up founder. The years between Steve Jobs’s ascension to business deity and the fateful afternoon when Elon Musk tweeted that his company might go private at $420 a share have cemented the legend of the iconoclastic founder as a modern American folktale. Spreadsheets are out; megalomaniacal ambition is in.” For some reason, I (and I suppose many readers) can’t get enough of these take-down profiles, and yet, I know they do nothing.

• “The Curious Cons of the Man Who Wouldn’t Die” (GQ): I began reading, thinking this was going to be a fun bank-heist romp of a story, but instead, it’s actually a sad, moving story of how an AIDS survivor committed fraud to live his last year(s) in style, but then… just kept living, with the legal issues and emotional trauma that involved.

On things that brought me wonder

• “Why I (Still) Love Tech: In Defense of a Difficult Industry” (Wired): I loved this piece so much I read it twice, one day after the next. It’s a soaring and frantic, excellently written “it’s complicated” ode to the tech industry, from someone who joined it in the 1990s. The beginning is particularly amazing. A quick excerpt: “When I was a boy, if you’d come up behind me (in a nonthreatening way) and whispered that I could have a few thousand Cray supercomputers in my pocket, that everyone would have them, that we would carry the sum of human ingenuity next to our skin, jangling in concert with our coins, wallets, and keys? And that this Lilliputian mainframe would have eyes to see, a sense of touch, a voice to speak, a keen sense of direction, and an urgent desire to count my actual footsteps and everything I read and said as I traipsed through the noosphere? Well, I would have just burst, burst. I would have stood up and given the techno­barbaric yawp of a child whose voice has yet to change.”

• Circe by Madeline Miller: I’m not normally a Greek mythology kind of girl, but this was a fun and well-written read— an empathetic take on the life of the goddess Circe, AKA Witch of Aiaia, AKA daughter of the Sun God, Helios.

• “Making Coffee” (Ice Coffee: The History of Human Activity in Antarctica): This podcast is hosted by a researcher living in Antarctica, telling you about humans in Antarctica, while he makes coffee. The episodes are long, and I’m not a history wonk enough to stick with it, but this first episode on how one logistically makes coffee in a frigid place, was fascinating. All the problems you never even considered! Just to make a cuppa! I literally said “wow” out loud at some point.

• “Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog”: Werner mentioned this off-hand recently, I hadn’t seen it, and boy it is a goody, STILL, more than 10 years later. It’s a short comedic musical starring Neil Patrick Harris, written by Joss Whedon (of Buffy fame).

• Isle of Dogs: I’m not a die-hard Wes Anderson fan, but I LOVED this one. It was bursting with heart, (odd) humor, and of course, dogs. Highly recommended.

Other random recommendations

• The Old Drift by Namwali Serpell: This sprawling book jumps around times and places, but centers on several generations of families in Zambia. There’s some magic realist and scifi elements, but mostly the story is just driven by characters trying to make their way in a difficult place. I found it quite lovely to see the country through someone else’s fictional lens, and it brought me back to the many weeks I spent working there; my former employer Zoona was even mentioned :) I liked it, didn’t love it— but would probably still recommend it to anyone who’s spent time in Zambia (or even neighboring Malawi / Zimbabwe).

GUATEMALA & BELIZE

Countries visited: Guatemala, Belize

LOCAL MEDIA

• The Art of Political Murder by Francisco Goldman (Guatemala nonfiction): Confession: Try as I might, I only got through 74% of this book, which investigates the political murder of Bishop Gerardi, who headed up the human rights organization that published Nunca Más, a catalogue of the abuses and genocide committed against the Mayan people in the Civil War. Bishop Gerardi was murdered in 1998, but this book was only published in 2007, providing enough time to consider what the murder signified about Guatemala's budding democracy and whether things have changed since. Goldman, a half-Guatemalan writer/journalist, however, chooses to mostly focus on the minutiae of the case, turning it into a very long, beleaguered, non-page-turner true crime novel. I wish it had told the bigger story. 

