#465: A Viral Article I Disliked



Dear Readers,

Let’s try something new this week. I’m going to share with you a viral article that was published in The Atlantic. Then I’m going to tell you why I thought it was terrible.

Never before have I featured an article that I disliked. But I just can’t resist. First of all, several of you reached out and asked me what I thought. Also, I feel like it’s my duty to prepare you in case this piece comes up in conversation. (Which I believe it inevitably will, if it hasn’t already.)

🎙️ But first: I want to make sure you’re warmly invited to this month’s article discussion.

We’ll be discussing “The Sextortion of Teenage Boys,” by Olivia Carville (gift link). I highly recommend it if you care about young people and worry about their safety online. Read my blurb and listen to my interview with Ms. Carville (she’s a Kiwi!) in last week’s issue. Then, if you’re interested, sign up for our gathering on Oct. 27.

Sign up for our discussion!

One last thing: A big shoutout to loyal reader and paid subscriber Daniel for pointing this article in my direction.

⭐️ All right, are you ready to rumble? Let’s get into it — first with my blurb of this week’s article selection, followed by my thoughts about the piece.

The Elite College Students Who Can’t Read Books

Rose Horowitch knows the ins and outs of elite schools. She graduated from Yale University last year. Before that, she graduated from Phillips Exeter Academy.

Somewhere along the way, Ms. Horowitch got to thinking that something sinister had cast a pall on the otherwise hallowed halls of our country’s most prestigious colleges.

That sinister thing, you ask? The students were no longer doing the reading.

Concerned, Ms. Horowitch interviewed 33 university professors who felt the same way. Twenty years ago, one professor said, students had no problem completing Crime and Punishment. Now they scoff at the idea of such a thing. Before, they habitually read 200 pages a week. Now, said another professor, a 14-line Shakespearean sonnet stumps them. What’s happening?

Ms. Horowitch shares many theories for this trend, among them:

  • Smartphones (of course)

  • High school teachers no longer assign full-length books

  • Standardized tests don’t require students to understand novels

  • College is more transactional now (see Issue #462), and students are in it for the money, not for a degree in the humanities

No matter the reason, Ms. Horowitch is worried. What does this mean about the future of scholarship? she asks. Does this portend the end of empathy, the demise of the appreciation of the human condition? Will anyone ever again read the totality of Moby-Dick or The Iliad?

By Rose Horowitch • The Atlantic Monthly • 9 min • Gift Link

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💬 My Thoughts (Or: Why this article made me so mad.)

Before diving in, let’s first discuss my biases:

  • My entire career, I’ve worked in non-elite public high schools, mostly in San Francisco and Oakland. Out of the 1,500 students I taught, maybe eight of them went to Ivy Plus schools. (However: I graduated from two elite colleges.)

  • I know a little bit about reading instruction. I taught English for a long time, I lead a reading non-profit, I’ve interviewed Emily Hanford (the Science of Reading person), and obviously, I read a lot for Article Club. This is to say: Maybe this article rubbed me in the wrong way, and I’m being defensive.

OK, with those caveats out of the way, it’s finally time for me to share why this article bothered me so much. (If you want an inside look, feel free to read my annotations as you follow along.) Here are a few reasons:

1️⃣ Ms. Horowitch makes wavering, imprecise claims
The first rule of argumentation is that it’s best to develop claims that stand strong. When they hedge, or move around, your reader is going to stress out, and begin to doubt you — as I did.

In this piece, in which I think Ms. Horowitch wants to argue that elite college students are reading less than they used to (which would have been fine), here are some of the claims she makes:

  • Elite college students “can’t read books.” (Later on, she says they can.)

  • “It’s not that they don’t want to do the reading. It’s that they don’t know how.” (Later on, she says they do know how.)

  • “They’re less able to persist through a challenging text than they used to be.” (So is it skill, or stamina?)

  • “Students now seem bewildered by the thought of finishing multiple books a semester.” (Or is it psychological?)

In other words, I got lost early on in the piece — mostly because Ms. Horowitch began with a robust, controversial claim — only to weave and shift quickly afterward, leaving me confused.

2️⃣ This piece includes scanty or imprecise evidence
Unless it’s a personal essay (where your lived experiences are your evidence), I look closely at an author’s evidence as they make an argument. You have to have sufficient evidence, and your evidence actually has to back up your point.

Unfortunately, Ms. Horowitch doesn’t do well here. Her biggest problem is that she is trying to prove that elite college students have trouble reading books, but instead of asking them, or sharing some other metric of reading woes, Ms. Horowitch instead interviews professors, asking them about their frustrated (or nostalgic) feelings. To prove the bold claim that high school teachers no longer assign whole books, Ms. Horowitch includes the story of one professor who said he once had a student who told him so. Anecdotes aren’t sufficient, which Ms. Horowitch seems to concede in the middle of her piece, when she writes, “No comprehensive data exist on this trend.” In other words, it seems like her claims are based on professors’ vibes.

There are also problems of imprecision of evidence. To substantiate a claim that high schools are not assigning whole books, for example, Ms. Horowitch cites an EdWeek Research Center survey of 300 third-to-eighth grade educators. In case that piece of evidence isn’t sufficient (it’s not), Ms. Horowitch doubles down, recalling that her elite high school English teacher assigned only one Jane Austen novel in a course focusing on Jane Austen. It makes a good story, sure, and causes a reaction in the reader, but I’m not sure it proves any substantive point.

One last tactic Ms. Horowitch employs, which is an advanced sleight of hand, is to liberally quote experts while interspersing related yet unsubstantiated claims. Here’s an example, which I call “person-claim-person-claim”:

Do you see what Ms. Horowitch does here? She begins this paragraph with a veteran teacher decrying that there’s not enough Tolstoy in the curriculum. He suggests standardized tests are the culprit. Ms. Horowitch adds to this idea, introducing a new claim about teacher incentives. Instead of exploring this possible connection, the author instead pivots to a famous literacy expert, whose statement may or may not be related to standardized testing. We can’t be sure, because Ms. Horowitch keeps moving ahead, ending the paragraph with an unsubstantiated claim about how the pandemic made everything worse.

All of this is to say: I’m not buying it.

3️⃣ Is this a problem in the first place, or just snootiness?
The Atlantic loves to publish articles about the fall of education, written by authors who graduated from elite schools or currently teach in them (example). I’m not convinced that kids at Columbia not reading as much as they used to is actually a problem that needs to be immediately solved.

But because I’m an educator, and passionate about reading, I’m willing to play along, especially when a piece includes reading heavyweights like Carol Jago, Daniel Willingham, and Maryanne Wolf. Too bad these thoughtful researchers appear alongside this incredibly snooty, classist (and racist, I think) paragraph:

Yes, out of nowhere, Ms. Horowitch compares elite college students with their peers who attend less-selective colleges. It is clear, she writes, that non-elite students have skill gaps, while elite students obviously do not. And then, after that throwaway line, Ms. Horowitch forgets any additional mention of our country’s significant reading problems — for example, how our 12th graders’ skills have declined over time. Certainly there’s no student at Columbia who struggles with reading, she suggests. it’s just their “attention” and “ambition,” poor things.

Maybe it’s as simple as this: There should be a rule that if you’re going to write about reading, you should know about reading. How about that?

💬 Your Turn: What do you think?

Now that I’ve shared my views, what’s your perspective? I’d love to hear your thoughts and get a conversation going in the comments. You can write about the article, or my opinion on the article. Do you agree or disagree with the author’s ultimate claim, “To understand the human condition, and to appreciate humankind’s greatest achievements, you still need to read The Iliad — all of it”?

Leave a comment

In typical Article Club fashon, be sure to be kind and thoughtful!

Thank you for reading this week’s issue. Hope you liked it. 😀

To our 5 new subscribers — including Dave, Gurur, and Og’abek — I hope you find the newsletter a solid addition to your email inbox. Welcome to Article Club. Make yourself at home.

