PicoBlog

We’re back with another edition of On the Other Side! This week, we interviewed a long-time fave of the newsletter, Katie Strang!  Katie is the Senior Enterprise and Investigative Reporter for the Athletic (and also winner of the 2022 THWL Journalist of the Year Award). Since her breakthrough coverage of the Larry Nassar case in 2017, Katie has covered stories highlighting abuse, violence, and exploitation across professional and amateur sports. 

“[Von Trier’s] dislike of the United States (which he has never visited, since he is afraid of airplanes) is so palpable that it flies beyond criticism into the realm of derangement.” — Roger Ebert on Dogville “Von Trier's Dogville caused a great stir at last year’s Cannes Film Festival with charges that the Depression-era fable, set in a rural town in the Colorado Rockies, was anti-American. It is. But anti-Americanism is a small matter when a movie is anti-human.

Matthew Fray, author of This is How Your Marriage Ends, featured in The New York Times, Wall Street Journal and The Atlantic, and on The Tamron Hall Show and NPR, continues his exploration of love and relationships, with the occasional bourbon assist. No thanksncG1vNJzZmilkanBqbHWn6masV6owqO%2F05qapGaTpLpw

your weekly sanctuary for nourishing recipes, mindful reflections, and the latest cool finds and favorites I'm loving lately, crafted for those seeking a moment of calm and inspiration amidst the chaos of everyday life By Olivia Noceda · Over 17,000 subscribersNo thanksncG1vNJzZminnJ7Dqq3NqJqenJFjwLau0q2YnKNemLyuew%3D%3D

Last Sunday, the story of the Syrophoenician woman came up in the Revised Common Lectionary, in the version from Matthew 15. Here’s the story if you’re unfamiliar with it: Jesus left that place and went away to the district of Tyre and Sidon. Just then a Canaanite woman from that region came out and started shouting, "Have mercy on me, Lord, Son of David; my daughter is tormented by a demon.

As the US has moved millions of workers back to in-person workplaces in the past year, I can’t help but think about the toxicity of workspaces. From everyday racist microaggressions to open sexual harassment, the pandemic remote workspace has been a respite from the mental wear-and-tear of experiencing in-person marginalization. But for Black workers like me, it’s not just those who operate in white-male-ways on the job who will fill so many with dread as some remote work gradually phased out in 2022.

PACK JOURNALISM DEP'T.Tom Scocca, for Indignity: Greetings, Max Read of the Read Max newsletter! Because you are an expert appreciator of popular cinema, bizarre culture, and the lunette where those two things meet on the Venn diagram, I immediately let you know when I realized that the 2001 movie Le Pacte des Loups, aka Brotherhood of the Wolf, was viewable on streaming services—including on Kanopy, for free.  The last time I'd tried to watch the movie, I'd been dismayed to discover it was unavailable.

We’re honored to share this interview with Sinee Teo, a Singaporean missionary who has worked in Taipei’s red light district for fourteen years.  As a staff member at Pearl Family Garden, Sinee works with mostly elderly women who are former or current sex workers or employees at “teahouses.” We first heard about her through her friend and roommate, Cindy. We met both at the Episcopal Church. Michelle was lucky enough to visit the Pearl, where she was struck by the warmth, ease, and sense of community.

I HAVE just returned from the excellent We Have Ways Fest hosted by James Holland and Al Murray, where I met not only some of my excellent Substack subscribers, but also saw many old friends and new. My most onerous task over the weekend was to help judge the Horrendous Hawaiian Shirt Competition, which was won by Paul Hicks for this truly horrific effort featuring a stetson- and cravat-wearing cat riding a shark vomiting a rainbow.