• Cuentos, fábulas y lo demás es silencio by Augusto Monterroso // English: Complete Works and Other Stories (Guatemala fiction): I had never heard of him before, but apparently, in Latin America, Monterroso is known for his "micro-cuentos" (micro short stories) and political satire, and he is often grouped with other magical realist authors from Latin America. I found Monterroso's stories to be more wide-ranging in their tone/voice than Borges/Marquez/Llosa. That meant that I loved some of the stories (e.g. "Míster Taylor" is absolute perfection), but  I found others to be odd and unsatisfying. In fact, "Diógenes También" was so baffling in Spanish that I ended up reading the English translation too, just in case; turns out, it's just a strange read in any language.

• ”J.. vs. Estados Unidos” (Radio Ambulante) (Guatemala nonfiction podcast): A story of the relative impunity of US Border Control agents.

• Three Kings of Belize: A documentary on 3 Garifuna musicians. The Garifuna were descendants of would-be slaves whose boats ran ashore near Guatemala/Belize, and so remained free but in these foreign lands. They retain  a Garifuna language, culture, and a style of Afro-Carribbean music.

ALL THE FEELS 

• "Inside the first Afghan women's ascent of Mount Noshaq" (Outside): An incredibly moving piece about Afghan woman mountaineers — It's a good reminder that empowerment doesn't just have to be about "soft" skills like literacy (although, of course, not knocking reading!); empowerment can come from giving people literal, physical power too. And that's precisely the story of this mountaineering non-profit: training women to be physically stronger, against all kinds of sometimes-violent obstacles.

• Two recent and excellent Without Fail episodes feature people who are basically professionals at saying sorry to people: "The tragedy expert" compensates family members after catastrophes like terrorist attacks or school shootings, while Patty McCord (of Netflix HR fame) schools host Alex on "How to fire people"

ASSIGNING BLAME

• Poverty: "The American Work Ethic" (Longreads): PREACH. On why we insist that the poor work hard for their benefits, while we have no problem with the idle rich living off interest from their trust funds. This is excellently argued and written. 

• Sexism: "The end of empathy" (Invisibilia) - Two different reporters (one empathetic, the other not) take the same tape of an interview, to create 2 very different radio stories about a former Incel's treatment of women. 

• Racism: "A very offensive rom-com" (Invisibilia) - I'm loving this season's Invisibilia, which is taking massive risks in producing stories like this one, about a young Asian woman's attempts at self-correcting her attraction to certain races over others.

• Obesity: Three pieces have got me thinking about how we (society and especially physically fit people) treat overweight and obese people. We say the shame we impose is because we care about their health, as well as the cost that obesity imposes on government (via higher healthcare costs). And yet, very little is discussed about the toll this shaming takes on their mental health. And perhaps fatness is not a choice or personal failure, in the same way poverty is not really a choice. This of course is all worsened by contradictory, and perhaps totally unscientific information about how to lose weight-- e.g. maybe even calorie counting is founded on a myth. 

• "Tell me I'm fat" (This American Life)

• "Everything you know about obesity is wrong" (Huffington Post): I read this when it came out in Sept 2018, and it’s stuck with me. After the above TAL episode aired, I revisited it, and it’s just as challenging of a read.

• "Death of the calorie" (1843 Magazine / The Economist): On why calories are not as scientific as you think, how much product calorie information might vary from the truth, and ultimately why counting calories doesn't lead to weight loss. 

THE AFTERMATH OF BAD PUBLIC POLICY

• Gentrification: "Berlin's radical housing activists aren't afraid of expropriations" (The Nation): Berliners might be voting on a referendum to expropriate 200,000 apartments from 10 of the biggest real estate companies, in a move to battle gentrification. It's an amazing testament to the power of mass organizing — and a vote of this nature might spawn copycat movements in other cities plagued by parasitic real estate (looking at you, New York). 

