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backstorywithdanalewis · 4 years

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Bidens foreign policy and Trump and the election full podcast interview here: https://www.buzzsprout.com/1016881/6340693

Joe Biden : (00:00) Everything is going on here about Russia is wanting to make sure that I do not get elected the next president on his face because they know, I know them and they know me. I don't understand why this president is unwilling to take on Putin when he's actually paying bounties to kill American soldiers in Afghanistan. When he's engaged in activities that are trying to destabilize all of NATO. I don't know why he doesn't do it, but it's worth asking the question. Why isn't that being done? Any country interferes with us will in fact pay a price because they're affecting our Dana Lewis - Host: (00:41) Hi everyone. And welcome to this backstory on American foreign policy. I'm Dana Lewis, president elect Joe Biden has made it clear. He will be tougher on Russia. He will reassign the Paris Accords to reduce global warming. He is a steadfast supporter of the military Alliance NATO, but on so many different issues, there are big gaps in understanding his foreign policy on Afghanistan, Syria, Taiwan, Iran, and China and Turkey, Israel, and the Palestinian conflict. President Trump largely withdrew America from the world stage as a leader, failing to promote democracy and freedom. He retreated in the face of dictators, maybe because he wanted to become one himself. Now we see him undermining American democracy by not conceding the election. So in this backstory, there are a few people with better insight on international affairs than Mike McFaul. A professor at Stanford, a former diplomat, a former key advisor to president Obama and someone who will likely advise the new administration and maybe be part of it. Mike told me at the end of our interview, wow, we really covered a lot of the world. Have a listen. I think we did too. Dana Lewis - Host: (02:04) All right. Mike McFaul is a professor of political science and international relations at Stanford. He's a foreign policy expert. He was the former us ambassador to Moscow and he was also a key advisor to president Obama. Hi Mike, and thanks for doing the interview. Yeah, thanks for having me. Wow. What is going on in America? I want to talk to you about foreign policy, but I mean, the us sets the agenda for so many countries around the world and we're, we're watching the U S election. Um, and it is jaw dropping. I mean, Trump won't work with Biden on transition. They won't recognize the election results. You know, if I was reporting from another country and I've been doing this for 40 years, I'd be saying that this is an attempted coup what do you call it? Well, I don't think I would use the phrase attempted cool co yet. Uh, I'm deeply disturbed by what president Trump and his, Mike McFaul/Stanford Uni.: (03:00) Uh, various army of people are doing. Uh, and not because I think they're going to overturn the elections. I actually have a confidence in our democratic institutions. We're a federal system. We're not a unitary system. So his ability to overturn, to use the department of justice to use the courts. I think I don't see any scenario under which he maintains power, but the process of doing so I believe undermines the legitimacy of the election. Uh, and first and foremost, that's in the eyes of millions of Trump voters, who at the end of this process will think that this election was falsified and will have a different, will not appreciate and, and support the idea that we have one president that it's, you know, that we have a legitimately elected president. And second, it helps our autocratic, uh, enemies around the world. I mean, we looked like a joke. Mike McFaul/Stanford Uni.: (03:52) I, you know, I follow the Russian press pretty closely. I see all the ridicule there and it, it undermines the idea of the United States as a model of democracy. Now, we haven't been doing very well for many, many years. Don't get me wrong. We have not been inspiring many small D Democrats around the world for a while, but I think there was a hope and a sense of relief that this election would lead to democratic renewal in the United States, by the way, I believe it. Well, I worked with vice president Biden for many years, and I believe that is coming, but this long drawn out process of transition is undermining that. And I, I, I wish people would think about the national security implications of the silly games that they're playing right now. What are the national security implications? We're strict, anything Putin we're strengthening. Mike McFaul/Stanford Uni.: (04:42) She we're undermining, signing the idea that democracies are better than our talk proceeds. Uh, for me, you know, I believe there there's going to be a long terms, struggle between the ideas of democracy and autocracy, liberalism, and illiberalism, uh, for decades to come. Uh, and this just, uh, you know, I think hurts the ability of, of presidents elect Biden to get off to a fresh start. Now, I, you know, I, I'm still optimistic that he will be better for this, uh, international ideological struggle than president Trump, president Trump didn't care about democracy, uh, much at home and most certainly not abroad. Uh, he also didn't engage in the world that much. He was, you know, I call it the Trump withdrawal doctrine. He, he