If you appreciate the articles, value our discussions, and in general have come to trust that Article Club will have better things for you to read than your current habit of scrolling the Internet for hours on end, please consider a paid subscription. I am very appreciative of Micki, our latest paid subscriber. Thank you!

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#464: The Sextortion of Teenage Boys

Dear Loyal Readers,

Welcome to October. Thank you for being here.

In just a moment, I’ll reveal this month’s featured article. But before that, two things:

  • If you’re a newish subscriber: Since January 2020, I’ve chosen one article every month for a deep dive. Folks who are interested read it, annotate it, and discuss it. The author generously records a podcast interview. It’s been fun.

  • A small celebration: This will be our 51st article of the month. 🎉 I’m very appreciative of the 150 of you and the 51 authors who have participated.

If you’ve never participated (that is to say, most of you), you’re invited. We’re a kind, thoughtful reading community. I think you’ll enjoy it.

All right, let’s get down to business. I’m excited to announce this month’s article: “The Sextortion of Teenage Boys” Written by Olivia Carville and published in Bloomberg, the article is equal parts devastating and crucial to read, especially if you’re an educator or a parent of teenagers.

In short: I have no problem reading depressing articles. If you’ve subscribed to Article Club for a while, you understand this about me. But this piece was at a different level. In parts, not only was it sad, it was frightening.

Here’s what you can expect in today’s issue:

  • My blurb about this month’s article

  • A short biography about the author

  • A podcast interview with the author

  • What you need to do if you’d like to participate

Are you already confident that you’d like to join? All you need to do is click on the button below and sign up. 📖

Join our discussion on Oct. 27

1️⃣ The Sextortion Of Teenage Boys

First, a warning: This article is sad and disturbing. It discusses the suicide of Jordan DeMay, a 17-year-old senior at Marquette Senior High School in Michigan. Jordan played football and basketball and was the school’s homecoming king.

One Instagram message: That was all it took for scammers in Nigeria to convince Jordan DeMay that they were a sexy, innocent girl named Dani who liked to flirt and play “sexy games.” After sending a naked photo, Dani asked for one in return. Jordan’s decision to reciprocate cost him his life.

Even though this is a harrowing story, I found myself riveted and could not put my phone down before finishing the article. Professor Olivia Carville does an outstanding job reporting on the latest horrible technology trend: the sextortion of boys. She also follows Jordan’s family’s response to the tragedy, as well as puts the blame on Meta, other social media companies, and Congress for allowing these horrors to continue.

By Olivia Carville • Bloomberg • 26 min • Gift Link

Read the article

 ✚ This article is free, but Bloomberg requires you to register your email. You can use the gift link above (made possible by paid subscribers). But for the full experience, which involves multimedia, I recommend the original link.

⭐️ About the author

Olivia Carville is an investigative reporter at Bloomberg News. She writes about the intersection of child safety and the digital world for Businessweek magazine. Ms. Carville is president of the New York Financial Writers' Association and an adjunct professor at Columbia Journalism School, where she teaches investigative reporting techniques.

Ms. Carville studied business and economics reporting at Columbia Journalism School in 2017. Prior to moving to the United States, she was working as a multi-media investigative reporter at the largest daily newspapers in both Canada and New Zealand. Ms. Carville’s stories influenced legislation in both countries.

⭐️ About the interview

I’m always grateful that authors agree to do an interview for Article Club. I was deeply appreciative of Ms. Carville’s persistence and determination. It took us several tries and several months to schedule the interview, but Ms. Carville never gave up. I’m happy she didn’t, because the perspective she shared is very important.

In our conversation, we discussed a number of topics about her article, including:

  • why Ms. Carville decided to write this article

  • how she protects her subjects’ dignity and sense of control in her reporting

  • how this piece affected her personally

  • what we can do to educate our youth about sextortion

I encourage you to listen to the interview if you have the time. Thank you!

🙋🏽‍♀️ Interested? Here’s what’s next.

You are certainly welcome to read the article, listen to the interview, and call it a day. But if you’re intrigued, if you’re interested, you might want to discuss this article in more depth with other kind, thoughtful people.

If you sign up, I’ll be sure to get you all the info you need, including the Zoom link and what you can expect from the discussion.

If this will be your first time participating in Article Club, I’m 100% sure you’ll find that you’ll feel welcome. We’re a kind, thoughtful reading community.

What do you think? Interested? All you need to do is sign up below. Or reach out with all of your questions.

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Thank you for reading and listening to this week’s issue. Hope you liked it. 😀

To all of our 10 new subscribers — including Lav, Leo, Og'abek, Ingrid, Gurur, Mike, Deborah, and Viv — I hope you find the newsletter a solid addition to your email inbox. To our long-time subscribers (Janice! Janet! Jeanette!), you’re pretty great, too. Loyal reader Wanda, thank you for getting the word out.

If you appreciate these interviews, value our discussions, and in general have come to trust that Article Club will have better things for you to read than your current habit of incessantly scrolling the Internet for hours on end, please consider a paid subscription. (Big thanks to Quincy, Article Club’s latest paid subscriber.)

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If subscribing is not your thing, don’t despair: There are other ways you can support this newsletter. Recommend the newsletter to a friend (thanks Melissa!), leave a comment, send me an email, or send me a voicemail. I’d like to hear from you.

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#463: Americanizing Lengua

Have you noticed the trend? As the election nears, I’m seeing an increase in articles on politics and current events. This is natural, and it’s not a bad thing. But Article Club has always striven to bring you thought-provoking articles from a variety of publications in order to expand your empathy, not necessarily to confirm your beliefs.

That’s why I scoured literary journals again this week in my quest to find you the best articles on race, education, and culture. I’m pleased with what I found. You’ll read pieces from Gulf Coast, Salmagundi, and The Journal of The Ohio State University.

As always, I hope you read today’s lead article, “Americanizing Lengua,” by Moisés R. Delgado. It’s a beautiful profile of the author’s father, an immigrant from Mexico who decides to learn English after previously having no interest. With careful prose, Mr. Delgado is able to share his father’s story, as well as his dreams, in a touching way.

If you’re looking for something different, I’ve included three other pieces for you in today’s issue. They’re about:

Hope you enjoy this week’s articles. As always, if a piece hits you, let me know. I’d love to hear from you. Or if you prefer, show your support by becoming a paid subscriber (like Phillip!). I would be very grateful.

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1️⃣ Americanizing Lengua

Moisés R. Delgado: “There was a lot of walking when my dad crossed the border. And again more walking the second time he crossed. Both times must have been relatively uneventful because my dad doesn’t speak much about them. Or maybe he doesn’t want to. They happened is all he tells me. It was the third time he crossed into the US that is most memorable. He spent half a night at the bottom of a well. It was maddening to find black beneath him, black on the walls, and black above him where, if not the moon, there should have been at least one star to guide him but there wasn’t. “Pude haber muerto,” he says, and no one would have known but the coyote and the men and women that had been travelling with him, all too desperate to find shade from the merciless desert sun and moon to do a headcount.”

By Moisés R. Delgado • Gulf Coast • 10 min • Gift Link

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2️⃣ The Care Giver

Martha Bayles: They sent their best care giver, I have no doubt. But as I opened the front door, I knew they had sent the wrong one for my mother. She was black. Tall and elderly with a short bouffant hairdo, she stood smiling under the portico with a younger woman with neat plaited hair who introduced herself as ‘Ambrozine’s daughter.’ Faking a smile to cover my sinking heart, I turned to the older lady and said, ‘How do you do … Amber?’ The younger woman repeated the name, which makes sense as the feminine of ‘Ambrose’ but at that moment made no sense. Eventually the young woman got it across that her mother, who had come all the way out here from Mattapan to take care of my mother, was named Ambrozine.