• School segregation: "San Francisco had an ambitious plan to tackle school segregation. It made it worse" (NY Times): The fascinating attempt (and failure?) to desegregate San Francisco schools - a lesson in public policy humility. Facts that stood out to me: (1) Across major US cities, neighborhoods are getting more integrated (gentrification?) but public schools more segregated (private school?); and (2) A whopping 25% of SF students and 20% of NYC students attend private school. [Full disclosure: I’m a proud public school kid.]

• Public debt: "The McKinsey way to save an island" (NY Magazine): All these pieces about economic public policy and US colonialism in Puerto Rico are so upsetting. And everyone is a bad actor in this story. First, Congress lets old incentives expire for companies to be in PR, so they pull out, and the economy suffers. (These incentives should have either never existed, been gradually phased out, or not been removed.) Despite the lower tax revenues, the PR government continues spending as usual and issuing bonds to fund such spending. (Ugh.) The US federal law also gives financial incentives for investors to buy PR bonds, driving demand. (Ugh.) PR can’t make good on those bonds, so issues junk bonds. Hedge funds snap those up, knowing PR can’t legally declare bankruptcy because it’s a US territory not a state. (Ugh sharks & Ugh colonialism.) Hurricane Maria hits. (Ugh climate change.) Obama & Congress allow PR to renegotiate its debts but requires it to have an “oversight committee” and consultants to get the country's budgets and public policy in order. McKinsey and co step in, charging $1.5b for the project and requesting austerity measures that, at least in the short term, lead to 250 school closing, police officers quitting, and violent crime rising. Meanwhile, US investors will get back 93% of their promised returns, while PR citizens holding their own country’s debt will likely get 50% of its promised value. WHY IS EVERY PART OF THIS STORY SO HORRIBLE?!

TECH & POLICY 

• "How technology could revolutionize refugee resettlement" (The Atlantic): Machine learning might help decide where refugees are sent, based on where they are likeliest to find gainful employment and report greatest satisfaction. This sounds generally great, and I'm digging some of the data-driven government experiments of such systems (the Swiss are running an experiment with 1000 refugees placed algorithmically vs. 1000 placed normally). But I also always wonder what the negative side effects of tech-driven policies might be, for instance: Will this lead to refugees being settled on fewer, more multicultural places? Will this grow the gap between places, as some become whiter while others become more immigrant? If so, should we be optimizing for society or for the refugees themselves? Algorithms don't help answer the hard ethical issues.

• "How Grindr became a national security issue" (The Verge): This seems incredibly obvious once someone points it out, but of course the US government would be wary of foreign governments owning Grindr, with its incrediby sensitive, blackmail-able data. And course, a Chinese government owning it would be particularly problematic. But also, as in some of the Huawei coverage, I think the American media (and public) are starting to show hints of xenophobia. 

MISCELLANEOUS

• "Why facts don't change our minds" (New Yorker): An interesting set of psychology research on why many irrational biases (e.g. anchoring, confirmation bias) were evolutionarily designed to enable greater social cohesion. This piece is full of interesting studies, including the pair at the end, which indicate one possible way to make us less politically polarized. 

• "The Roman Mars Mazda Virus" (Reply All): Just an honestly joyous episode for any lover of podcasts. So many surprise guests! And as a literary nerd, the parenthetical part just SLAYS me. 

• 30 Animals That Made Us Smarter (BBC): A delightful albeit slightly too earnest podcast on biomimicry - how scientific developments are inspired by different animals' traits. IMHO, the strongest episode so far is the first one, on the kingfisher and the Japanese bullet train. 

• "The underground railroad of North Korea" (GQ): On the ethically murky system bringing North Koreans through China or Southeast Asia, to South Korea, where they automatically get refugee citizenship. (They need to take this crazily circuitous path because the actual North/South border is too actively paroled.) The journalist's frustrating attempts to get at the truth help paint some picture of how impossible it is for anyone (non-profits or the North Koreans themselves) to know whom to trust. 

