There is no recipe this week, only a quick-loading casserole of leftovers I’ve accumulated during the Thanksgiving break, all wonderful in and of themselves.
Since you may still be in a digestive stupor, enjoy The History Behind 5 Thanksgiving Traditions Americans Love, then go for it in the links below. Here you are:
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From BuzzFeed’s "Dark Times" series, here’s new short fiction by Manuel Gonzales: Blondie.
“My wife’s friend Becky sold them the house, and she’s the one who told us they were neo-Nazis.”
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Thanksgiving for Native Americans: Four Voices on a Complicated Holiday, by Julie Turkewitz, in The New York Times.
Sherman Alexie: “I guess it’s trash talking: ‘Look, you tried to kill us all, and you couldn’t.’ We’re still here, waving the turkey leg in the face of evil.”
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From drDOCTOR, Sarah Lippmann on painter Jessica Zemsky, fairy tales, and the uncomplicated beauty of devoting life to love. (At drdoctordrdoctor.com, a domain name you can’t help but love.)
Life is Good: I Recommend It, by Sara Lippmann
I do not come from artists. What I come from is a line of almosts, of not-quites. On my mother’s side, my grandmother was a would-be actor, whose dreams went unfulfilled. Self doubt, fear of failure: these traits I know well. She became a teacher instead. My great-grandfather, too, itched with creative impulses. Or so the story goes. He wrote, he drew. But one must provide a roof. He chose dentistry, and not for his love of teeth.
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Writers and writing, always, always:
From the transcript:
We don’t live in the best of all possible worlds. This is a Kafkaesque time. The television sparkles with images of despicable political louts and sexual harassment reports. We cannot look away from the pictures of furious elements, hurricanes and fires, from the repetitive crowd murders by gunmen burning with rage. We are made more anxious by flickering threats of nuclear war. We observe social media’s manipulation of a credulous population, a population dividing into bitter tribal cultures.
- How Long Is Writing Supposed to Take? by Jennifer Baker, at Electric Lit, and also, in Not a Real Writer: How Self-Doubt Holds Me Back, Lindsay Merbaum writes of how:
Over time, my self-doubt has morphed into a kind of self-pity. I’ve watched people who were next to me at the starting line cross over into Multiple-Books-Published and Award-Winning territory while I lag behind, sweating and panting. When they are nice people, I am truly happy for them. When they are not, I hate their guts.
- Cormac McCarthy Explains the Unconscious, by Nick Romeo. Okay. Why not?
- Kathy Acker’s dream maps… at Literary Hub
- The Picture in Her Mind. Paul Gleason revisits Joan Didion in Criticism.
- Read to Write Stories gives us an awesome interview with Julie Berwald, author of Spineless. (See the Burn Pile of a couple weeks back for your Œ=~~ references.)
- In podcast 005: Austin Kleon – Pencil vs Computer at www.hurryslowly.co, Jocelyn K. Glei chats “with artist and writer Austin Kleon — best known for his book Steal Like an Artist — about the benefits of using analog tools in a digital world.”
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The Cathy Ulrich Rocks section.
- These Clouds Are Not the Same Clouds; This Sky Is Not the Same Sky
- This Place Will Never Keep You
- Girls’ Night In
- All the Love Songs Are Really About Broken Hearts
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More from Electric Lit. Kelly Luce (@lucekel) tweeted:
I love all the pieces I edit for @ElectricLit equally but I must say, I love this one the equalest.
This Kelly praise is for A Deep Dive into Uranus Jokes: Exploring the 19th-century roots of a low humor staple by Albert Stern.
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The Because If You Don’t, You’ll Regret It section:
- Buddy Wakefield - The Gift of My Hate (from Howl, a spoken word event, July 13, 2016)
- PS: Convenience Stores
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For dessert, Sarah Bakes a Fake Pie, then the facts get checked. Your Post-T-Day reality from D.C.
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Skeleturkey image via I, Toony [GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html), CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/) or CC BY-SA 2.5-2.0-1.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5-2.0-1.0)], via Wikimedia Commons
Nobody likes me!