“I couldn’t say no on the spot. No matter how compelling my reasons, as a white person I could not simply frown at a black person and say, ‘Sorry, you won’t do.’ Ambrozine was Jamaican, with an accent as colorful and rich as her clothes were colorful and shabby. When she entered the living room, my mother took one look at this person in a plaid skirt and flowered sweater, and shrank back into her armchair. ‘You must be Amber,’ she said with gelid politeness. ‘How do you do?’ ”

By Martha Bayles • Salmagundi • 26 min • Gift Link

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3️⃣ Smashing

Samantha Colicchio: “We love our friends first. We set our moods by them, engage in power plays, obsess about what they’re doing when we’re not together. There are no boundaries: we braid each other’s hair, pick bits of food out of each other’s teeth, share beds, share food, share money. Sometimes we kiss each other on the mouth —for boys, or to practice, or just because it feels good.

“In our youth, our girlfriends are our co-conspirators, allies in the lifelong battle to be perceived as beautiful. Our togetherness multiplied our power. It was intoxicating to be in public with other girls, to scoff at the advances of men as though they didn’t feed us enormously, to indulge in conversation with girls whom we thought were less attractive, to secretly harbor feelings of superiority. It was easy to believe that, together, the world would unfurl itself at our feet.”

By Samantha Colicchio • The Journal • 19 min • Gift Link

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4️⃣ The Power of a Smaller Breast

Lisa Miller: “In 2023, more than 76,000 American women had elective breast-reduction surgery, a 64 percent increase since 2019, according to the American Society of Plastic Surgeons. The increase is reflected across all age groups, but especially among women under 30, who are enthusiastic consumers of plastic surgery in general, including face- and forehead lifts, procedures favored mostly by women their mothers’ age. Girls younger than 19 represent a small but fast-growing part of the market.

To decide to reduce [one’s breasts], to make them lighter, smaller, easier to carry and cover — more discreet — can be seen as an act of self-love and empowerment, a woman’s prioritization, finally, of her own comfort and independence over what others have traditionally found sexy. Or it can be interpreted as self-loathing, an agreement with a sexist culture that can also regard larger breasts that aren’t youthfully round and upright as repulsive: droopy, flabby, jiggly, hard to contain.”

By Lisa Miller • The New York Times • 14 min • Gift Link

Read the article

Thank you for reading this week’s issue. Hope you liked it. 😀

To our 9 new subscribers — including Mike, Deborah, Viv, Eli, Sarah, Nicole, Julie, Neelam, Alisha, and Danielle — I hope you find the newsletter a solid addition to your email inbox. Welcome to Article Club. Make yourself at home.

If you appreciate the articles, value our discussions, and in general have come to trust that Article Club will have better things for you to read than your current habit of scrolling the Internet for hours on end, please consider a paid subscription. I am very appreciative of Phillip, our latest paid founding member. Thank you!

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If subscribing is not your thing, don’t despair: There are other ways you can support this newsletter. Recommend the newsletter to a friend (thanks Lily!), leave a comment, buy me a coffee, or send me an email. I’d love to hear from you.

On the other hand, if you no longer want to receive this newsletter, please feel free to unsubscribe below. See you next Thursday at 9:10 am PT.

#462: Customers In The Classroom

Happy Thursday, loyal readers. If this is your first issue of Article Club, welcome. I hope you like it here. And if this is your 462nd issue, I hope you’ll stay 462 more.

This week’s issue focuses on two topics — college and voting — and offers a pair of articles for each topic. Remember, I don’t purposely look for selections to juxtapose. But when the stars align, and my reading process points me in this direction, I like the result, because the pieces talk to one another and provoke deeper thought.

If the subject of college intrigues you, consider reading these articles:

If the subject of voting intrigues you, consider reading these articles:

Hope you enjoy this week’s articles. As always, if a piece hits you, let me know. I’d love to hear from you. Or if you prefer, show your support by becoming a paid subscriber (like Kira!).

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⭐️ Especially if you’ve never tried an Article Club discussion, I warmly invite you to join us this month as we delve into “What My Adult Autism Diagnosis Finally Explained.” Written by Mary H.K. Choi and published in The Cut, the article explores the author’s discovery at age 43 that she has autism. Here’s more information about the piece, including my interview with Ms. Choi.

Interested? We’re meeting on Zoom on Sunday, September 29, 2:00 - 3:30 pm PT. It’d be great to see you there. All you need to do is sign up below. If you have questions, feel free to hit reply or email me here.

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1️⃣ Customers In The Classroom

Long ago, college was a place to explore your intellect, discover your passions, expand your horizons, meet new people, and learn for the sake of learning. The point was to make a better society and a better world. Not anymore.

Now college is a transaction. Colleges offer their customers diplomas and experiences to advance their life outcomes, in exchange for large amounts of money. Students choose wisely, pursuing coursework in fields more likely to promise financial freedom. There’s no room for liberal arts classes, no reason to get excited about learning. It’s all about the market.

This article makes plain that any romantic notion of college is only part of the brand. Those quaint photographs of scholars gathering in a circle on the lawn, participating in a seminar seeking truth, facilitated by an inspiring professor? Forget about it. It’s just a show. We’re talking about a capitalist endeavor, after all.

Note: The main link will require you to enter your email address. If you don’t want to, click the gift link. (Gift links are made possible by paid subscribers.)

By Beth McMurtrie • The Chronicle of Higher Education • 21 min • Gift Link

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2️⃣ Are Universities Failing the Accommodations Test?

For the last seven years, Simon Lewsen has been teaching writing courses at the University of Toronto. He wants to do a good job, but he can’t wrap his mind around the reality that higher education has shifted significantly since he was a student. Back in the day, professors gave out assignments, and students did them. If a student didn’t take the final examination, too bad for them. It was a simpler time.

Now the expectations have shifted. Mr. Lewsen feels overwhelmed by his email inbox, filled to the brim with requests for accommodations. He has been asked to excuse absences, redesign assignments, provide written notes of missed lectures, accept alternatives to class participation, and of course, extend deadlines.

While Mr. Lewsen appreciates that all students should have access to his classroom, and while he values the guidelines of Universal Design for Learning, he just can’t keep up the pace. And he might not want to, given how little he’s getting paid.

By Simon Lewsen • The Walrus • 21 min • Gift Link

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3️⃣ 3 Georgia Women, Caught Up In Suspicion About Voting

Longtime subscribers know that I shy away from choosing articles about politics. My thinking is that you are already bombarded by them. But I simply can’t resist when a piece is exquisitely written, as is most everything by Eli Saslow.

In this article, Mr. Saslow does what he does best: take a heated and intractable issue (in this case, voting rights and election integrity), find real people who care deeply about the issue, and then tell their stories honestly and with empathy.

You’ll meet Helen Strahl, responsible for challenging more than 1,000 voters in Chatham County over the past year and a half. “I’m here to help,” she said. “I’m not here to destroy.” You’ll also meet Sabrina German, director of the Chatham County Board of Registrars. Her staff is responsible for processing Ms. Strahl’s challenges. “Good lord, can we ever catch a break?” she asked. Finally, you’ll meet Carry Smith, who has spent the last 20 years traveling around Georgia, helping register more than 15,000 voters. In this work, she never once thought her own eligibility to vote would be challenged. And she’s not happy when she finds out Ms. Strahl is the challenger.

By Eli Saslow • The New York Times • 12 min • Gift Link

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✚ Not only is Mr. Saslow the recipient of two Pulitzer Prizes, he’s also a past participant at Article Club (and subscriber!). Listen to my interview with him about his outstanding piece, “An American Education.” It’s one of my favorites.