pulled back. He's the most isolationist president we've had since world war two, uh, Biden will change both those things. Biden does care about democracy and universal values and human rights. I've seen it up close and personal. When I used to travel with them, uh, in the early years of the Obama administration and number two Biden believes in engagement, and he believes that we're better served the United States by being at the table then from disengaging from the table. But they're getting off to a slower start with more damage because of this long-term prolonged transition. Dana Lewis - Host: (06:02) I know like, you know, Adam Schiff said today that imagine this happening in another country, we would condemn it, retired general McCaffrey, who, you know, from my years at NBC, I have a lot of respect for him referring to Mike Pompeo's statement yesterday said, there'll be a peaceful transition of power to a second term for, for, uh, president Trump. And McCaffrey said, that's a chilling and dangerous statement by a lawless regime. I mean, that's very strong statements to here in America about America. Mike McFaul/Stanford Uni.: (06:37) Yes. I mean, I was disappointed with secretary Pompeo's comment. Um, uh, not the first time I've been disappointed by his comments, by the way. I do not think he's been a very successful secretary of state has very few achievements after many years in the job. Uh, but I also want to underscore, I am not worried about a coup I am not worried about lawlessness because every time secretary Palm PEO says something, or Senator Cruz, or even attorney general BARR, you, you read the headline, which is yes, the president has the right to look into, uh, you know, possible, uh, false falsification. But then you read the second line and it's clear that they have no passion for this because, you know, attorney general Barr's letter, for instance says only, uh, um, um, uh, investigations that will matter will be ones that might overturn an election in an individual state that is simply not going to happen. Mike McFaul/Stanford Uni.: (07:39) There is no credible evidence whatsoever that we are anywhere near that happening in any one of these battleground States. And I just want to remind everybody, you know, in 2000, uh, Gore, uh, versus, uh, Bush that went into December, the difference in votes was 537 in Pennsylvania. It's over 45,000 right now, and still counting, uh, that's 90 times more than what happened 20 years ago. And I just don't see any possible Avenue that will be overturned. And the, the lack of vigor, the lack of passion, that people that say these things that to me says a lot. They, I think they know this is true, and they're just, they're just humoring the president. I think that's really unfortunate, but I don't think it's going to lead to a reversal of this election Dana Lewis - Host: (08:32) Set me straight. And, and that is because I go from sheer panic to some of the things I read to kind of humorous. I mean, I, I look at what Pompeo said yesterday, and even he said it with a grim, right. But then you have to take it seriously. And how do you kind of keep yourself sober in these days, leading up to this and through this, what's going to be a turbulent transition. I mean, you, you just keep telling yourself in reality, it's not there. The election was free and fair and we'll come out the other side. Mike McFaul/Stanford Uni.: (09:08) Well, you know, I've studied, uh, breakthroughs of democracy and breakdowns of democracy for most of my academic life. Uh, I, I know that the world of cases I've studied them, all, some, some of them I've lived through. Um, and, and when I compare democratic breakdowns and other places versus where we're at today in the United States, that makes me optimistic. I see resilience with our institutions. I do not see them faltering. I see a president with autocratic proclivities, but he's, he's in America. He's not in Belarus. There's a big difference. Um, and, and remember, we're a highly decentralized, uh, democracy. We're a federal system. The courts are decentralized, you know, attorney general bark and write his letter, but then, then prosecutors have to go out and, and, uh, you know, execute that, you know, the department of justice is not behind that. I have lots of friends who work there. I experienced this myself just so you know, back in 2018, uh, when president Trump thought it'd be a great idea to hand me over to Vladimir Putin, to be interrogated by him because Putin accused me falsely. I want to say a underscore of committing crimes against the Russian government. Dana Lewis - Host: (10:25) Didn't Trump actually entertain the idea at a news conference after his meeting with Putin of, well, maybe we should hand Mike McFaul off Mike McFaul/Stanford Uni.: (10:34) That's right. It was in Helsinki. I was there, yeah. Watching it in real time. Um, and so, you know, initially I thought this was just a joke, you know, not unlike, uh, listening to secretary Pompeo, then the white house doubled down on the threat at a press conference from the white house a few days later. Uh, and that's when I, I got a lawyer. Um, and that's when I did the rounds to, in, to the department of justice, secretary of state, even the white house, I went and met with Fiona Hill, the top Russia advisor at the time. And that's when it was apparent to me that no matter what the president wanted to do, we have a constitution, I have constitutional