march 2019

Lorena [Bobbitt documentary] [2019], Legion [2010]

not much book reading this month; I tried to get thru my article reading list:

Eater - How Influencers on WeChat Are Driving NYC’s Restaurant Scene
City Lab - There’s a Tile Theft Epidemic in Lisbon
The Atlantic - The Murky Ethics of the Ugly-Produce Business
Field Mag - How Social Media Perpetuates Cliché Photography
Good - A 'barefoot runner' complained about acorns in the neighborhood. It did not go over well.
Grub Street - Why Tips Won They’re outdated. They’re discriminatory. And they aren’t going anywhere.
New York Times - How a 9-Year-Old Boy’s Statistic Shaped a Debate on Straws
CNN - Where does fake movie money come from?
NPR - Misophonia: When Life's Noises Drive You Mad (I totally have this. mouth noises, especially from my parents drive me absolutely crazy. I'm not just disgusted; I'm infuriated.)

The Guardian - White gold: the unstoppable rise of alternative milks
"Even so, neo-Nazis continue to push the theory that soya milk is a liberal conspiracy to emasculate men, and drink cow’s milk at rallies to demonstrate “digestive superiority”."
"Many plant milk brands add calcium carbonate – chalk – to make the liquid whiter and more opaque (the calcium content is a happy bonus) but the colouring in these plant milks, Camilla assured me, was natural."
"One issue is environmental: it takes 4.5 litres of water to grow a single almond (technically not a nut, but a seed). In California, which grows eight in 10 of the world’s almond crop, almond growing consumes an estimated 10% of the entire water supply – a controversial issue in a state often afflicted by drought.
"Consumers have also caught on that the actual almond content of most almond milks is minuscule. Both Silk and Alpro contain just 2% almonds. “It’s actually a water-based emulsion that you’re adding oils, a lot of sugar and gums to, and then just adding a couple of nuts on top,” Elmhurst’s Cheryl Mitchell said. “As a business model, it’s great – any time you can sell water, right? That’s essentially what they’re doing.” The industry insiders I spoke to agreed that almond’s moment is over. Right now the real growth is in coconut, and in oat."

Granta - On High Heels and Lotus Feet
"Susan Sontag, writing on women and sickness, noted that frailty and vulnerability had increasingly become an ideal look for women. But this only holds true if the woman can maintain her charms – that is, if she can suffer and be made frail without complaining about it. Women are expected to suffer, must expect suffering, and yet must not speak of it."