4️⃣ Minority Rule Is Threatening American Democracy

Ari Berman: “The founders, despite the lofty ideals in the Declaration of Independence, designed the Constitution in part to check popular majorities and protect the interests of a propertied white upper class. The Senate was created to represent the country’s elite and boost small states while restraining the more democratic House of Representatives. The Electoral College prevented the direct election of the president and enhanced the power of small states and slave states. But as the United States has democratized in the centuries since, extending the vote and many other rights to formerly disenfranchised communities, the antidemocratic features built into the Constitution have become even more pronounced, to the point that they are threatening the survival of representative government in America.

“The timing of our modern retreat from democracy is no coincidence. The nation is now roughly 20 years away from a future in which white people will no longer be the majority. To entrench and hold on to power, a shrinking conservative white minority is ­relentlessly exploiting the undemocratic elements of America’s political institutions while doubling down on tactics such as voter suppression, election subversion, and the censoring of history. This reactionary movement — which is significantly overrepresented because of the structure of the Electoral College, Congress, and gerrymandered legislative districts — has retreated behind a fortress to stop what it views as the coming siege.”

By Ari Berman • Mother Jones • 18 min • Gift Link

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Thank you for reading this week’s issue. Hope you liked it. 😀

To our 16 new subscribers — including Leo, Sellami, Orianna, Lily, Savanah, Beth, Alanna, Alisha, Maria, and Madison — I hope you find the newsletter a solid addition to your email inbox. Welcome to Article Club. Make yourself at home.

If you appreciate the articles, value our discussions, and in general have come to trust that Article Club will have better things for you to read than your current habit of scrolling the Internet for hours on end, please consider a paid subscription. I am very appreciative of Jennifer, our latest paid subscriber. Thank you!

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If subscribing is not your thing, don’t despair: There are other ways you can support this newsletter. Recommend the newsletter to a friend (thanks Katherine!), leave a comment, buy me a coffee, or send me an email. I’d love to hear from you.

On the other hand, if you no longer want to receive this newsletter, please feel free to unsubscribe below. See you next Thursday at 9:10 am PT.

#461: Wedding Colors

Dear Loyal Readers,

I’m pleased to report that my busy time at work has begun to subside. Several of you reached out to check in; thank you for the kind words. There are no promises that my current state of calm will continue, of course. But I noticed that I had more time and space this week. It’s a good sign when I can do my regular thing of scouring hundreds of publications to find great articles for you.

I really like this week’s selections. The first two are about people being denied their humanity. The second two are about people striving to belong. In the lead article, “Wedding Colors,” a 24-year-old Brown woman attends a wedding in Arkansas involving a family member of her white boyfriend. In “On Believing,” a woman who suffers from incapacitating fatigue cannot find a doctor who believes her symptoms. In “Communion,” a lonely man in his 30s discovers his people in an exhausting spin class. And in “Jawbreakers,” young people seek acceptance by permanently sanding down their teeth’s enamel. (Myself, I’d prefer leg lengthening.)

Hope you enjoy this week’s articles. Some of you might like that they’re on the shorter side. As always, if a piece hits you, let me know. I’d love to hear from you. Or if you prefer, show your support by becoming a paid subscriber (like Johnny!).

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⭐️ I warmly invite you to this month’s discussion of “What My Adult Autism Diagnosis Finally Explained.” Written by Mary H.K. Choi and published in The Cut, the article explores the author’s discovery at age 43 that she has autism. In case you missed last week’s issue, here’s more information about the piece, including my interview with Ms. Choi.

Interested? We’re meeting on Zoom on Sunday, September 29, 2:00 - 3:30 pm PT. It’d be great to see you there. All you need to do is sign up below. If you have questions, feel free to hit reply or email me here.

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1️⃣ Wedding Colors

Chante Owens: “I was a Brown girl raised by a Black father and a Filipina mother, but I was brought up with whiteness. White people were my classmates, friends, coworkers, neighbors, and lovers. I spent most of my formative years so immersed in whiteness that I stopped seeing my Blackness — like a drop of coffee diluted in a bowl of milk. Slowly I convinced myself that I was one of them, that my skin color didn’t matter, that my Blackness went unseen. My delusion became my dwelling place, a giant bubble filtering the world through its iridescent lens.

“Somehow my bubble went unpunctured for twenty-four years, allowing me and my coffee-colored skin to arrive in Hartford, Arkansas, blissfully ignorant of what my Blackness might mean in this place.”

By Chante Owens • The Sun • 8 min • Gift Link

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2️⃣ On Believing

Rachel Dlugatch: “Susan Sontag, in Illness as Metaphor, writes: ‘Everyone who is born holds dual citizenship, in the kingdom of the well and in the kingdom of the sick. Although we all prefer to use only the good passport, sooner or later each of us is obliged, at least for a spell, to identify ourselves as citizens of that other place.’

“I find Sontag’s metaphor compelling. But what she doesn’t mention is that you’re not born with both passports. Passports, of course, are issued when someone deems you meet the designated criteria, criteria that you had no part in writing, most likely. When you develop an invisible illness, one that evades healthcare professionals — or should we just call them gatekeepers? — you’re denied the identification that will gain you entry to the kingdom of the sick. Maybe that doesn’t sound so bad at first. As Sontag hints, most of us would prefer only to be citizens of the good place anyway.”

By Rachel Dlugatch • The Audacity • 12 min • Gift Link

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Join us at Room 389 in Oakland on Thursday, Sept. 26, beginning at 5:30 pm, for the latest rendition of HHH, our quarterly gathering of kind, thoughtful people. Get your free ticket here. There are a few slots left.

3️⃣ Communion

Raleigh McCool: “My history of exercising — my history of being a boy, a Christian, a person — has been lived under the Sauron eye of shame. My high-school basketball coach screaming at me for missing shots. Pastors barking about hell and all the ways you might get there — cussing, drinking, being a sissy. No pain, no gain. Man up. Real men don’t cry. All sorts of ways shame has molded me like clay. When the looming drill sergeants of my life enforced compliance, dishing out love or what passed for it only if you earned it, I got good at earning it.

“In spin, I let go. There’s no earning it — because it’s already here. From the very first class, Karson and Meg and others snuck me in through a side door of vulnerability, built a safe little nook in which to practice being loved. You are welcome here and You belong. Belonging, whether your Apple Watch says you burned 600 calories or if you sat there and slowly pedaled in the dark. I’m a man who’s only ever earned. It’s how I learned to make people, parents, girlfriends, and God love me. To move in spin class only for the sake of moving, of the joyful challenge itself, of sweating and pushing and dancing, is cool water in my throat. To be loved, simply for showing up, is pure golden sun in my chest.”

By Raleigh McCool • Longreads • 13 min • Gift Link

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4️⃣ Jawbreakers

Angelina Chapin: “The word veneer implies a surface-level intervention, an exterior casing, like a slipcover on a worn chair. But dental veneers are invasive medical prosthetics, and in many cases they alter patients’ teeth drastically and permanently. The most common form are porcelain veneers, which typically need to be glued onto a rough surface, created by shaving off a layer of the patients’ teeth. There is no dental procedure that can replace the lost enamel. Composite veneers, which allow for a resin to be applied directly onto teeth, can in theory avoid this damage, so long as there are no complications. In the very best cases, porcelain veneers need to be replaced every 15 to 20 years; composites last roughly half as long. But veneers done poorly are a different story altogether: They can lead to major and irreparable health consequences, including rotting teeth, gum infections and disease, TMJ disorders, and other chronic conditions, including unresolvable pain and degradation of the jawbone.

“Twenty years ago, these risks didn’t matter much for most people. Veneers were reserved for entertainment-industry stars, particularly actors; the very rich; and patients with significant dental problems. Today, these fake teeth are everywhere, especially online, and the market for the prosthetics has more than tripled, according to the dentists I spoke with, and is expected to grow by more than 70 percent by 2030. Dentists told me, this growth has been driven in good part by people in their late teens to mid-30s who do not have any obvious dental defects.”