• The NYT’s data journalism section, The Upshot, just published its list of its best articles from the last 5 years. This is a bit of a cop-out as I’m not choosing a specific article, but the articles are often short pieces full of interactive graphs, so I’m recommending in general to poke around.

MEXICO: Puebla, Oaxaca, Chiapas // GUATEMALA: Xela

Countries visited: Mexico, Guatemala

REGIONAL STORIES:

• Te Veré en el Desayuno (See You at Breakfast) by Guillermo Fadanelli: An example of Mexican “dirty realism,” this novella follows four characters in Mexico City as their lives intersect, and it moves from a darkly comedic first half to simply dark second half. A heady combination of external forces (poverty, crime, sexism) and what Fadanelli depicts as human nature (a proclivity to lie to ourselves and others, to decide the wrong things are important) that drives the characters’ increasingly appalling, irrational-yet-rational decisions. An employee at a bookshop in Mazatlán recommended it to me — and it was an excellent one. Not sure how the English translation holds up.

• La Camioneta: The Journey of One American School Bus (short documentary): A sweet, though slow, look at how an American school bus gets transformed into a gloriously kitschy Guatemalan camioneta that provides public transport, and the financial and (gang) security risks involved in making that transformation. This documentary has made me look both more joyously and concernedly at all the many, many such buses we’ve passed on first our couple days in Guatemala.

LONG FORM:

My favorite pieces in the last few weeks have focused on 3 topics.

(1) Gaping Holes in Science

• “The hidden air pollution in our homes” (New Yorker) - Consider that we have spent billions cleaning up (and studying) outdoor air pollution, and that we publish academic reports quantifying the loss of life associated with living in “dirtier” cities. Yet it turns out most of us live over 95% of our lives indoors (5% outdoors = 1 hour, 12 mins per day)—and that we know close to nothing about whether there is indoor air pollution from home substances mixing: everything from cooking fumes (toast, baking, stir frying), to chemical cleaners, to body lotions. This article probably gets slightly too alarmist for my taste, but it is true that we don’t know how alarmist to be because of the lack of science in this area.

(2) Rotten Tech

• Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup by John Carreyrou (h/t Werner): This book follows the rise and fall of the blood testing hardware company Theranos, and the ways the leadership committed escalating acts of outright deception (to media, board members, and investors) to score massive commercial deals and pump up attention (and valuations). It also is the story of how difficult it is in these circumstances to be a whistleblower. It’s of course an amazing story to cover, but the writer (journalist) gets way too caught up in side details. Somewhere in this readable 299-page book is an actually excellent 200-page book.

• Two reasonably good starting places on potential paths for regulating Big Tech: “Here’s how we can break up Big Tech” (Medium) from Elizabeth Warren & “Antitrust 3: Big Tech” (Planet Money)

(3) Love is Complicated

• Normal People by Sally Rooney: Sally Rooney is currently a darling of the literary world, and deservedly so after her excellent debut novel Conversations with Friends, which deftly examines the burdens and glories of female friendship in your early 20s. This is her sophomore book, which focuses on a male/female best friendship in which both characters come of age together, and their relationship is challenged by sexual tension, class differences, mental illness, and of course your standard college drama bullshit. The thing is, it’s just not as good. There’s not nearly enough dialogue (Rooney’s strong suit), and the male character is just a bit flat. That said, it’s still Sally Rooney, so you know, it was compulsively readable, and I finished it in a day. (And also, most critics seem to disagree with me and like this book more than her first one.)

• “A Very Offensive Rom-Com” (Invisibilia): Invisibilia’s team is on a roll with choosing risky episode topics that are going to get them tons of hate mail— and I love it. This one focuses on a young Asian American woman who’s determined to examine, challenge, and “fix” her own racial (racist?) sexual preferences. As the host asks: Can we, and should we, hammer our sexual preferences into the shape of our political beliefs?

