Books
- CR: The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down
- In December, read a book that’s definitely made it onto my list of favorites: The Great Believers, by Rebecca Makkai
- The House on Mango Street
- I Wish You All The Best (similar to Autoboyography in its focus on a singular character coming to terms with their own identity; here, an nb kid thrown out by their parents)
- The Bride Test (rom-com with interesting commentary on immigration)
News/politics/commentary
- 6 Step Guide To Making A Difference || #IChooseToSee – YouTube; huge fan of this video, and would strongly recommend this channel, Rowan Ellis, for queer history + activism content
- Her Uighur Parents Were Model Chinese Citizens. It Didn’t Matter. – The New York Times (really excellent, human-centric coverage.)
- The impeachment of Donald Trump, explained
- ‘The wounds have never healed’: living through the terror of partition | World news | The Guardian
- Sylvia Rivera Changed Queer and Trans Activism Forever | them.
- Pervez Musharraf, Former Pakistani Leader, Sentenced to Death – The New York Times
- How to Keep America’s Blood Banks HIV-Free While Letting All Gay Men Donate | TheBodyPro
- In France, Dying at Home Can Mean a Long Wait for a Doctor – The New York Times
- Pope Francis Abolishes Secrecy Policy in Sexual Abuse Cases – The New York Times
- In a photo series for O Magazine, racial dynamics between white women and women of color are flipped — Quartz
- They Gave Me Oxy. I Didn’t Want It. Now What? – The New York Times
- The Overlooked Undocumented Immigrants: From India, China, Brazil – The New York Times
- Kobe Bryant and Complicated Legacies – Jill Filipovic
- How Life Sciences Actually Work: Findings of a Year-Long Investigation – Alexey Guzey
- Migrants aren’t streaming into cities, and what this means for urban India – analysis – Hindustan Times
- Remembering Maryam Mirzakhani, the Pioneering Mathematician Who Died at Forty | The New Yorker
- If You Don’t Know, Now You Know: Mental Health Stigma in the Black Community | The Daily Show – YouTube
- Opinion | In Defense of ‘Woke’ – The New York Times
- Opinion | H.I.V. Is Coming to Rural America – The New York Times
- The True Story Behind The Stonewall Riots | i-D – YouTube
- Overlooked – The New York Times (obituaries of womxn ignored by history)
- How To Survive 2020 | Patriot Act with Hasan Minhaj | Netflix – YouTube
- CAA-NRC
- Blood and Soil in Narendra Modi’s India | The New Yorker
- Resource List: CAA and NRC – Google Docs (contains many links to explanations)
- India Adopts the Tactic of Authoritarians: Shutting Down the Internet – The New York Times
- We Are Seeing, for the First Time, a Sustained Countrywide Movement Led by Women
Feelings?
- Still completely in love with the podcast The Anthropocene Reviewed. Auld Lang Syne was an incredible episode.
- WANG: Everything to lose
- On Growing Up – Eluding tomorrow
- Names That Are Unfamiliar to You Aren’t “Hard,” They’re “Unpracticed”| Teen Vogue
- How to Know Everything About Everything: Laura Riding’s Extraordinary 1930 Letters to an 8-Year-Old Girl About Being Oneself – Brain Pickings
- What’s Needed is Magic: Writing Advice from Haruki Murakami | Literary Hub
- Baby on the Road: Thoughts from Places – YouTube (vlogbrothers, on home)
- Trains | The Paris Review
- Salman Toor Paints Breathtaking Visions of Queer Intimacy | them. ; Home | salmantoor
- Why We’re Fated to Be Lonely (But That’s OK) -The Book of Life
- Sex Education’s Aimee Lou Wood on body dysmorphia: “I used to write ‘fat’ on my mirror” | GLAMOUR UK
- Why You Don’t Need to Be Exceptional – The School of Life
- On Loneliness – YouTube
- Can You Hear Me Now? | RibbonFarm
- Modern Love Podcast: Jake Gyllenhaal Reads ‘Nursing a Wound in an Appropriate Setting’ – The New York Times
- Poetry
- Anna Akana reads “Good Bones” – YouTube
- Andrea Gibson – Maybe I Need You | Sofar NYC – YouTube
- Heems reads “Portrait of the alcoholic three weeks sober” – YouTube
- moles don’t think about space or small talk: a poem – YouTube
- Phil Kaye // “Repetition” (Poetry Observed) – YouTube
- Neil Hilborn – “OCD” (Rustbelt 2013) – YouTube
The Jaipur Literature Festival notes
- Anarchy with William Dalrymple: On the East India Company’s origins as a private joint-stock company, and its rise to power.
- Poor Economics with Abhijit Banerjee: Quick overview of the major studies in the book. Not too insightful, but definitely so much !!! to see him live and to get my book signed!
- Journeys, A Poet’s Diaries with Guillermo Rodriguez and Krishna Ramanujan: Deep dive into the life and mind of A.K. Ramanujan, a really interesting poet we’re studying in class. Favourite sentence: “Time seems to have held its breath on a semi-colon here, and space has a vague slow curve going round us all over.”
- Poetry Durbar: A Marathi, Punjabi, Hindi, and Kashmiri poet
- Winner Takes All with Anand Giridhardas: Was quite excited to see him. He’s such a great speaker and has such a presence, but I think I will have to read the book to be sold on his ideas.
- Jaipur Journals with Shashi Tharoor and Namita Gokhale: About fiction with the backdrop of JLF. Not too hard-hitting, definitely interesting.
- AI and Creativity with Marcus du Sautoy: I proudly inform everyone that I differentiated the real Rembrandt from the AI-made Rembrandt fake and the human art from AI art correctly!
Entertainment
- John Mulaney’s specials: New in Town, Comeback Kid, The Sack Lunch Bunch
- The Politician Season 1
- Patriot Act Deep Cuts
- Rewatched Queen