By Angelina Chapin • The Cut • 18 min • Gift Link

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Thank you for reading this week’s issue. Hope you liked it. 😀

To our 11 new subscribers — including John, Wauter, Prudence, Adarsh, and Sophie — I hope you find the newsletter a solid addition to your email inbox. Welcome to Article Club. Make yourself at home.

If you appreciate the articles, value our discussions, and in general have come to trust that Article Club will have better things for you to read than your current habit of scrolling the Internet for hours on end, please consider a paid subscription. I am very appreciative of Isabel, our latest paid subscriber. Thank you!

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If subscribing is not your thing, don’t despair: There are other ways you can support this newsletter. Recommend the newsletter to a friend (thanks Jonathan!), leave a comment, buy me a coffee, or send me an email. I’d love to hear from you.

On the other hand, if you no longer want to receive this newsletter, please feel free to unsubscribe below. See you next Thursday at 9:10 am PT.

#460: My Adult Autism Diagnosis

Dear Loyal Readers,

Welcome to September. Thank you for being here.

In just a moment, I’ll reveal this month’s featured article. But before that, two things:

  • If you’re a newish subscriber: Since January 2020, I’ve chosen one article every month for a deep dive. Folks who are interested read it, annotate it, and discuss it. The author generously records a podcast interview. It’s been fun.

  • A small celebration: This will be our 50th article of the month. 🎉 I’m very appreciative of the 145 of you and the 50 authors who have participated.

If you’ve never participated (that is to say, most of you), you’re invited. We’re a kind, thoughtful reading community. I think you’ll enjoy it.

All right, let’s get down to business. I’m excited to announce this month’s article: “What My Adult Autism Diagnosis Finally Explained” Written by Mary H.K. Choi and published in The Cut, the article is thought-provoking, nuanced, and heartfelt. In other words, it’s perfect for us at Article Club.

Here’s what you can expect in today’s issue:

  • My blurb about this month’s article

  • A short biography about the author

  • A podcast interview with the author

  • What you need to do if you’d like to participate

Are you already confident that you’d like to join? All you need to do is click on the button below and sign up. 📖

Join our discussion on Sept. 29

What My Adult Autism Diagnosis Finally Explained

A year ago, at the age of 43, author Mary H.K. Choi was diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder. The diagnosis didn’t explain everything. But it gave her answers. Ever since she was a child, Ms. Choi had never understood why she was the way she was. She always longed to be different. She writes:

I wanted to know how to be breezy. To meet someone for a drink but order food because I’d missed lunch. To free myself of this habit of rehearsing conversations in advance only to be disappointed when none of my prepared talking points naturally arose. To pee when I wanted to, not when the other person did. No matter where I was, it seemed I was doomed to always feel as though I were in the window seat on a flight, prodding apologetically, mincing and smiling for the person in the aisle to get up.

I loved my friends but didn’t particularly want to spend time with them. I couldn’t stand the gnawing suspicion that everyone was humoring me. Or mad at me. Or shooting one another knowing looks because I was overstaying my welcome or not staying long enough. I reasoned that this was why I had friends but was never invited to their weddings. By my late 30s, I’d concluded I was simply bad at people. I was also indescribably lonely.

Until the diagnosis, in all aspects of her life — her interactions with her father, her relationship with her husband, the way she avoided people — Ms. Choi had constructed narratives to account for her behavior. It was because she was an immigrant, for instance. She was a people pleaser. She was a workaholic. For decades, those explanations held.

But then one day, she was fighting with her husband, Sam. Before leaving their apartment, to get some air, he said, “Jesus, I swear you’re autistic or have a personality disorder.”

In this essay, Ms. Choi shares her journey of finding out about her diagnosis, what it revealed, and how we still know very little about adults with autism.

By Mary H.K. Choi • The Cut • 23 min • Gift Link

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⭐️ About the author

Mary H.K. Choi is the New York Times bestselling author of Emergency Contact, Permanent Record and Yolk. She is currently working on her fourth book. Her first adult novel.

Permanent Record is currently being adapted for a feature film; and Yolk, for a TV series, with Choi serving as executive producer and writer for both. She can be found on Twitter or Instagram for more musings. Very rarely on TikTok.

➕ A few words from me: Somehow I first learned about Ms. Choi not through her novels or her nonfiction pieces. Rather, it was through “Hey, Cool Life!” her micropod about mental health and creativity. In the podcast, organized as an audio diary, Ms. Choi authentically shares her celebrations and struggles navigating life as a writer. You might like it. It’s raw, generous, and even a bit hypnotic.

⭐️ About the interview

I’m always grateful that authors agree to do an interview for Article Club. They always bring it. But I must say: Ms. Choi really brought it. I was deeply appreciative of Ms. Choi’s candor, vulnerability, and wisdom. It was an honor to listen and learn from her.

In our conversation, we discussed a number of topics about her article, including:

  • how finding out she has autism clarified many aspects of her life, but also called into question how our identities are constructed, and if we’re truly the authority on ourselves

  • how she felt conflicted receiving the diagnosis, especially as a high-functioning adult requiring minimal support. “Was I autistic enough?” she wondered.

  • how she approaches writing, and the writing choices she made in this piece

  • how this article was the first time she has been able to write about her father, who recently passed away

I encourage you to listen to the interview if you have the time. Thank you!

🙋🏽‍♀️ Interested? Here’s what’s next.

You are certainly welcome to read the article, listen to the interview, and call it a day. But if you’re intrigued, if you’re interested, you might want to discuss this article in more depth with other kind, thoughtful people.

If so, here’s more information about how the rest of the month will go:

  • Week 1: We sign up below and begin reading the article on our own.

  • Week 2: We annotate this shared version of the article (optional but encouraged).

  • Week 3: We share our first reactions on a discussion thread (optional but encouraged).

  • Week 4: We discuss the article together on Zoom on Sunday, Sept. 29, 2:00 - 3:30 pm PT.

If you sign up, I’ll be sure to get you all the info you need, including the Zoom link and what you can expect from the discussion.

If this will be your first time participating in Article Club, I’m 100% sure you’ll find that you’ll feel welcome. We’re a kind, thoughtful reading community.

What do you think? Interested? All you need to do is sign up below. Or reach out with all of your questions.

Sign up for the discussion

Thank you for reading and listening to this week’s issue. Hope you liked it. 😀

To all of our 12 new subscribers — including Tatina, Marina, Neal, Sam, Devy, Zoe, Jen, Arthur, Sophie, and Susan — I hope you find the newsletter a solid addition to your email inbox. To our long-time subscribers (Horace! Harry! Harriet!), you’re pretty great, too. Loyal reader Violet, thank you for sharing the newsletter and getting the word out.

If you appreciate these interviews, value our discussions, and in general have come to trust that Article Club will have better things for you to read than your current habit of incessantly scrolling the Internet for hours on end, please consider a paid subscription. (Big thanks to Gregory, Article Club’s latest paid subscriber.)

Subscribe

If subscribing is not your thing, don’t despair: There are other ways you can support this newsletter. Recommend the newsletter to a friend (thanks Nancy!), leave a comment, send me an email, or send me a voicemail. I’d like to hear from you.

On the other hand, if you no longer want to receive this newsletter, please feel free to unsubscribe below. See you next Thursday at 9:10 am PT.

#459: Militia Men

Dear Loyal Readers,

Thank you for being patient with me as I navigate the back-to-school press. I’m still working a bazillion hours, but for the most part, I feel like my actions are supporting teachers and helping students. We’ve had a strong start here at my little school in Oakland. And we’re all ready to recuperate over this long weekend coming up.

This week, in classic Article Club style, you get four well-written pieces involving a range of topics. There’s everything from the rise of militias, to the rise of ghosting restaurants, from the trend of men leaving the workforce to support their children, to the trend of men forcing women to work harder to support our children.

