friday five 7.21.17

FRIDAY, JULY 21ST

1. the subtle power of uncomfortable silences

When I talk about things I'm passionate about, it’s very hard to shut me up (read: liquid lipsticks, the intricacy of language, and the specifics of rape culture, to name a few). But I do also appreciate silence; thus, I appreciate this.

2. chinatown's swap meets once opened a door to the american dream. now, their future is uncertain

A couple of my friends shared this recently, and I honestly had no idea how devastating the effects of gentrification are. It’s quite tragic that this is happening everywhere, and destroying peoples’ livelihoods for the purpose of trendiness. And even sadder that I know people who personally know this swap meet and its patrons.

3. cult of the party parrot

In honor of my first week at Madwell, I wanted to share a website dedicated to my team’s favorite Slack emoji: the party parrot. It’s glorious. Catch me adding these to every blog post ever. Party on.

4. how the death of a muslim recruit revealed a culture of brutality in the marines

Quite a long read, but HOLY CANNOLI what a beautifully-written and terribly insightful read. This is what really excellent feature writing looks like. It also reveals a fairly serious and virtually unaddressed systematic problem in our Marine Corps, which is sad, because their purpose is to protect us, and yet they have such a toxic culture. I wonder if that affects how they perform in combat. I’ve never understood how you could be friends or colleagues with someone after they've hazed you. I couldn’t do it, for sure.

5. can you map out literary genius?

In yet another reason why I’m the worst English major to ever exist (speaking of...I still have not finished my summer reading list from last year), I admit I’ve never actually read Jane Austen. I just don’t know if pre-Victorian romances are super-high on my priority list. But I’m willing to be convinced. Anyway. The point is that I love things like this; I took an entire class on this in college, and it's so fascinating because it's a mix of very old literature and very new analytic techniques and technologies (ask me about my thoughts on the relationship between character personas and speech patterns in The Importance of Being Earnest).