#469: Farewell, America

Dear Readers,

I’ve been doing this newsletter for almost 10 years. If you’ve been here for a while, you know that I typically don’t comment on presidential elections. Instead, I spend time looking for great articles, and then I let the articles do the talking. That’s the whole point of Article Club. Together we read and discuss the best articles on race, education, and culture, kindly and thoughtfully, in order to expand our empathy.

The problem with publishing every Thursday is that every four years, there’s an issue that goes out two days after the presidential election. That’s not enough time for nuanced, well-written articles to emerge. Right now, it’s all hot takes. You’ve likely been reading these. They’re filled with fury, or fear, or delight, or despair. These pieces have a place, no doubt. But I’ve always shied away from including them here. I prefer to share articles that have had a little time for perspective.

That’s why this week I’m featuring an article that is eight years old. I found it in Issue #67, “White Won,” published in November 2016, way back when this newsletter was called Iserotope Extras. The piece is called “Farewell, America,” by Neal Gabler.

I encourage you to read the article. Here’s what I wrote about it at the time:

In case you want to wallow in despair, check out this article, which argues that the election killed America — our values, what we stand for, our place in the world. Except as I read this piece, I wondered how much of the American myth is just like any other country’s myth — important, of course, but really just a story, one that we can construct anew.

Read the article

When I re-read the piece a few days ago, I was struck by how prescient it was. What people are saying now, Prof. Gabler was saying in 2016. It’s a little eerie, actually.

For example, here is how Prof. Gabler begins the piece:

Re-reading this passage got me thinking: If you cross out “Nov. 8, 2016” and replace it with “Nov. 5, 2024,” would anyone be able to tell? Prof. Gabler’s words eight years could easily have been written in yesterday’s newspapers.

The same can be said for Prof. Gabler’s prediction for the future:

Even before the Dobbs decision, Prof. Gabler understands that misogyny is on the way. Even before President Trump’s promise of mass deportation, he points out the xenophobia and nativism in our country. Most importantly, Prof. Gabler emphasizes the “white sense of grievance” bellowing from men. Pundits writing about Tuesday’s election comment on this phenomenon as if it’s fairly new. Not a chance, Prof. Gabler would argue. It’s old by now.

Finally, I was surprised by how well Prof. Gabler captured the severity of the time. There is no sugar coating. In stark prose, he makes sure to tell us that “we won’t survive unscathed” because “we know too much about each other to heal.”

Even his point that “democracy only functions when its participants abide by certain conventions” rings true. Prof. Gabler seems to predict the rightward shift in the American electorate years before other political commentators. In this piece, it’s clear that he doesn’t buy into a false progressive hope that people’s consciences would lead them to vote for now-outdated American values.

Re-reading Prof. Gabler’s article certainly didn’t make me feel hopeful. It cemented my sense that we are intractably stuck as a country. But I did find his piece still very relevant today. I hope you read it and tell me what you think.

💬 Your Turn: What do you think?

➡️ Is Prof. Gabler’s piece still relevant today? What’s the same? What’s changed?

If you’re comfortable, please share your experience. In typical Article Club fashon, be sure to be kind and thoughtful!

Leave a comment

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

⭐️In case you didn’t see last week’s issue, I warmly invite you to our discussion of “Athens, Revised,” by Erin Wood. We are meeting on Sunday, Dec. 1, at 2 pm PT. Here is more information (including an interview with the author), and you can sign up here. Thank you to the eight of you who have signed up so far.

To our 10 new subscribers — including Aayda, TC, William, JH, Corinne, Hamza, Abigail, Staci, and Alice — 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 Tyler, our latest paid reader. 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 Orianna!), 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.

#468: Let’s discuss “Athens, Revised”

Dear Loyal Readers,

Happy Halloween! I wish you successful tricking and treating. In case this needs to be said, 100 Grand is the best candy bar. (It used to be Twix.) Thank you.

Now let’s get to this month’s featured article. But before that:

• 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.

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: “Athens, Revised.” Written by Erin Wood and published in The Sun, the article is equal parts devastating and uplifting. It’s raw and vulnerable. Throughout, it is brilliantly written.