First up is our lead article, “Armed and Underground: Inside the Turbulent, Secret World of an American Militia,” by Joshua Kaplan. Published in ProPublica, the piece is a well-reported look inside American Patriots Three Percent, a militia that has grown in strength since the January 6 Capitol attack. With the election a few months away, I would say that if you haven’t heard of AP3 yet, you most likely will soon. Reading this article, I couldn’t stop thinking that for many of the militia’s members, alongside their violent aspirations is a longing for belonging and camaraderie. (Don’t mistake that sentence to mean I condone the group’s behavior.)

If you can’t spare a half hour to read the lead article, or if you can’t stomach the topic, I’ve included three other pieces for you in today’s issue. They’re about:

If you like an article or two, go ahead, hit reply or email me. I’d love to hear from you. Or if you prefer, show your support by becoming a paid subscriber (like Donna!).

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1️⃣ Armed And Underground

Joshua Kaplan: “The American Patriots Three Percent is a militia that has long been one of the largest in the United States and has mostly managed to avoid scrutiny. Its ranks included cops and convicted criminals, active-duty U.S. soldiers and small-business owners, truck drivers and health care professionals. Like other militias, AP3 has a vague but militant right-wing ideology, a pronounced sense of grievance and a commitment to armed action. It has already sought to shape American life through vigilante operations: AP3 members have ‘rounded up’ immigrants at the Texas border, assaulted Black Lives Matter protesters and attempted to crack down on people casting absentee ballots.

“Under Scot Seddon, AP3 was both an armed right-wing resistance group and something akin to a Rotary Club; camaraderie was as important a draw as ideology. AP3 members patrolled city streets with AR-15-style rifles and baseball bats during Black Lives Matters protests. They practiced attacking dummies with knives. But they also taught each other how to save money on groceries through gardening and organized seminars where they wrote reports on each Constitutional amendment. One member said the group dispatched trucks filled with clothes and furniture to his family after a wildfire destroyed their house. AP3 had its own monthly magazine, with militia news in the front pages and word games for kids in the back.”

By Joshua Kaplan • ProPublica • 25 min • Gift Link

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2️⃣ A Man Who “Leaned Out” To Support His Wife’s Career

Timothy B. Lee used to be an successful journalist. He served as a reporter at The Washington Post and founded Vox Media with Ezra Klein. Then he became a dad.

He and his wife, a doctor, think of doing what most couples with children do: grind out the hours, understanding that working less might undermine financial security. After all, they both work “greedy jobs” — those that pay more per hour the more hours you work. But in the end, Mr. Lee and his wife decide that he would quit his job to become a stay-at-home dad for their three children. (He writes a newsletter on the side. But does that count as work? 😀 )

In this essay, Mr. Lee argues that we should rethink the goals of feminism. He writes, “We’ve done a lot to encourage women to pursue careers in traditionally male professions. But we still don’t do enough to encourage men to do traditionally female work in our homes and communities.”

By Timothy B. Lee • Full Stack Economics • 10 min • Gift Link

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Here is Luna, the elegant and demure sister of Arlo, this newsletter’s mascot. There are plans for Luna and Arlo, separated since toddlerdom, to be reunited soon. A big thanks to Embark, a pet DNA testing company, for the connection. Want your pet to appear here? hltr.co/pets

3️⃣ The Education Of Mike Miles

Back in the 2000s, educational reform was all about extrinsic rewards and no excuses. Michelle Rhee gave out bonuses for teachers in Washington D.C. whose students performed well on standardized tests. Teachers in Atlanta erased their students’ wrong answers in exchange for extra pay. Meanwhile, KIPP Public Charter Schools led a national movement that pushed teachers to conduct their classrooms with military precision. But over the last decade, and particularly since the pandemic, these educational trends have subsided. Some would say that the practice of being mean to teachers and students has become a relic.

But don’t tell Mike Miles this. He’s the newish superintendent of Houston Independent School District, where students have struggled academically. A former ranger in the U.S. Army, Mr. Miles believes in running a tight ship. This means a mandatory scripted curriculum and heavy demands on teachers. It’s no mystery why 4,680 of HISD’s 11,000 teachers left the district in 2023-24.

Does this concern Mr. Miles? Not in the slightest. It’s all part of the plan.

By Andrea White • Texas Monthly • 25 min • Gift Link

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4️⃣ How Not To Cancel A Restaurant Reservation

Lately, my friend Barbara and I have enjoyed going to restaurants that soon will be closing. They’re a dime a dozen here in the Bay Area. Some say let’s blame the pandemic. Others think $20 for a cocktail is a bit steep. But if you ask restaurateurs, the biggest problem is rude diners who don’t bother to cancel their reservations.

“It’s demoralizing,” one restaurant owner said. “It hurts me every time.”

I’m including this article not because I have strong opinions about the culinary industry. Rather, it’s because it boggles my mind that someone would make a reservation, not go, not say anything, then get mad when they’re held accountable. I suppose it’s safe to say that I’ve never been a fan of ghosting. (My friends tell me I should lighten up a little. What do you think?)

By Soleil Ho • The San Francisco Chronicle • 5 min • Gift Link

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Thank you for reading this week’s issue. Hope you liked it. 😀

To our five new subscribers — Hope, Aramis, Krysvask, Dale, and Nihal — I hope you find the newsletter a solid addition to your email inbox. Welcome to Article Club. Make yourself at home.

If you appreciate the articles, value our discussions, and in general have come to trust that Article Club will have better things for you to read than your current habit of scrolling the Internet for hours on end, please consider a paid subscription. I am very appreciative of Donna, our latest paid subscriber. Thank you!

Subscribe

If subscribing is not your thing, don’t despair: There are other ways you can support this newsletter. Recommend the newsletter to a friend (thanks Ivona!), leave a comment, buy me a coffee, or send me an email. I’d love to hear from you.

On the other hand, if you no longer want to receive this newsletter, please feel free to unsubscribe below. See you next Thursday at 9:10 am PT.

#458: A Black Man and a White Woman Bought a Home

Dear Loyal Readers,

Last week’s issue, “The Female Body,” was a big hit. Thank you for opening it, reading the articles, and sharing your thoughts and perspectives with me. What became clear: This newsletter needs more articles on menopause.

This week, loyal readers, you get “Classic Article Club” — four well-written pieces from a range of publications about a range of topics, focusing on issues of race, education, and culture. The point is to provoke your thought and expand your empathy, while also saving you the time it’d take to discover thse articles on your own.

First up is our lead article, “A Black Man and a White Woman Bought a Home,” by Zach Stanton. It’s right up this newsletter’s alley: a big article about an interracial couple who moves into a Detroit suburb in the late-1960s, and the white rage that follows. It’s also a commentary on the suburbs. I can’t believe I missed it when it was first published in Politico last December. In particular, a special recommendation goes out to social studies teachers.

But if you can’t spare an hour to read the lead article, if you’re really busy this week (as I am — the start of school has been no joke!) — I’ve included three other pieces for you in today’s issue. They’re about:

If you like one or more of the articles, go ahead, hit reply or email me. I’d love to hear from you. Or if you prefer, show your support by becoming a paid subscriber.

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1️⃣ A Black Man and a White Woman Bought a Home

Zack Stanton: “Warren, Michigan — On the night of June 13, 1967, Mary Killeen woke from a fitful sleep to see a tank rumbling down her street.

“A phalanx of a dozen or so police in riot gear marched alongside and they were headed right toward her. Directly across the street, a seething crowd of 200 to 300 white people were swarming the house of her newest neighbors. It had been building for days. The crowd trampled the fresh sod. They screamed and shouted at the occupants inside, their faces lit by car headlights and the flicker of gas lamps on front lawns. They surrounded the home, staring in. Some threw rocks at the windows. Some pounded on the outer walls, like a shark bumping against the underside of a life raft.

