A Long List of Recommendations
Where I’m Donating
World Central Kitchen - Gaza is being starved and it just feels so overwhelming to know what to do. WCK is trying their hardest to get food into Gaza and was able to get enough food to start cooking again on Friday, July 25. I just feel so heartbroken by the conditions Palestinians are forced to face and our government’s role in it.
Inara - Rapid Response to Gaza is getting food to families who have no means of otherwise accessing it. Inara is also working to address the medical and mental health needs of children in Gaza amid this ongoing and horrific genocide.
Sanctuary of the South, a workers collaborative providing legal support for those navigating immigration, deportation and detention.
What I’m Cooking:
My Aerogarden is overproducing dill, so I made this salmon dish (with asparagus) and this shrimp dish (with pasta) and they were big hits!
On My Shelf
The Influencers by Anna-Marie McLemore - “A social media influencer’s empire is burned to the ground—literally. The top suspects? The five daughters who made her famous.” This was such a fascinating look at an influencer empire and the crafted narratives of social media. I loved that so much of the book was narrated by unreliable social media followers and how it captured the warped truth of today’s media landscape. It’s a lot of escapist fun, but also manages to dissect sister dynamics, class, race, privacy, gender, etc. A good summer read!
By the Fire We Carry by Rebecca Nagle - I’ve been a big fan of Rebecca Nagle’s since listening to her “This Land” podcast and she does such an incredible job showing how America’s violent history with its Indigenous peoples continues to show up and have ripple effects today. It is a critical read to understand Tribal relations and Indian law today, as well as to see the real human impact of this ongoing conflict. I loved the way she was able to weave in her personal ties as a Cherokee woman into the larger narrative. Highly recommend!
Ordinary Time: Lessons Learned by Staying Put by Annie B. Jones - I often feel that I will never have a good enough story to write a memoir. I’ve been so blessed and most memoirs are rooted in trauma or big achievements. But this book is a reminder that most of life is made up of small moments and those have value and lessons to be shared as well.
On My Screen
Shiny Happy People Season Two on Amazon Prime - The first season of this docuseries was about the Duggars. This season forced on Teen Mania, a Christian nationalist group that I am sad to report I attended some events produced by when I was an evangelical teen. The style of this docuseries is a little over the top, but I think it does an excellent job documenting the abuse and harm caused by this group and connecting the dots to our current U.S. political moment.
On the Stage
Dead Inside at Woolly Mammoth in DC - Riki Lindhome is a comedic genius and I am so glad she has turned her talents to her personal story of infertility, shining a light on so many “taboo” topics for women’s health. The show was so funny while still being incredibly moving. It was extended for another week so, if you’re in DC, make sure to catch it.
In My Tabs
“Community is our greatest weapon. The American mythology praises the rugged individual, the self-made man, the solitary hero. But the truth is that we have always needed each other.”
“What's truly revealing isn't just that conservative media mobilized against a Superman movie — it's what triggered them. We're watching a political movement that has become so reflexively oppositional that ‘basic human kindness’ registers as a threat. When your ideology interprets compassion as partisan and empathy as propaganda, maybe it's time to ask what exactly you're conserving.”
More than two-thirds of Texas’ 100 prisons don’t have air conditioning. A judge has ruled it unconstitutional but nothing is changing. How anyone can support these inhumane conditions is beyond me…
This tour is genuinely one of the greatest concerts I have ever had the privilege to go to. Every detail was so intentional and I’m glad that extends to how the fans dress for it too - Beyonce’s ‘Cowboy Carter’ Tour Inspires Black Women and LGBTQ+ Fans to Remix Patriotic Symbols
“We've created a culture that treats depth like inefficiency. One that wants love without awkwardness, wisdom without confusion, transformation without the growing pains that crack us open and rebuild us from the inside out. And in doing so, we've accidentally engineered away the most essentially human experiences: the productive confusion of not knowing, the generative power of sitting with difficulty, the transformative potential of things that resist compression.”
‘Don’t forget’: mural brings attention to the January 6 rioters pardoned by Trump
Spotify Publishes AI-Generated Songs From Dead Artists Without Permission
The death of Malcolm-Jamal Warner really broke my heart this week. This tribute to him and to his iconic portrayal of Theo Huxtable was beautiful.
“The thing that I want to understand is what happens to us—our essential self-ness—when our bodies change? Are we the same person we were when at a different size or are we a variation (multiverse?) of ourselves? A different person entirely?”
A gorgeous poem - “Will this world ever be kind enough/ To let you flourish?/ Will we ever wake up one day/ And have the world make sense?”