rights. Uh, he can't do that. Um, and it was very clear to me talking to mid-level officials in all of those places, but there was no, there was no support within the U S government to do this outrageous thing. Mike McFaul/Stanford Uni.: (11:27) And I think that's an important thing to remember here. Yes, attorney general BARR wrote a very carefully worded statement that, you know, prosecutors should look into irregularities, but then he added a lot of clause saying only if there's really, really a major substantial evidence, which there's not. And then remember, you know, somebody's got to do those investigations, uh, Donald Trump and his, his kids can't do them all. Um, and when people go to do that, you know, it's just gonna, it's going to end with eventually the election, uh, being, uh, sustained. But having said all that, I do want to underscore that the perception that we are a broken democracy, the perception that we are breaking American traditions by the president, not conceding, that's bad for our image, uh, as a democracy bulkier domestically for Trump supporters and internationally, Dana Lewis - Host: (12:28) I mean, Belarus, I want to ask you about Russia as well, but you know, those scenes are so disturbing. I look at them every weekend, these large marches, people being hauled off Mike by the thousands, tens of thousands. Now every weekend, there's a thousand people arrested. We see the videos of people getting beaten in police custody. You know, there's all sorts of tales of torture. The scenes are really disturbing. How will a president Biden handle Luca Shenko in Belarus? And just building off the point that you just made. I mean, it's, it makes it harder right now, doesn't it for America to preach democracy, to Luca Shanko, who, who clearly did steal that election? Mike McFaul/Stanford Uni.: (13:07) Yes, it does make it harder. Um, and most certainly as we have declined as a democracy by the ratings of many different, uh, non-governmental organizations, including freedom house, by the way, an American one, it does make it harder for diplomats and government officials, uh, to talk about doing the right thing when we're not always doing the right thing. I even experienced that as the U S ambassador to Russia years ago. That w what about ism game that I had to play with Russian government officials? Um, I, I do think it'll be different under president Biden and his administration. Um, because number one, he cares about these issues. Trump has never cared. Trump has never made a statement to the best of my knowledge about Belarus, not one single word. Uh, that's already changed, uh, candidate. Biden's already said a lot about Bellaruse. Um, and, uh, you know, I predict, I know most of his, uh, advisors, well, these are people I worked with in the government. Mike McFaul/Stanford Uni.: (14:06) They also care. So you're going to see at, at a minimum, at least one more diplomatic engagement on issues like Bella on countries like Belarus. And I would add Armenia and Azerbaijan and Kyrgyzstan and Moldova and Ukraine. Uh, the team that's coming with president Biden knows all of these places, uh, by the way. So does president Biden, there's their problem? I don't think there's a, been a new president with the record of foreign policy experience that, that president, uh, elect Biden has remember, uh, not only was he vice president for eight years and had, uh, was the point person for many foreign policy issues in our administration, including by the way, and Georgia, I traveled to Ukraine and Georgia and Moldova with the vice-president because in the Obama administration, he was the point person for those countries. Obama was a point person for Russia, but he also, well before then he, you know, for decades, he was on the Senate foreign relations committee. So, so this is somebody who comes in with a deep, deep experience. Dana Lewis - Host: (15:14) How will that experience, uh, lend itself towards handling president food? And I mean, it's a very weird and suspicious relationship between Putin and Trump. I mean, Trump, you say he hasn't spoken out on Belarus, he didn't speak out on the boundaries poisoning. Uh, w you know, when all of Europe did, this was the main opposition leader who was poisoned by all indications are by somebody, you know, probably with the nod from the Kremlin, but probably somebody from the FSB or the GRU, but it looks like FSP. Mike McFaul/Stanford Uni.: (15:46) Yeah. Trump didn't say anything, a candidate Biden did, by the way, he put out a statement about the poisoning. Um, and I, I, I'm confident in predicting that the, the Biden administration will take these kinds of issues more seriously. Now, it doesn't mean they're going to be able to solve them. I think it's important to understand that when it comes to issues of democracy and human rights and rule of law in powerful, autocracies like Russia and China, uh, the United States does not have a lot of leverage, but at a minimum, uh, they just have to speak truth to power. They have to say the right things, they have to speak out on behalf of universal values. Um, uh, and I think that is right by the way, uh, mr. [inaudible], uh, has already congratulated vice president, uh, elect a president, elect Biden, uh, unlike, uh, president Trump. Mike McFaul/Stanford Uni.: (16:40) Uh, so I think you'll, you'll see much more engagement. We used to call it dual track diplomacy, uh, engage with the government on issues of