“The home belonged to the Baileys. Carado, his wife, Ruby, and young daughter, Pam, had moved in on June 5, a week before. There were new people moving in all the time to the Wishing Well subdivision — Mary Killeen, with her husband and two daughters, had only just got there herself. But the Baileys were different from their neighbors in at least one way: Carado was Black and Ruby was white.”

By Zack Stanton • Politico • 67 min • Gift Link

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2️⃣ Are We Forcing Our Pets To Live Too Long?

Madeline Leung Coleman: “No loss happens in a vacuum. If cats and dogs don’t have an emotional response to pain, we’re the opposite. ‘These animals mean something to these people that I can never understand,’ says Dr. Dani McVety. ‘I’ve worked with people whose child committed suicide, and this dog is the last thing they have left. Or the cat is the only thing they have left of a sister, or parents, or spouses who have died.’ At the end, cleaving your narrative from your animal’s could be the last, best way to take care of them. Every time is different, yet every time is the same. McVety notes, for example, that the people who wait too long the first time never wait so long again. And nearly everyone tells her the same thing: At some point in the euthanasia appointment, as they’re preparing to say good-bye to their pet, the client will turn to her, full of gratitude, and say, ‘I wish we could do this for humans.’ ”

By Madeline Leung Coleman • The Cut • 14 min • Gift Link

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✚ Interested in this topic of how-much-pet-care-is-too-much? Read (or re-read) last June’s article of the month, “How Much Would You Pay To Save Your Cat’s Life?” Author Sarah Zhang generously recorded this podcast interview.

If we’re not careful, Mr. Benny, who is adorable and who belongs to loyal reader Brooke, might take over mascot privileges here at Article Club. Here’s Mr. Benny enjoying his regular bath. Want your pet to appear here? hltr.co/pets

3️⃣ The Thin Purple Line

Jasper Craven: “Eric Rodriguez works in a white-collar office building in Manhattan, but on the day we met he was dressed for battle in Da Nang. He wore a sweat-wicking gunmetal-gray shirt, black combat boots, and brown cargo pants. Knives peeked out from two pants pockets, and a Leatherman sat on his belt next to a small, swinging bottle of hand sanitizer. There was also a first aid kit strapped to his leg under his pants, or so he said. Rodriguez was prepared for bad things and convinced the worst was soon to come. “I have two to three flashlights on me at any one time,” he said. “And I take about forty vitamins a day.

“As a self-professed sheep in wolf’s clothing, Rodriguez was the perfect avatar for an industry built on providing a sense of security and not much more. The security guard is embodied proof of the power of optics: someone who looks vaguely like a cop, stands vaguely like a cop, has a badge that shines vaguely like a cop’s, and can wield power like a cop.”

By Jasper Craven • Harper’s Magazine • 26 min • Gift Link

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4️⃣ Sex Boxers

Ben Decter: “It’s been two years since my wife and I have had sex. Between the vicious return of my six-year-old daughter’s daily seizures, financial concerns, my mom’s breast cancer, and my wife Jackie’s work stress, there’s little mystery as to how I have arrived in a sexual wasteland. At thirty-three, I’m distraught by this physical absence, but refuse to give up. Jackie’s working at home today, and I sense opportunity. Slipping out of my T-shirt and jeans, I’m left standing in nothing but my maroon, silk boxers. Their super-soft texture invites touch.”

By Ben Decter • Hippocampus Magazine • 6 min • Gift Link

Read the article

Thank you for reading this week’s issue. Hope you liked it. 😀

To our 5 new subscribers — including Adriana, Paulina, Reina, and Mimí — I hope you find the newsletter a solid addition to your email inbox. Welcome to Article Club. Make yourself at home.

If you appreciate the articles, value our discussions, and in general have come to trust that Article Club will have better things for you to read than your current habit of scrolling the Internet for hours on end, please consider a paid subscription. I am very appreciative of Damien, our latest paid subscriber. Thank you!

Subscribed

If subscribing is not your thing, don’t despair: There are other ways you can support this newsletter. Recommend the newsletter to a friend (thanks Harry!), leave a comment, buy me a coffee, or send me an email. I’d love to hear from you.

On the other hand, if you no longer want to receive this newsletter, please feel free to unsubscribe below. See you next Thursday at 9:10 am PT.

#457: The Female Body

Dear Loyal Readers,

If you’re a longtime subscriber, you know that from time to time, the universe aligns. When that happens, you get a theme issue!

Past theme issues have been extremely popular. For example, I continue to receive thoughtful notes from you about “The Capitalism Issue,” “The Man Issue,” and “School, Three Ways,” — just to name a few.

This week’s issue puts the idea of “the female body” at the center and includes four pieces that explore the theme. First up is our lead article by Margaret Atwood. Partly autobiographical, and written with incisive, ironic humor, “The Female Body” offers a introductory context for the pieces that follow. I encourage you to start with this article, even though it might take a few reads to discern its deep meaning.

But if you’ve already read Ms. Atwood’s piece (entirely likely), I’ve included three other great articles for you in today’s issue. They’re about:

If you like one or more of the articles, go ahead, hit reply or email me. I’d love to hear from you. Or if you prefer, tell your friends and family to sign up for Article Club.

Share Article Club

⭐️ Big news: Author Gail Cornwall will join us on August 25 to discuss her article, “Is the hardest job in education convincing parents to send their kids to a San Francisco public school?” I’m excited and grateful. Want to participate?

We’re meeting on Zoom on Sunday, August 25, 2:00 - 3:30 pm PT. It’d be great to see you there. All you need to do is sign up below. If you have questions, feel free to hit reply or email me here.

Sign up for the discussion

1️⃣ The Female Body

Margaret Atwood: “The Female Body has many uses. It's been used as a door-knocker, a bottle-opener, as a clock with a ticking belly, as something to hold up lampshades, as a nutcracker, just squeeze the brass legs together and out comes your nut. It bears torches, lifts victorious wreaths, grows copper wings and raises aloft a ring of neon stars; whole buildings rest on its marble heads.

“It sells cars, beer, shaving lotion, cigarettes, hard liquor; it sells diet plans and diamonds, and desire in tiny crystal bottles. Is this the face that launched a thousand products? You bet it is, but don’t get any funny big ideas, honey, that smile is a dime a dozen. It does not merely sell, it is sold.”

By Margaret Atwood • Michigan Quarterly Review • 5 min • Gift Link

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2️⃣ What Tweens Get From Sephora

Jia Tolentino: “I approached a pair of employees at Sephora and asked them if they saw a lot of tweens in the store. They let out simultaneous groans. ‘Girl,’ one said. ‘They come in with their little lists, from TikTok, they know exactly what they want, and they laugh at you. Like, if you tell them they don’t need a serum, they will literally laugh.’

“These days, children want to look like tweens, tweens want to look like teen-agers, teen-agers want to look like grown women, and grown women — dreaming of porelessness, wearing white socks and penny loafers and hair bows — evidently want to look like ten-year-old girls.”

By Jia Tolentino • The New Yorker • 11 min • Gift Link

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Max, who belongs to loyal reader and VIP Melissa, loves tug of war, food, and belly rubs. Want your pet to appear here? hltr.co/pets

3️⃣ Bama Confidential: Rush

Anne Helen Petersen: “The best way to describe Kylan’s appearance is that she looks like a doll. Big brown eyes, perfectly highlighted hair, fake eyelashes, uniform spray tan always tastefully applied. That might sound like pageant glam, which it is, but it’s increasingly just everyday glam for a certain type of woman between the ages of 16 and 26. (If you’ve watched any of the ‘Get Ready With Me’ videos for people doing #Rushtok, you know exactly how formidable their makeup skills have become. I didn’t even know this many types of foundation existed).  

