Ordinarily, y’all know, I try to read major book reviews before I write my own reviewlet. And I try to work critical consensus in, like the cold butter in the pie crust. Making the reviewlet flaky and steamy and delectable.
But no flakes in this one. Everyone got all wiggety about how some dudes said some bullshit about Rachel Kushner’s The Flamethrowers.
So let Thinker for Hire do you a favor.
When I was in college, I earned cookie money working here, a summer enrichment program for low-income girls. In my day, it was dance, drama, and creative writing. I taught creative writing, during which I made up lesson plans out my own head, and I also helped out in drama, and it was lovely.
One of student theater’s many perks is all the break time. Y’all don’t get that in athletics. Break time and the chance to imagine all the possible future selves one might become. During the many break times, these junior high girls would sing and reenact popular R&B videos. Performing on stage for each other and themselves.
When they sang “I believe I can fly,” they believed, during the moments spent singing the song, that they could fly.
Low-income girls, some of them several families to a house, living in what was only recently at that time the number one town for murder, per capita.
And when I think, now, what could have happened to them had they lived in Chicago instead of California.
I believe I can cry.
PS. Does anyone remember or care what Michael Jackson was accused of? And settled out of court for? And they dance dance dance anyway to “Smooth Criminal?” in a bemused retro way?
I’ll take Manhattan in a garbage bag with Latin written on it that says
‘It’s hard to give a shit these days.’
Manhattan’s sinkin like a rock into the filthy Hudson water shock
They wrote a book about it that said it was like ancient Rome
While I struggle with what may be the toughest nonfiction writing project I have yet attempted, about what I’m doing (or not doing) (or doing in a dreamy, half-assed way, like on a blog) with my dissertation research, this article came along to whet my dormant whistle.
“MALE AND FEMALE BRAINS REALLY ARE BUILT DIFFERENTLY”
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Thanks, dummy headline writers, for making it yet harder for the gender freedom warriors to get any further along on the yellow brick road.
(Plus that religious thing about how brains are “built,” but I want to focus on sex/gender. Not on creationism and our Christian nation.)
Here’s the thing about your brain on sex:
Thinker For Hire 