PicoBlog

In late June 2022, Norah Vincent, former Los Angeles Times and Village Voice columnist and author of the New York Times best-selling book Self-Made Man, checked into the Pegasos Clinic in Basil, Switzerland. A few days later, she quietly ended her life by Physician Assisted Suicide (PAS). She was 53. Vincent was not suffering from the last stages of a terminal illness, nor was she long-term disabled. She was a major depressive who simply wanted to die.

Dear Friends, The poet and critic Saskia Hamilton (1967-2023) was my college advisor and mentor, and my dear friend in the years beyond. I’ve shared Saskia’s work a number of times and dedicated a post to a selection of her poems last June, when she passed away. I am so grateful to Poetry Magazine for giving me the space to write on her for the March iss… ncG1vNJzZmilka6upLzOqZhnq6WXwLWtwqRlnKedZL1wvsSmnKaalae2r7OMrJiso5mWeqmtzKKjraeeYoClrw%3D%3D

Despite previous sentiments expressed in this newsletter as recently as a couple of weeks ago, the past few days have exhibited a fact that can occasionally go overlooked – it’s possible to have exciting, meaningful men’s college basketball in November. At the Maui Invitational, the semifinals were comprised of four top-10 teams, punctuated by No. 2 Purdue edging No. 4 Marquette 78-75 in a thrilling title game. Teams from some of the sport’s most distinguished brands are squaring off as I type this in the Battle 4 Atlantis in the Bahamas.

Morcilla, or blood sausage, is a Puerto Rican dish that traces back to European traditions--it is just one of many types of blood sausage. I discuss my experience with morcilla, the nature of inherited cultural legacy, and how it relates to an emotional landscape marked by blood, shame, and fragility. This history of morcilla (blood sausage) includes personal anecdotes that touch on sensitive subjects, so I'm putting a trigger warning for both squeamish animal parts and mental health struggles.

It’s the mid-1600s in Britain, and you’re hosting a house party. You want to impress your guests, so for your table’s centerpiece, you rent a pineapple. Yes, you rent a fruit. You can’t eat it (it’s a rental after all), but by displaying the fruit on your table, you exude a sense of importance and class. Today, pineapples are relatively affordable. I was in a supermarket over the weekend and could’ve bought one for $5.

I was sitting in a Creative Writing workshop with a group of people of varying ages, including a white couple in their 70s. They’d decided to return to college to get their undergraduate degrees. I hadn’t talked to them much, but I thought it was cool to see them earning college credits together. That is, until it was time to get an evaluation on a few fiction drafts. Immediately, one of them spoke up about a “colored” character in someone’s story.

This is a free story to Ignore Previous Directions. It only exists because of paid subscriber support. Subscribing gets you three-times-a-week AI news covered unlike anyone else out there, first-person and wildly entertaining, along with two years of writing that follows up to my best-selling memoir Unwifeable and the most fascinating tabloid deep dives you will ever read. Thank you for your support. There’s been a flurry of coverage around the mental-health-chatbot companion AI Replika in recent months.

In the year 536 CE, a massive volcanic eruption occurred, probably in Iceland. Vast quantities of volcanic ash were forced through the atmosphere, and the weather appears to have been just right to keep it circulating for 18 months as an aerosol-rich fog blocking sunlight. Average temperatures on the Earth of 536 then cooled by around 1.5 to 2.5 degrees Celsius (right about the range of warming we’re concerned about happening this century due to climate change!

The fifth and quite possibly the most epic of the "Resident Evil" film anthology, "Retribution" is all flash and little substance. Yet, that's pretty much what this entire film series is hinged upon so I suppose it gets the job done. "Retribution" picks up right where "Afterlife" left off, there's even a little bit of overlap and backstory thrown into the intro for those who aren't all caught up yet. In this fifth installment, Alice (Milla Jovovich) finds herself captured by the Umbrella Corp.