MEXICO: Baja California, Pacific Coast, Mexico City

Mexican states visited: Baja California Norte & Sur, Sinaloa, Durango, Mexico, Puebla

Local stories:

I’ve slacked on this one — mostly because I know I’m going to be in Mexico for so long. I’ve got some books and movies downloaded and ready, so the next post should include more Mexican things. For now, all I’ve got are:

• “The Tunnel” (99% Invisible) on a tunnel under the Arizona border, facilitating the drug trade

• “Mexico Fights the Fuel Pirates” (Planet Money) on the state’s response to drug cartels now stealing gasoline - We actually recently went to a gas station still being protected by army personnel

• Born to Run: A Hidden Tribe, Superathletes, and the Greatest Race the World Has Never Seen by Christopher McDougall (BOOK) on the evolutionary anthropology research indicating humans were made to run long distances, and on the remote Tarahumara/Ramamurí tribe in the Mexican Sierra Nevada mountains (as well as some American ultra-runners), who still excel at it. This book is sometimes cringe-worthily “bro”y and leans hard into caricatures, but it’s also interesting, well-researched, and entertaining.

On US politics:

• “I Served in Congress Longer Than Anyone. Here’s How to Fix It.” (Atlantic): A remarkably clear-eyed and no-holds-bar set of recommendations from the longest-ever serving member of the House of Representatives, John Dingell. It’s a great future vision for progressives. Favorite line: “I know there are those who genuinely believe in privatizing everything. They are called profiteers.” Most shocking fact: “In 2050, 70 percent of Americans will be living in just 15 states. That 70 percent will then have 30 senators, and the remaining 30 percent of the people, mainly those living in the smallest and poorest states, will have 70 senators.”

• “An Itch You Can’t Scratch Off” (Topic): A great look at the perverse incentives implicit in state lotteries — simply put, government coffers are fuller when their citizens are addicted to gambling. The most amazing part of this piece was learning how the state lottery games have changed through time to make the games more addictive. For example, addiction is fed by faster feedback loops, so now games are instant-win, or video drawings can happen every 5 minutes. But to make the economics of such constant games work, entry fees (i.e. buying a lotto ticket) must cost more — up to $50 a pop.

• PODCAST: “Is Fixing Campaign Finance As Easy as Giving Everyone $100?” (The Impact): In an effort to give ordinary voters the same power (read: money) as big lobbyists, Seattle sent every resident free “democracy vouchers” worth $100, which could be given to any local campaign of their choice. I don’t want to give away what happened next - just listen. (As a sidenote, I’ve just started listening to The Impact, a podcast series by Vox focusing on public policy. Unfortunately, it’s quite uneven, often overly focusing on emotional responses to interventions, rather than the actual data-driven results.)

On business:

• “How Much of the Internet is Fake? Turns Out, A Lot of it, Actually” (NYMag): A thought-provoking piece on the “Inversion”, particularly for anyone in marketing/growth. What happens to metrics, and trust in metrics/facts, when more than half the users, clicks, and maybe even content, are not real?

• "Urban Organics Wants to Fix Food” (Outside): Before this piece, I had heard of urban farming, hydroponics, and aquaculture, but I had never heard of its genius combination: aquaponics. In this system, the poop-laden water from fish farming (aquaculture) is fed to plants growing without soil in this water (hydroponics), whose roots suck up the sullied water as fertilizer and purify it to be recirculated as clean water for the fish. It’s a totally closed system with almost no water loss, and can, at least theoretically, be built on large scales even in urban areas, thus reducing the usual carbon footprint in getting food from rural fields to urban centers. But, of course, this is somewhat theoretical — and scaling such solutions in the real world is another matter.

On culture, art, and life:

• “My Life at 47 is Back to What it Was When I Was 27” (Medium): This is a terrible title for what is actually a lovely meandering pondering of a woman’s life lived, and what it feels like to be in your (female) 40s with nearly half a century worth of friendships and a stronger sense of self.

