I had started writing a post for this newsletter and was hoping to have it finished and sent out by the first weekend of October, but life has been persistent about getting in the way. So I’ll skip the post and get straight to the links.
PS: I wrote pt. 1 because this will almost certainly be an ongoing series, but I’ll try to mitigate the frequency and duration of lateness as much as possible.
See you in a couple weeks!
Best reads from September
Journalists aren’t the enemy of the people. But we’re not your friends by Ben Smith in The New York Times
The ideal interviewer, on the other hand, makes you spit out your coffee. That’s what Jonathan Swan, an Australian political reporter for Axios, did when he challenged Mr. Trump with no special deference or formality in a half-hour interview on HBO on Aug. 3, perhaps the best interview of Mr. Trump’s term. You may not want Mr. Swan in your kitchen in the morning, making dyspeptic faces at you. You do want him doing those interviews.
Scapegoats And Fall Guys For A Leader Who Cannot Lead by Lee Cataluna in Honolulu Civil Beat
The talk in D.C. is of the “deep state.” Hawaii has the shallow state, a stagnant, mossy little pool where no one is challenged, not much is expected and appointed administrators are simply waited out.
Wildfires and the Dark Side of the California Dream by Jeff Weiss in Los Angeles Magazine
The fatal flaw of the California dream has always been that fantasy is frequently mistaken for reality. It’s a natural consequence of allowing generations of grifters to market the state as the new Eden, but with oranges instead of apples. And yet even California’s dark side has allure: cataclysmic earthquakes adapted by Universal Studios, femme fatale housewives, bestial cults affiliated with lesser Beach Boys. Most of all, there has always loomed the cleansing promise and obliterating threat of fire.
September’ Books
Beautiful Country Burn Again: Democracy, Rebellion, and Revolution by Ben Fountain
Just a brilliant, piercing piece of political history in America, and the most sensible explanation of what happened in the 2016 presidential election.
It won’t be the Communists who finally bring down capitalism. Nor will it be the socialists, the anarchists, the environmental movement, indigenous-rights advocates, labor unions, minorities, immigrants, hippies, heavy metal, or welfare cheats. The capitalists themselves will do it, by going too far.
Autobiography of Death by Kim Hyesoon
I often feel as if I don’t “get” how to read poetry, but I still find myself benefitting from (and enjoying!) it when I do. This was a book of 49 poems — “a poem for each day that the spirit roams after death before it enters the cycle of reincarnation.” And as the title suggests, it’s about death, specifically recalling images of Korea’s bloody path to democracy and the tragic sinking of the Sewol ferry.
“Asphyxiation” Day 46
Hence breath
Then breath
Next breath
Subsequent breath
Because breath
Such breath
And breath
Same breath
Thereafter breath
Thus breath
Always breath
Eventually breath
Perpetually breath
Yet breath
However breath
Therefore breath
In spite of breath
Breath till the bitter endDeath breathes and you dream but
it’s time to remove the ventilator from death
it’s time to shatter the dream with a hammer
Reading Now
Shark Drunk: the art of catching a large shark from a tiny rubber dinghy in a big ocean by Morten Strøksnes
More quotes and thoughts will come next month once I finish it, but this is one of the most memorable openings of a book I’ve read in a long time.
Three and a half billion years. That’s the time it took from the moment the first primitive lifeforms developed in the sea until Hugo Aasjord phoned me one Saturday night in July.
In the Seat of a Stranger’s Car by Beau Flemister
A story of an aimless, underachieving valet in Waikiki whose life gets thrown into chaos when he finds an abandoned child trapped in the trunk of a car. It’s like if the movie Waiting was about valets, but it also captures a lot of the scenery and color of Hawaii, with some moving writing sprinkled throughout.
You know what most people commonly start a conversation with us [valets] about? What the average tourist or guest comes to us for and thinks is an appropriate exchange for our job title? Dining suggestions? Nope. Road directions? Nope. Cultural happenings? Yeah right. It’s the same every time. They kinda sidle up next to you, barely look you in the eye, glance both ways to see if anyone else can hear them and ask, “Hey, you guys know where I can score some weed, right?” Which comes out more as a statement of fact than an actual question.
What I’m Writing
For Civil Beat, I tried to put Hawaii’s lockdowns into perspective, and made the case for teacher’s spending less of their time doing paperwork and more of their time actually teaching.
For Sherdog, I wrote about the role of longevity when it comes to assessing greatness, the gray area between cheating and tactical savvy, and how the UFC is a safe space for racists — don’t read the comments on that last one.