The Week of Passover and Palm Trees

I flew back from Florida late last night, and unsurprisingly it is not as warm here in Pittsburgh. That's the only stain on what has otherwise been a banner week:

• I launched Brisket...
• Lady Parts met its crowdfunding goal and got the green light...
• Swamp Head Brewery celebrated it's 10 year anniversary...
• I finally met Rose, the five-month-old daughter of one of my oldest friends...
• I spent Passover, a socially and ethically meaningful (if culinarily unenjoyable) holiday with my parents, sister, husband, and old family friends.

April 7, 2017

This all felt even more significant because yesterday marked one year since the day I officially handed over my dissertation and was certified for graduation. So in the midst of these celebrations of new endeavors and commemorations of past struggles, I spent a lot of time this week reflecting. 

This year was one of unparalleled growth. I have endlessly surprised myself by going after opportunities, experimenting with business ideas, and being open to new people. It's a bit mind- boggling to realize that I have 15 new friends and colleagues who I regularly turn to for advice and inspiration, all acquaintances I made since finishing my PhD. Moreover, since unburying myself from what can only be described as the "blah" of graduate school, I feel like my relationships with old friends and with my family have deepened. It's this connection and community that has made this year the best of my life, and out of all that I've accomplished this year it's what makes me proudest. So I have to thank you all for your trust in me as a friend and as a colleague.

Another really great development in my life since last April has been finding time to once again read fiction. Exactly one year ago today, I cracked open Nathan Hill's The Nix and lay in bed reading with a glass of wine. The books have changed over the past twelve months, but the venue and beverage have stayed fairly constant. 

April 8, 2017

Here's what captured my attention this week...

I'm reading: more books at one time than I've ever read before. I'm still working my way through Adrienne Rich's On Lies, Secrets, and Silence: Selected Prose, currently enjoying her feminist reading of Jane Eyre. It's been about 15 years since I've read that classic, and I'm wondering if it's time for a second go at it. I'm also half way through a brand-new YA fantasy book by Nigerian-American author Tomi Adeyemi. Children of Blood and Bone is set in Orisha, a land where majis have been stripped of their magic by a king who was threatened by their power. It reminds me a lot of The City of Brass by S.A. Chakraborty, which I read earlier this year--but instead of being set in a world informed by Islam and by Arab culture, Orisha is clearly inspired by Afro-Brazilian religions and culture. So far I'm really liking it for its fast-paced plot and for the mellifluous Yoruba language that Adeyemi has incorporated into the story. 

I am also two chapters into I Hotel by Karen Tei Yamashita. This book has been on my to-read list since my husband's friend Adam Dalva reviewed it favorably on Goodreads. It's a novel that plays with form, which I generally like, and it's set in San Francisco during the Civil Rights struggles of the late 1960s and early 1970s. More updates on this one to follow.

Finally, I am also dipping in and out of Peniel Joseph's Waiting 'Til the Midnight Hour: A Narrative History of Black Power in America and Marie Kondo's The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up. How's that for contrast? 

I'm listening to: another old favorite, Amadou and Mariam's Dimanche a Bamako, inspired by Children of Blood and Bone and Black Panther. 

I'm watching: The new season of HBO's Silicon Valley. I loved the first two seasons so much, but the third was meh. Last season recovered somewhat, and I'm hoping that season five is a return to form. The pilot delivered a handful of funny moments, but it remains to be seen whether the show can survive the exit of vulgar, narcissistic Erlich Bachmann. The pilot indicated that housemate Jian Yang will step in to fill the vacuum Bachmann left behind, which I think is a brilliant move (and I'm also looking forward to reading actor Jimmy O. Yang's new book How to American: An Immigrant's Guide to Disappointing Your Parents). 

What are you reading, listening to, and watching this week?

The Week of Serving Brisket

Brisket Vol. 1, No. 1 launches tomorrow and I am excited and nervous, preoccupied and obsessing. Between the newsletter and preparing for Friday night's Passover seder--where a brisket was served, of course--my week was spent writing, editing, designing, cleaning, cooking, and posting to social media. So this week's post is on the light side, but consider it an hors d'oeuvre before the big entree tomorrow. 

Here's what captured my attention this week...

I'm reading: On Lies, Secrets, and Silence: Selected Prose by feminist poet and essayist Adrienne Rich, gifted to me for graduation by a thoughtful family friend. I was searching for inspiration this week and picked it off my shelf of books-to-be-read. As I wrote on the Brisket Patreon page, I am struck by Rich's preoccupation in this collection with a "culture of passivity." For Rich, the women's movement had to reject passivity if it was going to "name and found a culture of [women's] own." When I picked up the book I was only looking for a good example of the essay form to use as a model and learn from--which On Lies, Secrets, and Silence definitely provides--but I also found a great model for how to quietly but forcibly roar.