national interest. And I predict that, you know, president Biden will do that with president Putin, uh, but he also engaged directly with, uh, Russian society. Uh, the last trip I took with vice president Biden to Moscow, uh, was in 2011. Uh, we met with then prime minister Putin. We had a pretty tough meeting, but it was an engaged meeting. Uh, and literally an hour later, we were over at [inaudible] house at the ambassador's residence, uh, meeting with, uh, the human rights and opposition figures. Um, you know, because that's, that's was the way that vice vice president Biden wanted to conduct diplomacy while traveling to Russia. Dana Lewis - Host: (17:26) Let me spend through a couple of things, because I know we don't have a lot of time, but start, this is the 3d for verification, a nuclear arms control, and a set to expire. Uh, what, what, what does president Biden, what will a president Biden do? Mike McFaul/Stanford Uni.: (17:40) Well, he'll extend it for sure. Uh, I, I hope I'm cautiously hopeful that as one of his last things, cause he hasn't done many cooperative things with Putin and Trump might extend it because there'll be a lot easier. Uh, then there'll be less criticism of it if a Republican does it. If, if president Biden has to do it, you'll hear all sorts of ranker from Republican senators, but this is a no brainer. I, you know, I worked on the start treaty as part of the negotiation team. Um, you know, this is not a gift to Russia. This is a gift to the United States of America. I used to always say, Ronald Reagan used to say trust, but verify when doing arms control, uh, with the Soviet union, when I was in the government, I would say don't trust only verify. Um, and what the new start treaty does first and foremost is provide an expections regime for us to have greater fidelity about knowing what the Russians are doing with their nuclear arsenal. So I think you'll do this in a heartbeat, provided that the Russians don't try to, to, to, to prolong it by trying to squeeze in some constraints on missile defense or something like that. Dana Lewis - Host: (18:47) Turkey, are you worried about Turkey is a NATO country. It's about S four hundreds from Russia. Um, it's, it's not really been seen to be a great natal player with Greece in the Mediterranean, uh, president air to want to just whipped up Muslims, uh, sentiments against France and, and, and, uh, I mean, against president Macron in France, are you worried that Turkey is a growing problem? Do you think the president Biden will have to deal with that and what would be his position? Because I know he was very much in favor of staying in Syria, I think, and working with the Kurds who were our American allies at the time. Mike McFaul/Stanford Uni.: (19:20) Dan, I actually think you've just raised the sleeper question that not much of Washington is talking about, but I actually think it will be one of the biggest challenges for the Biden administration and early on, uh, we've had a very complicated relationship with Turkey for decades in the NATO Alliance. Uh, there were periods of early optimism in the early years of the air Taiwan's election and the notion that you could have a, you know, democracy there and a Muslim majority country that has not turned out well. And now you see his independent foreign policy at odds with the United States, you know, on the list that you just mentioned, but I would also add Nagorno-Karabakh, uh, where, uh, you know, he is now been cooperating with Putin in ways that I don't think are in the interests of the United States. And most certainly are not in the interest of Armenia. Um, and we, you know, I don't have a silver bullet for how to deal with that problem, but it is a really complicated issue. Again, the good news is I know some of the people around, uh, the president elect Biden, who've worked on Turkey for many, many years. Uh, Tony Blinken is somebody that comes to mind that knows Turkey well, uh, but how to manage that and how, you know, this is a crisis waiting to blow up. Uh, I hope they get ahead of it right away. Right. Dana Lewis - Host: (20:43) I have your whole report card that I've read through and, you know, it was great to read it North Korea. You really feel that, uh, Trump's approach failed miserably. And where do we go from there? Syria, the Iranian nuclear deal, the Israeli Palestinian conflict, China, you take your pick . I mean, what do you think if you think Turkey is, is one of the headlines in foreign policy? What do you think the next big is? Mike McFaul/Stanford Uni.: (21:09) Well, uh, Turkey is the sleeper problem that I don't think gets enough attention that could be catastrophic, right. Um, in the category of, of must do very early. Um, I do think first and foremost, we have to restore, uh, the NATO Alliance and trust with our partners, uh, democratic partners. I think that'll be the, the, you know, there's going to be an easy sugar high right in the beginning, once Biden is there because everybody knows Biden. And, you know, if he walks into any meeting in Europe, you know, in a Brussels meeting, he'll get a standing ovation. Uh, they love him there. Uh, the harder part will be, you know, what are we going to do cooperatively to contain Russia and to deal with China. And then that will get a lot harder. But I think you have to start with reuniting with our allies democracies in Europe. First second, doing the same in Asia. You know, our allies in Asia have been