“To an outsider, Kylan looks like someone who’d easily get a bid to every house on campus. But anyone fluent in the Greek system knows that the criteria can be very opaque and very narrow. She might have looked the part, but I also knew that there were houses that looked at Kylan’s Ohio address and her TikTok popularity and thought: not one of us. Put differently: it doesn’t matter if you’re a beauty queen if you’re not following the top sorority’s inscrutable rules for acceptance.

By Anne Helen Petersen • Culture Study • 23 min • Gift Link

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4️⃣ Pause

Mary Reufle: “I recently came across an old cryalog that I kept during the month of April in 1998. ‘C’ stands for the fact that I cried, the number of C’s represents the number of times I cried, and ‘NC’ indicates that I did not cry on that day.

“The saddest thing is, I now find the cryalog very funny, and laugh when I look at it. But when I kept it, I wanted to die. Literally, to kill myself – with an iron, a steaming hot turned-on iron. This was not depression, this was menopause.

“Reading this, or any other thing ever written about menopause, will not help you in any way, for how you respond to menopause is not up to you, it is up to your body, and though you believe now that you can control your body (such is your strength after all that yoga), you cannot.”

By Mary Ruefle • Granta • 5 min • Gift Link

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Thank you for reading this week’s issue. Hope you liked it. 😀

To our 5 new subscribers — Akanke, R.N, Pal, Ellen, and Thu — I hope you find the newsletter a solid addition to your email inbox. Welcome to Article Club. Make yourself at home.

If you appreciate the articles, value our discussions, and in general have come to trust that Article Club will have better things for you to read than your current habit of scrolling the Internet for hours on end, please consider a paid subscription. I am very appreciative of Tim, our latest paid subscriber. Thank you!

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#456: Athens, Revised

Dear Loyal Readers,

School starts next Monday, which means I’m running around supporting teachers as best I can, reminding them they’re great. It also means this introduction will be shorter than usual, given all my running around.

So let’s get to it. This week’s lead article, “Athens, Revised,” is one of the most powerful pieces I’ve read in a long time. (I’ve read it three times already.) Author Erin Wood reminds us of the importance of constructing our life narrative — that no one else, besides ourselves, can write and revise our story.

Because the content of the lead article may be triggering, I’ve included three other great pieces for you in today’s issue. They’re about:

If you like one or more of the articles, go ahead, hit reply or email me. I’d love to hear from you. Or if you prefer, tell your friends and family to sign up for Article Club.

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⭐️ I warmly invite you to this month’s discussion of “Is the hardest job in education convincing parents to send their kids to a San Francisco public school?” Written by Gail Cornwall and published in The Hechinger Report, the article explores how an urban public school district is trying to boost enrollment, despite the following challenges (and more):

  • Decades of racism, white flight, and failed attempts to desegregate

  • A bewildering lottery system that determines where students go to school

  • White parents who say they want diversity but don’t want their kid sitting next to a Black kid

Interested? We’re meeting on Zoom on Sunday, August 25, 2:00 - 3:30 pm PT. It’d be great to see you there. All you need to do is sign up below. If you have questions, feel free to hit reply or email me here.

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1️⃣ Athens, Revised

When she was 26, Erin Wood was on the last leg of a trip to Greece. On the afternoon before her flight, a man approached her, offered her a free tour of the Acropolis, a recommendation to a quality hotel, a meal, and a drink. Early the next morning, Ms. Wood woke up in her hotel bedroom, naked from the waist down, her body heavy, her sheets wet. “What have I allowed to happen?” she asked.

In this article, Ms. Wood explores the answer to that question. At first, she considers two versions of what happened. She writes two narratives. They both don’t feel right. Then, after unhelpful couples therapy with her unhelpful husband, she realizes that she’s been asking herself the wrong question. One night, unable to sleep, Ms. Wood reads an essay online about a woman who survived a serial killer. “What if I am not alone?” she asks. This new, revised question — it’s the one.

By Erin Wood • The Sun Magazine • 23 mins • Gift Link

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✚ If you read Amanda E. Machado’s “The Abstract Rage To Protect,” June’s article of the month, this piece is a perfect complement.

2️⃣ The Queen Of The Trad Wives

Back in February, I devoted an entire issue to the phenomenon of the trad wife. The articles explored the lifestyle (or is it a movement?) from various perspectives, with the goal of noticing nuance. This profile of Hannah Neeleman, a 34-year-old mother of eight children who lives in rural Utah, continues the conversation. Ms. Neeleman embraces traditional roles but also believes in paving new paths for women, balancing motherhood and entrepreneurial success. Yes, she makes dinner from scratch. And she runs a business. And she maintains 9 million followers on social media. And she gives birth without pain relief. And if that’s not enough, she participates in beauty pageants 12 days postpartum. For Ms. Neeleman, of all this fulfills a divine purpose.

By Megan Agnew • The Sunday Times • 14 min • Gift Link

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Chewy, who belongs to loyal readers Alicia and Eric, enjoys swimming, snoozing, and consuming large amounts of human food “retrieved” from the kitchen counter. Want your pet to appear here? hltr.co/pets

3️⃣ Born Was The Mountain

By definition, what is sacred is different for people. I say a place is sacred when the chants link me to it. When I am chanting and the chant said the mountain was born and then you were — from the gods and from the goddesses, from the heavens and the earth, the mountain was born — that already tells me it holds a special, sacred place in my genealogy. I descend from that mountain, but also the mountain has taught me, has spoken to me, has shaped me, has transformed me in how I walk in this world.

In this well-researched article from 2018, Chelsea Steinauer-Scudder eloquently investigates the profound spiritual significance of Mauna Kea, known as Mauna a Wākea to Native Hawaiians. The piece weaves together the cultural heritage and the contentious debate surrounding modern development on this sacred mountain, urging us to reflect on the importance of honoring ancestral connections to the land.

By Chelsea Steinauer-Scudder • Emergence Magazine • 41 mins • Gift Link

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✚ You can read about the conflict’s recent developments here and here.

4️⃣ Children Of Dave

Usually I don’t select episodes of This American Life, because (a) the podcast is everywhere, (b) many of you already listen to it, (c) we’re Article Club, not Podcast Club. Nevertheless, when something is truly excellent, I can’t pass it by.

I loved this audio story by Boen Wang. For many years, Mr. Wang has blamed being raised Christian for his negative self outlook. In short, he says, Christianity has taught him to feel like “a worthless piece of shit.” In addition to being a child of God, he’s a child of Adam, an inheritor of original sin.

Mr. Wang realizes that his parents converted to Christianity after immigrating from Beijing. How did this happen? he wonders. This question leads Mr. Wang to the Oklahoma City Airport, where one August evening in 1989, his father found himself stranded on his first day in the United States. That is, until a kind white man named Dave said hello, gave him a place to stay, and presented him a Bible.

By Boen Wang • This American Life • 59 min • Apple Podcasts

Listen to the podcast

Thank you for reading this week’s issue. Hope you liked it. 😀

To our 5 new subscribers — Jay, Gail, Preston, Carol, and Schab — I hope you find the newsletter a solid addition to your email inbox. Welcome to Article Club. Make yourself at home.

If you appreciate the articles, value our discussions, and in general have come to trust that Article Club will have better things for you to read than your current habit of scrolling the Internet for hours on end, please consider a paid subscription. I am very appreciative of Gail, our latest paid subscriber. Thank you!

Subscribed

If subscribing is not your thing, don’t despair: There are other ways you can support this newsletter. Recommend the newsletter to a friend (thanks Fern!), leave a comment, buy me a coffee, or send me an email. I’d love to hear from you.

On the other hand, if you no longer want to receive this newsletter, please feel free to unsubscribe below. See you next Thursday at 9:10 am PT.