• “Inside Dau, the Stalinist Truman Show” (Guardian): An incredible piece on a sprawling art/film project that recreated a Soviet town and persona with startling accuracy and violent, sexual fervor. I honestly don’t know what I think of it nor of the ethics of attending one of the shows.

• “Where Not to Travel in 2019, or Ever” (The Walrus): I’m not sure I always agree with this piece, and I have pretty nuanced (and mixed) feelings about the ethics of leaving remote tribes isolated vs. bringing them social goods like education and healthcare. But for “adventurous” travelers like me, I do think it raises some points at least worth considering.

• PODCAST: “The Fifth Vital Sign” (Invisibilia): What happens when doctors (and people themselves) begin paying more attention to patients’ pain? A very controversial take on chronic “amplified pain” and an even more controversial solution to it. Right after listening, the first words out of my mind were “Well, I’m sure they’re is gonna get plenty of hate mail for this one” (now evidenced by NPR’s response here), but I also think it’s an important listen. That said, I’m very confused about why the producers chose to ignore gender in this story, when all the patients in the treatment program were female.

CALIFORNIA & OREGON

States visited: California (all down the coast), Oregon (Portland only)

BOOKS

I was so eager to devour books written for an American audience (I know, I know…) that I read 7 books in about a month - a combo of ones from the “Best books of 2018” lists and “Staff picks” recommendations from local bookstores.

LIKED:

• Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore by Robin Sloan: So fun! A fantastical story about a strange bookstore in San Francisco. My only complaints were that it felt very 2012 - as in, weirdly adoring of all things Google/Silicon Valley, and also pretty old-school sexist (jealous boyfriend “jokes” abound).

• You Know You Want This by Kristen Roupenian: The author of “Cat Person” (the viral New Yorker short story) has a new book of short stories out! It’s a strange book, but I enjoyed it. Two things you should know: She used to write mostly horror fiction (so you’ll get some weirdness in these stories), and she wanted the stories to discuss complicated power dynamics in relationships of all sorts (romantic, familial, platonic).

• Educated by Tara Westover (h/t Netta): This memoir is unbelievably BONKERS; it’s hard to believe that it could be true. Westover describes her upbringing in a poor, rural, and extremist Mormon family, in which her parents forbid any of the children to go to government school or to see Western doctors. Instead, the children hunt for scrap metal; treat deep injuries with prayer, herbs, homeopathy, and “muscle testing”; and ignore dangerous mental disorders. This book recounts those misadventures, and reflects on the beauties and difficulties involved in leaving “home” to find yourself a new one. It is both shocking and incredibly relatable. There’s no way this book doesn’t get optioned to become a movie.

MIXED FEELINGS:

• Asymmetry by Lisa Halliday: This book was on basically every “Best of 2018” list, so I’m embarrassed to say I don’t think I really “got” it. It’s told in two parts, one a Woody Allen-esque quirky story of a relationship between a young woman and a much, much older (as in, likely in his 70s) man; and the other about an Iraqi-American economist who gets detained at a London airport (flipping back/forth through his life, and the political relationship between America and Iraq). I suppose one is supposed to compare/contrast these two narratives, and understand how love, empathy, and power play out differently (or similarly) between the characters in each piece. It’s also a rumination in the power (or limits) of art/writing. I thought the first half was excellent, but the second half just seemed to try too hard. Anywhere, here’s the New Yorker on why the book has been a phenomenon.

DID'N’T LIKE:

• There, There by Tommy Orange: This was also on many “Best of” lists. I wanted this book about contemporary, urban “Natives” (Native Americans) to be better than it was. It was from an interesting perspective, but unfortunately was neither interesting (plot- or character-wise) nor particularly lyrical/beautifully composed.

• The Pisces by Melissa Broder: The Portland staff pick description of this was “I thought it’d be a fun summer beach read, but then I found it really poignant, and it’s stuck with me.” I found the first 50 pages light, airy, and laugh-out-loud funny. And then it got weirdly dark about love/sex addiction and awfully repetitive. Definitely NOT a fun beach read.