I'm listening to: an old, sentimental favorite, Billy Bragg and Wilco's Mermaid Avenue. I listened to this album all throughout college and confess that when I listen to it now (as well as to Bon Iver's To Emma, Forever Ago) I am overwhelmed by that feeling that you get when you stare out the window of a train or an airplane. Wistfulness? 

I'm watching: Nothing new! Yesterday afternoon I took my mom to see Black Panther, and it was just as good the second time. 

What are you reading, listening to, and watching this week?

The Week of "Spring"

Like many areas of the northeastern United States, Pittsburgh spent its first day of spring digging out from under 10 inches of new snowfall. As it has melted over the past two days I have seen a few courageous crocuses poking out from the ground... but it feels like we are still far from that idyllic spring moment when every park and garden is filled with daffodils and tulips. Maybe next week. 

The seasons may not be cooperating, but I am springing ahead on a new project--and it directly stems from these Sunday morning roundups. I began writing them in September, a point at which I found myself without much to say about either my academic work or my new business. I thought these weekly posts could provide some filler content to keep my blog updated; I wanted to give the impression that my site was active. 

Almost immediately, I realized that these posts clearly were more than filler. They inspired me to find new books, articles, albums, podcasts, movies and television shows to talk about each week. I began spending time thinking critically about what I was reading, listening to, and watching, so that I could write reviews that were informative and evaluative. And then, I began hearing back from readers that I didn't think ever read my blog that they had taken my recommendations and liked them! On Friday, for example, I had drinks with a longtime colleague who downloaded Fates and Furies onto her Kindle at the airport after reading the post where I described finishing the novel on my flights back to Pittsburgh. She loved it, although we had very different interpretations of Lotto and Mathilde's marriage. 

These Sunday morning roundups also eased me back into a regular writing habit, and more importantly they gave me a chance to practice writing about topics other than history (and for readers who were not only historians). I began sitting down for an hour each morning to write, and so, while you have been reading these posts from week to week, I was also writing essays. They all started with questions that were preoccupying me. What is a public intellectual? Why is it relaxing to watch other people clean? Why are all of the historians I most admire Jewish? I wrote and wrote and wrote until some were done and I felt satisfied that I had answered the question. The others? Well those may take more time. 

I was left wondering what to do with these essays. They didn't really fit with the interests or voice of any publications I was familiar with, and are not on topics that are particularly newsworthy. But I knew that there was an audience out there for them, because they are written in the same voice and with the same thought and care that I put into the Sunday morning posts that inspired them. So I came up with an idea that I will announce tomorrow.

Before the snow

Here's what captured my attention this week...

I'm reading: I struggled to get into a new book after finishing The Soul of an Octopus. I sat down most evenings with a book and ended up watching YouTube videos on my iPad. Yesterday it occurred to me that my tired brain might just needed a good thriller--a fast paced, plot-centric mystery--and I picked up and proceeded to devour all 308 pages of Ruth Ware's In A Dark, Dark Wood. The premise is that, after ten years of not speaking to her ex-best friend Clare, the protagonist Nora agrees to attend Clare's bachelorette weekend. In an incongruously modern glass house in the middle of the Northumberland woods, Nora finds out that she has not shed her past as thoroughly as she thought she had... and then finds herself a suspect in a crime. A useless description, I know, and I'm sorry--but why spoil it for you? I found the book to have the right amount of puzzles and twists. I felt pretty sure I knew who committed the crime, but not so sure that I lost interest. My main complaint is that Ware literally incorporates Chekhov's gun into the plot. I found it amateurish and hard to overlook. 

I'm listening to: Akimbo, the new podcast from Seth Godin. For those unfamiliar with Godin, he's a "motivational influencer" who had a long career in marketing before transitioning to writing business books. I've found some of his advice helpful over the past year as I've tried to better understand my value and position my business accordingly. I've been enjoying Akimbo because it pushes back on some common misconceptions about how business should work: you need to have a big idea, hold a grand opening, market to a huge audience. In these short episodes, Godin argues that you really should start small and work with a committed, enthusiastic base of customers who will help you iterate on your idea and improve your business. It's a reassuring message to hear, and I recommend it to anyone who is trying to start a public-facing project--these lessons are as applicable to academic or not-for-profit endeavors as they are to entrepreneurial ones. 