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? We’re meeting up on Sunday, Dec. 1, 2:00 - 3:30 pm PT. All you need to do is click on the button below and sign up. 📖

Sign up for our discussion on Dec. 1

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

Read the article

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

⭐️ About the author

Erin Wood writes, edits, and publishes from her home in Little Rock, Arkansas, and is a native Arkansan.

Erin owns and runs Et Alia Press, a “small press for big voices,” publishing award-winning adult nonfiction and children’s books with strong ties to Arkansas. She provides publishing advice, editing, and coaching for creative writers, and loves helping businesses and nonprofits share their stories.

Erin’s book, Women Make Arkansas: Conversations with 50 Creatives, was a silver medalist for “Best Nonfiction South” from the Independent Publisher Book Awards (IPPYs) and was featured at the 2019 Arkansas Literary Festival.

Erin’s work has been anthologized and is forthcoming or has appeared in The Sun, HuffPost Personal, River Teeth’s “Beautiful Things,” Scary Mommy, Catapult, The Rumpus, Ms. Magazine's Blog, Psychology Today, and elsewhere, and has been a notable in Best American Essays and nominated for a Pushcart Prize.  

⭐️ About the interview

I’m always deeply appreciative that authors agree to do an interview for Article Club. It’s a gift that they share with us their process, their craft, and their perspective. Thank you, Ms. Wood, for saying yes to participating in our reading community!

I’m also grateful that loyal reader and co-host Melinda generously agreed to facilitate the conversation with Ms. Wood. I feel the interview was richer as a result.

In the interview, Melinda and Ms. Wood discussed a number of topics, including:

• how the essay originated in 2008 when Ms. Wood was in graduate school, and how the piece transformed through the support of three writing groups

• how Ms. Wood captured the haziness and disconnection she felt waking up the morning after surviving the sexual assault

• how meeting Natalie helped Ms. Wood feel less shame and less alone because of the power of sharing their stories and rewriting their traumatic experiences

• how women deserve opportunities to revise their own narratives

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.

Sign up for our discussion on December 1

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

To all of our 8 new subscribers — including Everette, PD, Janet, Mary, and Isabella — I hope you find the newsletter a solid addition to your email inbox. To our long-time subscribers (Keith! Kevin! Konstance!), you’re pretty great, too. Loyal reader Yolanda, 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 Robbie, 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 Oz!), 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.

#467: White Lines

Dear Readers,

One rule I have for my life is, “Never read the comments.” It has served me well. There’s enough stress in my day; I don’t need to entertain more. But over the past two weeks, as I’ve read the comments section here, I’ve had a change of heart, at least for this publication. It has been wonderful to read the thoughtful commentary from kind readers who care deeply about the best writing out there. Thank you, I hope it continues, and if you’d like to share your perspective, please do.

Leave a comment

Now let’s get to this week’s articles. In typical Article Club fashion, they run the gamut from racism at recess to the purpose of college to the benefits of veganism.

I highly recommend this week’s lead article, “White Lines.” Author Emilio Carrero recounts his early-2000s Florida childhood playing pick-up soccer games at recess, in a masterful and thought-provoking coming-of-age essay. “For me,” Mr. Carrero writes, “nothing made as much sense as those twenty minutes in the sweltering heat, where the sun-scorched grass and the white chalk lines and the orange cones all existed to explain an otherwise confusing world — my brownness and poorness, the color line that we all danced along, a history as scuffed and dirtied as our clothes and shoes, and the daily rituals of unity, a rigged contest, its outcome as inevitable as the victory of whiteness.”

If personal essays aren’t for you, I invite you to read:

• “Why College?” if you’re questioning the purpose of college

• “Confessions of a Former Carnivore” if you’re questioning your diet

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 Giselle!). I would be very grateful.

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1️⃣ White Lines

Emilio Carrero lives for recess. It’s the time when he and his fellow 10-year-old friends play soccer on the big field of his elementary school in Florida. Except he doesn’t much like soccer, nor is he very good at the sport. What thrills Emilio is winning — because winning means he is saved from his poorness, from his Brownness, from his peers making fun of the house he used to live in, before it was foreclosed.

