I Like to Watch | Unbelievable (Netflix)
While I understand the argument that no one can genuinely empathize with someone else’s journey — the most recent of these is that white people can’t possibly understand the trials of being black in America — I believe we have to at least try or eventually faction off into castes and tribes with no attempt at finding anything resembling common interest. Stories give us that chance.
Notes From the Harrison Hills
This is the sort of thing you’re not supposed to do — wander around off-trail. I wonder if I’ve made a critical mistake, but I don’t feel particularly alarmed or concerned about the situation I’ve gotten myself into. Does that mean I’m rightly assessing that this is fine? I’m not that far off-trail, I know there are roads and ATV trails that crisscross this whole area, and I know which direction to head. Or is my nonchalance the same kind of unearned confidence that got that Into the Wild idiot killed?
I Believe... [The Quixote Zone]
…that we have now entered the Quixote Zone when old men declaring they are knights, reality stars declaring they are presidents, and the very declaration that you are defined by your belief in your own, specific reality contrary to every indicator otherwise is normal.
Hope Idiotic | Part 11
In the dining room, the party was getting more and more raucous. Music was blaring as it competed for dominance over the laughter. One sixty-year-old woman referred to one of the women in her quilting group as “a total cunt.” Gifts set aside, Lou, Michelle, Chuck and Lexi joined in.
Chris Churchill Saves the World | How "The Walking Dead" Helped Me Feel My Feelings
I love The Walking Dead for a lot of reasons. But here’s the reason I’m so loyal to it:
When I was nineteen years old, committed to the psych ward, sitting across from my first psychiatrist, Dr. Bolan, he explained it to me. He told me I had a panic disorder (a diagnosis that subsequent psychiatrists haven’t necessarily focused on but one that seems to encapsulate a big part of my problem). He compared my brain to a house with many rooms, all of which had a light switch to be turned on when something worried me. As he explained, most people can turn the light on and then, when it was no longer needed (i.e., the thing that worries you is gone), they can turn the light off. People with a panic disorder cannot turn the lights off once they get turned on.
Long Train Running: A Chicago Marathon Story | Chapter 9 — The Unfinished Line
By the time this is published, the Chicago Endurance Sports (CES) training group I’d been running with this summer will be gathering at the Ben Franklin statue in Lincoln Park getting ready to have their last long-ish training run before Race Day. I will be asleep. Or maybe I’ll have dragged my fickle body out of bed to bang out some work before the kid wakes up and the dog needs to be taken out and the wife needs her coffee. The point is that I won’t be at the Ben Franklin statue in Lincoln Park getting ready to have a run. Because I’m not running the Chicago Marathon.
Notes from the Post-it Wall | Week of September 29, 2019
I am limping proof that hopes, prayers, and positive thinking are no match for reality and action.
Nothing
Louise walked out into the waking morning with an ache in her throat and neck she identified as the desire to cry.
Hope Idiotic | Part X
Two days later, Lehman Brothers Holdings collapsed, causing a massive wave of panic throughout the financial world. The Great Recession had begun. That day, with no companies to call on, Lou’s entire team was glued to streaming videos and news stories about the collapse. Lou played online Tetris.
The Minutes of Our Last Meeting | Trump Fortifies The Wall
Dr. Evil: We fill the alligators with scorpions and replace their teeth with fruit-flavored vape cartridges.
Problematic Movies of the 80s | Trading Places (1983)
If you can get past Justin Trudeau in blackface, then you can probably get over Dan Akroyd in blackface but, if not, that’s definitely a jarring moment in the endgame of Winthorpe and Billy Ray executing the switcheroo on the Duke brothers in the last thirty minutes.
The Artist’s Cross to Bear in an Increasingly Strident AntiArt Paradigm
Currently, the artistic form most under fire is comedy. Oh...and movies. And theater, fashion design, television, museum art, and knitting. Yes. Knitting is under fire for not being appropriately woke in the wake of the Great Over Corrective Wokeness Patrol.
I Believe... [Probst for President]
…that if I really wanted a reality TV star to be president, it would be Jeff Probst of Survivor.
Hope Idiotic | Part IX
Chuck regularly passed out wearing his glasses and just as regularly would lose them in the middle of the night. He’d either pull them off his face and throw them across the room or lose them in the pillows and sheets of his bed or cushions of a couch. But they weren’t in the cushions.
Be Your Own Snopes: When Everyone Has a Megaphone, the Truth Matters Even More
With the digital world, however, the speed and frequency of baseless accusations and confirmed ideas with no foundation is overwhelming. The addition of memes has exacerbated the difficulty of separating fact from fiction. Without hours of time to research every claim, we tend to allow the propagandized messages to go unchallenged.
A “Be Best” Experience
It seems to me, anything that can happen in real life social situations can now happen in digital social situations. This proves to be a good thing when it’s time to celebrate. But when it comes to sexual humiliation, you just want it to go away.
Long Train Running: A Chicago Marathon Story | Chapter 8 — Broken Down?
At the end was when something hurt. This was new. This wasn’t sore. This was different. Yet, I chocked it up to, well, just having run twenty glorious, goddamn miles. I guzzled water, I stretched, I ate a banana, I rode my bike home. At home, I stretched, I took an ice bath for ten minutes, took a nap. Katie and I hung out at the 312 Block Party at Goose Island for a bit before calling it a night at nine. All day, my right leg would blast with pain at every step.
Notes from the Post-it Wall | Week of September 22, 2019
I respect the guy, but Malcolm Gladwell is not a genius. He’s not even that interesting. He’s perceived that way because he’s a well-spoken black guy. Yeah, I said it. And you’re all racists.
The Last Generation
I don’t want this. I’m too afraid. I don’t think this is the answer for the human race. I don’t want us all to suffer and die, but it is our fault we live in a destroyed world.
Hope Idiotic | Part VIII
Lou finally began making a little bit of money when he broke through to the Chi Star, a free daily paper owned by the Franklin News. It was designed to be a newspaper with training wheels in hopes that as the young readers aged, they would make the switch from the free commuter rag to a more mature newspaper subscription. It was the struggling newspaper business’ effort to survive by adapting the drug trade’s tactics; get ’em hooked for free when they’re young.
Jake and Caroline’s first date was at The Whistler. They talked about Ronnie, how much they loved The Diplomat, and debated the better ride-share service, Uber or Lyft. She was Uber, he was Lyft. They got wasted on Sazeracs and had sex at her apartment. It was incredible for both of them. Caroline stopped taking sex advice from Ronnie.