An Expansive Autumn

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Hi Dear Readers,

The cold weather I’ve yearned for all summer has finally arrived (though it’s supposed to get warmer this weekend). Once the cold hits, I never want it to leave. I do best in 30 degree weather. I feel best in this weather. While others are just now feeling the onset of winter seasonal affective disorder, my summer seasonal affective disorder has finally vanished. The leaves have changed colors and are now falling off their trees. Everything around me is dying and I am finally living. This is how it always is for me. The click from summer to fall is expansive and kind.

I am in (and have been in) a period of change and metamorphosis. I’m writing more and have many exciting things brewing. I’m feeling better in all the ways and realizing just how strong and capable I am. That feels good.

I hope the world is being kind to you and that you are also feeling and noticing your resourcefulness.

Thank you for being here,
xL<3

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Reading List 🔖

Jane Fonda and Jenny Holzer Discuss Feminism and the Power of Activism - Sarah Harrelson
Through experimentation in performance and projections, Jane Fonda and Jenny Holzer have significantly impacted our cultural thought. Timed with her long-anticipated solo exhibition at Hauser & Wirth in New York, the artist encounters the star of Barbarella—choosing unseen footage from the archetypical 1968 film to reimagine its heroine as a superstar—for a legendary dialogue about protest, privilege, and perseverance for Cultured's Living Legends issue.

Teachers Play an Important Role In the History of Witch Hunts - Anna Sims
To recap, historically, witch hunts occurred when societal advancement clashed with social anxiety and political turmoil, a description that feels similar to the hot-mess environment that’s unleashed these education bills. Not everything is moving backward: Our vice president is the daughter of Jamaican and Indian immigrants, and young Black girls will soon have a Little Mermaid who looks like them. But also, we generally don’t trust our government and don’t like each other. We’re more stressed than ever because of inflation, COVID, and the war in Ukraine. And some people really hate that Black mermaid.

Sex is Universal, But it Still Needs a Translator - Mariam Rahmani
If Forough has been sexualized by her Farsi readership — and not only in Iran but also in the American academy — in translation this attention to the female body often takes on an Orientalist tone. “In a country where for centuries women have lived silenced, diminished, and in the shadow of their men,” Gray’s introduction to the New Directions edition starts, Forough “broke all the rules.” This is not wrong, yet it’s also not right. The opening phrase — unwittingly, presumably, given the care that’s evident in the translations that follow — freezes Iran in the past, erasing centuries of women’s movements and their discourses and debates, from nineteenth century unveiling to turn-of-the-century suffrage and constitutionalism to mid-century Marxism and secularism and, since the 1970s, a rainbow of Islamic feminisms, plus more Marxism and secularism.

Tomorrow’s Corals - Klaus M. Stiefel & James D. Reimer
Our main interests are coral reefs, and we want to share some of our thoughts about their future based on our knowledge of unusually stressed ocean ecosystems and evolution. Corals will live on, though in very different form than the ones that thrive now; we also think that the food web will become simplified and dominated by different, much smaller fish.

Unfocused Feminism - Rafia Zakaria
Naturally, the Dobbs decision was the ultimate proof to second-wave feminists that younger feminists have failed to hold the gains that were won in the 1960s and 1970s. With such cynicism afoot, no amount of persuasive material concerning the possibility of an international feminist movement united by the fight for bodily autonomy is likely to register with them. It is almost as if they were used to feminism sold in a white upper-middle-class bottle, and any changes in flavor and packaging they simply discard as not feminism at all.

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Librarianship 🌻

‘We’ve moved backwards’: US librarians face unprecedented attacks amid rightwing book bans - Lauren Mechling

20 Wisconsin libraries will offer state parks daily admission passes for free - Chelsey Lewis

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Books of Note 📚

The Future Is Disabled: Prophecies, Love Notes and Mourning Songs - Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha (nonfiction)

Our Missing Hearts - Celeste Ng (fiction)

Pet - Akwaeke Emezi (young adult)

Becoming Vanessa - Vanessa Brantley-Newton (children’s book)

Nothing Will Save Your Life: Poems - Nancy Jo Cullen (poetry)

Healing Through Words - Rupi Kaur (self-help)

[If you order any of the books above or any listed on my Bookshop site, a percentage goes to local bookstores and I get a small commission. Thank you for not ordering from Amazon!]

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Be Witchy 🔮

Divining New Models of Femininity from the Tarot - Meg Jones Wall

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Playlist 🎵

“Horses” - Maggie Rogers
”Hurricane” - Plains
”Runnin’ Down a Dream” - Isobel Campbell
”Mother’s Been a Bad Girl” - Unloved
”Her Mother’s House” - Bjork, ft. ísadóra bjarkardóttir barney

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Mood Board 💓

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Self-Care + Good Things ☕

Going to GLEAM with Mamma and sipping on hot cocoa. This Trauma-Aware Decision Making Flowchart by Natalie Ross. Soup season. Gel nails. Reading.