But winning might also mean being accepted by his white peers. After all, Emilio, a Puerto Rican boy growing up after 9/11, has been taught to be patriotic. It’s important that there’s unity against the enemy, he’s been told, and unity takes sacrifice. “I hoped that recess would bring me closer to being truly American,” he writes, even if that means hating his brown skin.

Then one day, the white kids change the rules. Max, “with a snarl on his lips, his blond hair as white as the sun,” chooses both teams. The teams are segregated by race. Emilio and his Brown and Black friends have no chance against their white classmates. That is, until Emilio finds a way out of this trap.

By Emilio Carrero • The Sun • 16 min • Gift Link

Read the article

💬 Your Turn: What do you think?

➡️ Growing up, did you have any “white lines?”

In other words: Were there rules in your childhood — overt or otherwise — based on race, in which you internalized and acted on those rules (no matter your race)? Did you play by those rules, or did you rebel?

If you’re comfortable, please share your experience. In typical Article Club fashon, be sure to be kind and thoughtful!

Leave a comment

Cali, who belongs to loyal reader Millie, enjoys taking weekend trips to Las Vegas in order to watch ESPN with her favorite human friend, Lisa (also a loyal reader). Want your pet to appear here? hltr.co/pets

2️⃣ Why College, Or What Have We Done?

The noblest question in the world, Benjamin Franklin once asked, is, “What good may I do in it?” Prof. Jonathan Zimmerman, who teaches at the University of Pennsylvania, which Mr. Franklin founded, wishes nostalgically that today’s students would still consider this question in earnest.

But that reality, he argues, is no longer. The point of college has become, he argues, “to get ahead, and to win the game.” This means getting good grades, telling the professor what they want to hear, getting accepted into the most elite co-curricular activities, and applying for lucrative jobs in finance, even though those jobs are awful. In other words: The goal of college is not to do good but rather to dominate.

Prof. Zimmerman writes:

The big problem at college is not political correctness, or wokeness, or racism, or antisemitism. The big problem is cynicism, spawned by an institution that tells young people one thing and does the opposite. If we truly believed our rhetoric about individual exploration and collective uplift, we would structure college in a very different fashion. But we don’t believe it and the students know it. They have found us out.

By Jonathan Zimmerman • Liberties Journal • 19 min • Gift Link

Read the article

3️⃣ Confessions Of A Former Carnivore

Many of us believe that education will set us down the right path, and that the truth will set us free. Except most of us — at least 96 percent of Americans — still eat meat, even though we know we shouldn’t.

In this well-researched, well-written article, writer Aaron Gell gets right to it:

Having adopted a vegan diet myself just a few years ago, following decades of blissful unconcern and another few years of guilty but defiant self-indulgence, I’ve found myself increasingly mystified by our culture’s intractable attachment to using animals for food. Why, given the growing plethora of decent alternatives and the many reasons to forswear meat, dairy, and, yes, seafood — self-evidently good reasons, involving ethics, personal health, environmental devastation, and social justice — aren’t more of us doing it? Why are so many otherwise thoughtful, conscientious, and deeply caring individuals so willing to cause so much suffering for the most trifling and transient of gratifications?

I especially appreciated Mr. Gell’s discussion of the “4 Ns” — false claims that flesh eaters (like me) cling to, even though we know we’re deluding ourselves. Here they are. If you haven’t gone vegan, which one is your nemesis?

• Meat is necessary: Where else will we get protein?

• Meat is natural: What do you think cavemen ate?

• Meat is nice: I could never live without cheese!

• Meat is normal: If everyone is eating meat, it must be OK!

By Aaron Gell • The New Republic • 24 min • Gift Link

Read the article

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

To our 14 new subscribers — including Eugene, Paul, Dara, Lianna, Neil, Eliza, Claudia, Helen, Kamal, and Lise — 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 Randy, our latest paid reader. 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 Niphania!), 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.