I'm watching: Last night we went with friends to see The Death of Stalin, the new satirical film from (former) Veep showrunner Armando Iannucci. We went to get drinks beforehand and arrived at the theater late enough that the only seats left were in the first row. Despite craning our necks and feeling like we could see up the noses of all the actors, the movie got two thumbs up from all four of us. If you like the distinctive patter and physical comedy of Veep, you will also enjoy this film. I would also like to note that the two non-historians in our quartet knew nothing about Soviet history and it did not diminish their enjoyment. I do think I got a bit more out of it having recently read Paul Goldberg's The Yid and Amor Towles's A Gentleman in Moscow. Stalin's death is an essential plot point in both novels as well, and so I was familiar with the foibles of Molotov and the machinations of Khrushchev. Between these two novels and The Death of Stalin, I've read/watched three fictionalizations of this period in as many months--perhaps I have an unconscious desire to better understand Russia, considering how dominant the country is in our national politics right now. 

What are you reading, listening to, and watching this week? And check back tomorrow for a big announcement.

The Week of Fierce Females

I have to shout out Post-Academic Athenas and Self-Employed PhD, two communities that have radically expanded my network and have put so many valuable resources at my fingertips. The stars aligned this past week and between Monday and Friday I had the opportunity to chat or collaborate with ten amazing women with PhDs. I am working with half of them on scholarly research, teaching, or writing support, and the other half are a stalwart braintrust--women from whom I have learned everything I know about how to leave academia for entrepreneurship. Lately I have been thriving on the energy generated through all these collaborations and friendships, and feel immense gratitude for these relationships. 

Here's what captured my attention this week...

I'm reading: I finished Thomas Mullen's Darktown a few nights ago and thought it was a solid detective mystery. The selling point for me was how Mullen used the standard plot of a murder investigation to shine a light on the racism and violence directed towards Atlanta's first African American policemen, not only by white Atlantans and but also by those black Atlantans who profited from the underground economy of moonshine and prostitution. These petty criminals aligned themselves with the white cops that protected their rackets, selling out the black cops who threatened to clean up the city's black neighborhoods. By following the deteriorating relationship between one ethical white cop and his unscrupulous partner, Darktown reveals how corruption within the predominantly white police force enabled racist violence against their black colleagues. If you loved In Cold Blood and Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil and enjoy a good detective story, you may also like Darktown. 

Yesterday, for the first time in a very long while, I sat down and read an entire book in one day. My friend Amanda enthusiastically recommended Sy Montgomery's The Soul of an Octopus--she actually included it on her 10 favorites of 2017 list--and it lived up to her hype. Montgomery is a naturalist who, around 2011, began visiting the octopuses at the New England Aquarium in Boston. She quickly became fascinated by the intelligence of these cephalopods and began learning about the biology, psychology, and social behavior of these animals. Montgomery introduces you to all of the octopuses and octopus lovers that she meets throughout her research, while also demonstrating how octopuses can challenge our belief that consciousness and sense of self are distinctly human traits. It's a beautifully written, informative, and thought-provoking book.

As I am writing this, I am realizing that The Soul of an Octopus forms a trifecta with two other books I have loved over the past few years. In 2016 I read Helen MacDonald's H is for Hawk, which is a stylistic masterpiece of nature writing that also focuses on a single animal. MacDonald's memoir is about how, after her father's death, she trained a goshawk as a way to deal with her grief. More profoundly, however, in H is for Hawk MacDonald is trying to understand and explain why modern society simultaneously pushes away and hungers for wilderness and wild animals. Montgomery, by contrast, uses her octopuses to challenge the reader to see animals as less wild and more conscious--more like humans than we would ever suspect. Then in 2017 I read another memoir, William Finnegan's Barbarian Days, whose central obsession is surfing rather than an animal. Through the lens of surfing, however, Finnegan portrays an ocean that is at once filled with life and with real danger. Certainly, there were octopus burrowed within the coral reefs over which Finnegan surfed in Hawaii and Australia and the islands of the South Pacific, but the author tells us more about the waves and the tides and how water behaves when it strikes against land. Surfing (Barbarian Days) thus marks the boundary between human land (H is for Hawk) and the fish's sea (The Soul of an Octopus). Ultimately, all three books drew me into a fascination with subjects about which I previously had no interest. 

I'm listening to: an album recommended to me by my co-coworker Seth. Two weeks ago he was listening to Frank Ocean and we both jammed to Blonde for a few days, and then last week when I asked what I should listen to he suggested Black Up by Shabazz Palaces. During my first listen-through of the album, I was struck by the atonal, jazzy samples on first few tracks. I mentioned to Seth that it reminded me of Digable Planets, and after staring at me for a second he told me that it's because half of the duo that is Shabazz Palaces (Ishmael Butler) was one-third of the trio that was Digable Planets. So... nailed it!