LONGFORM ARTICLES

All that book-reading hasn’t left much room for long-form, so I’m quite behind.

• “What is Glitter?” (NY Times): A delightful and informative deep dive into why glitter is amazingly high-tech.

• ”Elwood, Illinois (Pop. 2,200) Has Become a Vital Hub of America’s New Consumer Economy. And it’s Hell.” (New Republic): The plight/future of Middle America, through the lens of warehouse logistics and consumer tax breaks. AKA why small towns need to stop giving beneficial tax breaks to massive companies entering their markets and promising job creation. (Similar story by Reply All here, on Foxconn in Wisconsin)

• “Is Sunscreen the New Magarine?” (Outside ): A thought-provoking piece on the science (or lack thereof) behind doctors’ suggestions to always wear sunscreen, regardless of the season or your race. Main interesting facts to me were: (1) There’s no evidence that Vitamin D supplements do anything, despite recommendations by big institutions like the UK’s NIH, and (2) Though sun-lovers were more likely to have skin cancer, they were less likely to have malignant types / to die from the cancer vs sun-avoiders who got skin cancer. This article has actually transformed how I think about when to where sunscreen.

PODCASTERY

We’re now in the process of an epic road trip through Mexico and (part of) Central America, so there’s gonna be plenty of podcasting. Some highlights thus far:

• "Relentless: How One Guy Brought the Internet to America’s Schools” (Without Fail): In general I quite like Alex Blumberg’s new interview-format show, in large part because I like him. In this case, the story and central personality in this story is also incredibly likeable.

• “The Accidental Room” (99% Invisible): I can’t explain the plot of this without giving it away, but just listen to it. You’ll never be able to see a mall in quite the same way ever again.

• “Frequent Flyer Miles” (Surprisingly Awesome): This is from 2016, and Gimlet has since killed this show, but it’s worth a listen because it is pretty joyous. And the story of the pudding guy is just fabulous. (Side note: I’m pretty terrible at maximizing for miles, so this recommendation is in spite of me generally not being into FF programs.)

• “Beat Around the Bush: On Pubes” (The Cut on Tuesdays): Smart women talking (and joking) about pube maintenance and trends over time. Weirdly enjoyable.

• “In the No” mini-series (Radiolab) (h/t Mandy): This is a FANTASTIC three-parter on what consent means, from various perspectives: a woman who feels wronged, a woman who defends men accused of sexual abuse, young college-aged men who aren’t sure what to do, and a BDSM  practitioner on how that community has tried to define rules around vocalizing sexual limits/consent.

• “Rom-Com” (This American Life): This whole episode was pretty great (as TAL often is), but the last story (“Act Four: You Had Me at Hello”) in particular is a cringe-worthy, great bad date story extraordinaire. Werner and I can’t stop discussing it. That story begins at 43:35, if you want to jump straight to it.

Philippines / Korea

 COUNTRIES VISITED: Philippines, South Korea

LOCAL READS:

I read 2 books each from the Philippines and Korea, and generally liked 1 of them from each. Perhaps this is just because I’m drawn to stories of immigrants struggling to find a sense of home wherever they are (dis)placed.

Philippines:

• In the Country by Mia Alvar: This collection of short stories focuses on the Filipino diaspora and on the country’s journey to democracy. I found it rather poignant, and in particular enjoyed the (imagined, private) accounts of the Aquinos couple in America - Historical context: In real life, after years of political exile, the husband returns to the Philippines only to be shot dead so becomes a martyr, which alights mass protests against the dictatorial president Marcos, so that Aquinos’ his wife Cory eventually becomes president. (The history is an amazing story in its own right.)