#466: The Feminist

Dear Readers,

Thank you for your kind words and thoughtful comments about last week’s issue. My intent was not to disparage the author but rather to highlight the piece’s weaknesses in argumentation. Several of you said you appreciated seeing how I read and annotate. No promises, but maybe I’ll do this again in an upcoming issue — that is to say, if a piece moves me so.

This week, let’s get back to classic Article Club — in which I scour the Internet and bring you four great articles, from a variety of publications, on race, education, and culture. Today’s lead piece is a short story, “The Feminist,“ by Tony Tulathimutte. Honestly, I’ve never read anything quite like it. In short, the story is about a white man with feminist politics who wonders why he can’t find a woman to date. My feelings while reading the piece ran the gamut. When should my compassion for the main character begin and end? What’s the line between cluelessness and creepiness?

If you’d like to steer clear of anything resembling incel energy, I’ve included three other pieces for you in this week’s issue. They are about:

• a Black man who lashes out at a white police officer after finding out that he has cancer

• two additional perspectives (here and here) on last week’s Atlantic article on reading

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 Frances!). I would be very grateful.

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1️⃣ The Feminist

Tony Tulathimutte: “If you ask him where he went to high school, he likes to boast that, actually, he went to an all-girls school. That was sort of true — he was one of five males at a progressive private school that had gone co-ed just before he’d enrolled. People always reply: Ooh la la, lucky guy! You must’ve had your pick. Which irritates him, because it implied women would only date him if there were no other options, and because he hadn’t dated anyone in high school. One classmate junior year had a crush on him, but he wasn’t attracted to her curvaceous body type so felt justified in rejecting her, just as he’d been rejected many times himself.

“The women he tries to date offer him friendship instead, so once again, most of his friends are women. This is fine: it’s their prerogative, and anyway, lots of relationships begin platonically — especially for guys with narrow shoulders. But soon a pattern emerges. The first time, as he is leaving his friend’s dorm room, he surprises himself by saying: Hey, this might be super random, and she can totally say no, but he’s attracted to her, so did she want to go on a ‘date’ date, sometime? In a casual and normal voice. And she says, ‘Oh,’ and filibusters — she had no idea he felt that way, and she doesn’t want to risk spoiling the good thing they have by making it a thing, she just wants to stay . . . and he rushes to assure her that it’s valid, no, totally valid, he knows friendship isn’t a downgrade, sorry for being weird. Ugh!

“Right? she replies, dating’s so overrated and meaningless in college anyway, and she knows that he knows he’ll find someone who deserves him, because he’s great, really great, so thoughtful, so smart, not like these SAE sideways-hat-wearing dudebros, but of course he already knows that, and she really appreciates it. Then he thanks her for being honest, because it’s proof their friendship is real, and don’t worry about him, he gets it.”

By Tony Tulathimutte • n + 1 • 29 min • Gift Link

Read the article

✚ Check out this recent profile of Mr. Tulathimutte in The New York Times. It also discusses his new book, Rejection, a collection of seven connected short stories.

💬 Your Turn: What do you think?

What did you think of this guy? What did you think of this piece?

I’d love to hear your thoughts and get a conversation going in the comments.

➡️ Did you have compassion for the main character? Or, like me, did you draw a line?
➡️ Did you find the main character clueless or creepy, or something else?

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

Leave a comment

Wade, who belongs to loyal readers Jonathan and Todd, is currently very focused on vigorously rolling around in recently fertilized grass. In his middle age, Wade has given up his passionate wild turkey chases. He enjoys sun tanning on the front porch. Want your pet to appear here? hltr.co/pets

2️⃣ Letter From Home

Kiese Laymon: “I do not want to disappoint God, Mississippi, or home with this letter, but I have to disappoint God, Mississippi, and home with this letter. I am currently succumbing to evil.

“I refuse to believe that the height of human being, which is really the act and art of being human, in this nation, is our capacity to kill, to incarcerate, to systemically humiliate, to discipline or to own people most efficiently. I believe that the height of human being in Mississippi, in New York, in Gaza, in Israel, in Sudan, everywhere on Earth, can be our ability to atone, restore, share, and vigorously accept when we have succumbed to evil.”