I'm watching: The World's Most Extraordinary Homes, a BBC production that's now a Netflix exclusive. A pretentious but very knowledgeable architect and a by-turns sarcastic and enthusiastic actor-slash-property-developer tour homes across the Americas, Europe, and New Zealand and comment on how extraordinary they are. It's porn for the devoted HGTV viewer, albeit with more of a Great British Bake Off sensibility. 

What are you reading, listening to, and watching this week? 

The Week of Reunions

At 5:00 AM on Wednesday morning, I drove myself to the Gainesville airport to catch a flight back to Pittsburgh. It was almost 70 degrees outside, even at that early hour. On Thursday evening, I walked through downtown Pittsburgh with an old friend and we could hardly see where we were going because big, wet flakes of snow were blowing into our eyes. Quite the transition.

Despite the less than ideal weather, it has been heartening to reunite with friends and, of course, with my husband and the home we've built together. People seemed to miss me, and I missed them; one more pleasant byproduct of being a snowbird. 

Here's what captured my attention this week...

I'm reading: I finished Lauren Groff's Fates and Furies and gave up on The Third Generation by Chester Himes. The latter just devolved into a laundry list of the protagonist's physical and emotional injuries and I couldn't bear to read one more page about his depression and insecurity. By contrast, I could not stop reading Fates and Furies. I read the last 200 pages on my flights back to Pittsburgh, and was captivated by the wife's version of the marriage that's the focus of the novel. You reach the midpoint and think that Mathilde's narrative will be the bitter half, the rejoinder to husband Lotto's more assured, expressive, adoring (if self-involved) experience of their marriage. Groff does her female character justice, though, and Mathilde's story is not an obvious one. She's complicated, vindictive in a totally different way than you're led to think at the beginning, and that's where I'll stop--no spoilers!

This week, I've been working my way through Darktown by Thomas Mullen and Weird in a World That's Not by Jennifer Romolini. I have so much to say about Darktown. Set in Atlanta in 1948, right after the city "integrated" its police force, the novel follows two black cops who walk the night beat in a segregated neighborhood on the city's east side. After they begin to investigate what happened to a black woman who was murdered and left in an abandoned lot, they encounter intense opposition from white policemen who neither care about the victim nor wish to see their black colleagues succeed in winning justice. The story is compelling, and Mullen's storytelling makes you viscerally feel the intimidation and violence of Jim Crow. I'm curious to see how the book ends, and I'll give an update next week.

I picked up Weird in a World That's Not for a reading group I have with other self-employed PhDs.  Romolini tells the story of her career in an energetic, unpretentious style, and she leaves you feeling more confidently secure that the twists and turns in your work life have meaning, make you a unique candidate, and should be leveraged. She doesn't simply say, "be yourself." Her argument is that "yourself" has value, even if that value isn't clear right now. It's always reassuring to hear that a career is more than the sum of its parts. The book isn't perfect, and despite the author's best efforts to acknowledge her white, hetero, cis, abled privilege, you can't help but doubt if the advice she gives is translatable to all "misfits, fuckups, and failures." But if you're currently in a place where you career isn't making any sense to you, I'd recommend this book for its ability to shift your perspective. 

I'm listening to: a newish podcast, "Forever 35," hosted by Kate Spencer and Doree Shafrir. This one was recommended by one of my best friends, who is in fact the friend that introduced me to the wide, expensive world of skincare and beauty products. "Self-care," broadly defined, is the focus of this podcast. I enjoy nothing more than hearing other people review face creams and serums, and Spencer and Shafrir are brutally honest about what works, what probably doesn't work but makes them happy, and what definitely does not work. Actually, the hosts are pretty frank about lots of private aspects of their lives--I cannot imagine telling thousands of people about my pregnancy journey, for example--and you quickly come to feel like you know them as old friends. So it's one of those podcasts where you come for the content, but stay for the relationship.

I'm watching: The trailer for a new project by one of my oldest friends, Erin. Her new film, "Lady Parts," is about an actress who superficially seems to be working in a world that accepts and appreciates women--she gets a big meaty role, lands a big movie on a serious subject--but that in practice continues to discriminate and dismiss women. Erin believes that in this moment of #MeToo and #TimesUp, "This film is important because it shows the industry, not as it COULD be or as it SHOULD be, but as it IS and explores the cost of having so few women behind the camera." You can support the project here.

What are you reading, listening to, and watching this week?