• Smaller and Smaller Circles by FH Batacan: The “first ever Filipino crime novel” and the winner of the National Book Award in the Philippines, this novel follows a couple of priests, who also happen to be forensic detectives, as they try to crack a serial murder case. It was an enjoyable enough (and quick!) read, with some thinly veiled jabs at Catholicism and Filipino politics (ahem Duterte’s treatment of the urban poor), but it was also somewhat predictable. I have no idea how it won a literary award.

South Korea:

• Pachinko by Min Jin Lee: A sprawling, multi-generational story of South Koreans struggling to survive under Japanese colonialism, this book made just about every “Best Books of 2017” list last year. I didn’t love it quite as much as critics did, BUT I did enjoy it. It also taught me a lot about this time/place in history, and the characters were full and complex. (This book was, however, a bit of a cheat, as it was written by a Korean American, rather than a native.)

• Please Look After Mom by Kyeong-Sook Shin: This book won the Asia Man Booker Prize and was a massive commercial success in Korea. That said, I hated it. I found it incredibly simplistic, overwrought, and self-indulgent. None of the characters were particularly complex. That said, I suppose it served as a window into the Korean psyche, the inter-generational gaps, and the “Asian guilt” born by Gen X/millennial children.

• I listened to 2 BBC Documentary podcasts on South Korea - and would recommend (the rather scathing) “Not Making Babies in America” episode, which explains that Korea has the lowest birth rate in the world and offers one primary reason for it: widespread, overt sexism that makes women feel they need to choose between husband & child, or career & self respect. Like I said, it’s quite scathing, but I like listening to some critiques of the places I visit, as I find most visitors (on any holiday anywhere!) often leave with too-rosy views of a place, without any nuance.

INTERNATIONAL BOOKS

• Utopia for Realists by Rutger Bregman: I didn’t find this super well written, but the book provided really good food for thought. Bergman maps out what a courageous progressive vision/ideal of the future should be (e.g., universal basic income, open borders), so that liberals have something to work towards.

• Asymmetry by Lisa Halliday: This perplexing two-part book was on a whole bunch of “Best Books of 2018” lists. The first half follows a budding relationship between a woman in her young twenties and an acclaimed author in his late sixties / early seventies, and it reminded me a lot of a Woody Allen film. The other half concerns an Iraqi-American man who gets stopped by border control in a UK airport, and these chapters flip back and forth through his life. The two halves of the book connect in a few (though very, very tangential) ways. I liked the first half more than the second.

LONG READS

• “An elephant crack up?” (NYT): A fascinating look at PTSD in elephants and how culling programs (mostly for “conservation” reasons) are affecting populations of elephants worldwide / how trauma is similar in humans and elephants (both intelligent, social creatures). The elephant death mourning rituals are incredibly moving.

• ”What if the placebo effect isn’t a trick?” (NYT): A fascinating look at cutting-edge research on how the placebo effect works, whether it can be connected to your genetic makeup, and (ultimately) whether it should be prescribed as medicine.

• ”Tibet is going crazy for hoops” (Atlantic): An unexpected profile of a Tibetan basketball team made up of yak yarn manufacturers, nomads, and monks. As their basketball coach shouts at one point, “There’s gonna be hawks, vultures, balls rolling onto the court—you gotta play through!”

• “The Land that Failed to Fail” (NYT): I don’t read that much on China, so I found this to be a really accessible high-level piece on the Chinese political economic experiment (controlled capitalism), how Americans view the Chinese, and how the Chinese view themselves.

• “14 months, 120 cities, $2 billion. There’s never been a company like Bird. Is the world ready?” (Inc): Honestly, I hadn’t heard of Bird e-scooters until this article because I didn’t live (nor had I traveled to) one of the 120 cities where Bird operates. But this is an incredible piece, both for the crazy stats (it took Bird less than a year to become a $1 billion company; to put that in context, that same valuation took Airbnb 3 years and Uber 4 years to reach), as well as for the profile of the CEO Travis (why must all overvalued transport startups be founded by tech bros names Travis??). There is definitely a weirdly congratulatory tone to this piece that I find disturbing, but still, recommended.