By Kiese Laymon • Bitter Southerner • 6 min • Gift Link

Read the article

3️⃣ They didn’t like The Atlantic article on reading, either

Turns out, it wasn’t just me who disliked The Atlantic’s viral article on reading, which lamented that elite college students have difficulty finishing books. By the looks of last week’s comments section, several of you didn’t much like it, either.

Big thanks to loyal readers Caroline, Debra, and Knitwish, who sent these thoughtful pieces my way. The first is by an English teacher interviewed for the piece. The second is a well-written rant with analysis similar to mine.

The Atlantic Did Me Dirty
By Carrie M. Santo-Thomas • Personal Substack • 9 min • Gift Link

Carrie M. Santo-Thomas: “[Rose] Horowitch’s article reflects a frighteningly narrow definition of what constitutes worthwhile literature. Passing references to Moby Dick, Crime and Punishment, and even my unit about The Odyssey, confine literary merit to a very small, very old, very white, and very male box. As a staunch advocate for diverse and representative literature, I was immediately curious about the actual texts at the center of this ‘crisis’ so I asked Horowitch directly what types of books were the sticking points in her professor friends’ curricula. Unsurprisingly, it was canonical classics. As Horowitch points out, I am just ’one public-high school teacher in Illinois,’ but while professors at elite universities sound the alarm over Gen Z undergrads not finishing Les Miserables because they are uninterested in reading a pompous French man drone on for chapters about the Paris sewer system, my colleagues and I have developed professional toolboxes with endless other ways to inspire our students to read about justice, compassion, and redemption.”

Rose Horowitch And The Obsession With Belief Over Empiricism
By Chad Post • Three Percent • 6 min • Gift Link

Chad Post: “This argument is a perfect exemplar of today’s op-ed obsessed content economy: Is it true? WHO KNOWS! But does it sound plausible? Does it give you something to rail against? FOR SURE. It’s Thanksgiving dinner fodder: ‘Kids sure are dumb these days. They can’t even read all of Crime and Punishment!’ (‘Generally, they only read “Crime” ‘ is the most appropriate response.)"

“I do want to point out that NOT A SINGLE STUDENT was interviewed for this piece. Instead, it’s all anecdotal stuff that professors would say at a cocktail party for laughs and so that everyone could commiserate over how ‘teaching is so much harder now, because students are dumber.’ ”

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

To our 5 new subscribers — including Cassie, Kaiti, Jordan, and Sara — 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 Quince, our latest paid reader. 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 Mindy!), 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.

#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

Read the article

Lyra and Pan, who belong to loyal reader Bex, enjoy some mutual napping time. A ball-loving healer, Lyra is learning how to be a therapy/rave dog. A Lyra-loving snaggle-tooth, Pan enjoys chasing strings and advocating for his needs. Nominate your pet to appear here: hltr.co/pets

💬 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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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 Melanie!), leave a comment, buy me a coffee, or send me an email. I’d love to hear from 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

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 ✚ 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.

Sign up for the discussion

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.

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.

#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:

• a woman whose elderly mother does not want a Black caregiver

• a young woman’s feelings on friendship and having a crush

• the rising trend of breast reduction among young women

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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Henry, who belongs to loyal reader Henry, enjoys snoozing. Want your pet to be featured here? It’s easy: hltr.co/pets

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

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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!

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 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:

• a look into how college has become transactional

• a critique of how well-intentioned efforts to accommodate students’ needs has become overwhelming

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

• a profile of three women in Georgia on all sides of the voting debate

• an analysis of the origin of voter suppression and minority rule

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.

Sign up for the discussion

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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Evalena Bluey Bingo, who belongs to loyal reader Alison, enjoys sleeping on her back, smelling flowers, visiting national parks, and bringing joy, warmth, and cuteness to all beings. Want your pet to appear here? hltr.co/pets

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!

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 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!).

Subscribe

⭐️ 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.

Sign up for the discussion

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

Read the article

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

Read the article

⭐️ 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.