really struggling to figure out how to deal with the Trump administration. They need to be shored up. They need to be reassured. Um, and then, yeah, Dana Lewis - Host: (22:15) Well, president Biden will president Biden be just as supportive of Taiwan as the Republicans. Where do you think? Mike McFaul/Stanford Uni.: (22:22) I hope so. I B I, you know, my own view on Taiwan is, uh, peace through strength. Uh, this is, this is Berlin 1948, right? This is where, uh, if we do not show a credible commitment, it could lead to even worse outcomes. Um, again, I'm not speaking for the Biden administration, that's just my personal view. Um, and I think that's good for China too, by the way, I do not think it's in China's, long-term interests to, to, to stumble into a, a war in Taiwan, you know, that could be there, Afghanistan for the Soviet union, the China, China today reminds me a lot of, of the Soviet union in the seventies. You know, feeling very bold and ambitious and aggressive foreign policy. Uh, and yet I believe there's a lot of drama ahead, uh, for China domestically. Um, and as we know from the Soviet experience, they all like to focus on the mistakes that Gorbachev made. Mike McFaul/Stanford Uni.: (23:19) I go to China very frequently these days. Uh, I think they need to focus on the mistakes that Brezhnev made when he stopped focusing on domestic structural issues at home and had this belligerent foreign policy abroad. That was a recipe for disaster for them. Uh, and I hope we can help them to prevent that, uh, with respect to Taiwan, but you raised what I was just gonna say, getting the China bilateral relationship, uh, in a firmer, more stable footing with w which will be elements of containment and engagement, I think is, you know, that's the paramount foreign policy issue for presidents, you know, for the rest of the century, but it's also needs to be at the top of the list, uh, for Biden in his inbox. And then there's one longer structural one that I think is not only important for the planet, but it's also important for his voters. And, you know, in my Washington post piece, giving grades, it was at the top of the list and that's climate change, um, you know, Dana Lewis - Host: (24:22) Press you on that right away, because we all know that he's going to go back and sign the Paris Accords. And he has a big spending plan on green energy in America and getting it down to, is it going to go down to zero emissions? What's the goal? Mike McFaul/Stanford Uni.: (24:36) Well, uh, I don't know. I mean, he'll join Paris, uh, right away. That'll be easy. Uh, but you know, there are many people in this country, including millions of voted for him, including me, uh, that think Paris is not enough. Uh, and it is, uh, you know, we are in a very desperate moment right now and whether or not he has the, uh, the political, uh, capacity to do the more bowl, uh, bolder things. I'm not sure to be honest, I think that that's a heavy lift, uh, but, but what, whatever is within his executive purview to do more, uh, he really needs to do that. Not only for the planet, but for his own constituents here in the United States. Mike, Dana Lewis - Host: (25:20) What's your role going to be in the new administration? Mike McFaul/Stanford Uni.: (25:25) Uh, probably, uh, you know, uh, giving advice to my friends from Stanford university, um, uh, in all seriousness, you know, I loved working in the government. Uh, I loved working with the Biden team, uh, lots of friends of mine. I'm sure we'll have a new jobs in the administration, uh, for myself, uh, just to be really blunt. There are very few jobs available at the top, uh, that would it be of interest to me and hundreds of really qualified people vying for this position. So I think it's, it's unlikely that I'll go into the government. Um, uh, but I look forward to helping that new government, any ways I can and if the opportunity arises, uh, I'll, I'll take it Dana Lewis - Host: (26:07) Well. They need good people like you, Mike, thank you so much for your time. Uh, Mike McFaul from Stanford. It's an honor to talk to you. Mike McFaul/Stanford Uni.: (26:13) Thank you. Thanks for having me. That was great. Speaker 2: (26:21) That's our backstory on Biden's foreign policy. So much more to talk about Biden. Isn't new to international affairs like Trump was, he traveled the world as a vice-president European allies are already breathing a sigh of relief that a more liberal pro democracy reasoned and balanced leader will be in the white house. America is coming back as a world leader and a trusted ally with a doctrine of truth in fundamental democratic principles. Not always, but often by many accounts. Trump wasn't big on any of that. I'm Dana Lewis, please subscribe to backstory. Thanks for listening. And I'll talk to you against again, Speaker 5: (27:02) [inaudible].

#backstory @mcfaul @mikemcfaul @stanford biden taiwan turkey china russia @danalewis @danaslewis

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theinkcast · 7 years

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An Open Letter to OSIRG 2017

Hola amigos (it seems like Spanish has become our default language)!

A few nights ago, I was rambling away to Dana about my latest outrage on the human rights situation in Palestine. When I finally paused for breath, she quietly said “why aren’t you saying any of this in our group whatsapp chat? I am Palestinian so I know this, but they don't”. The thing is, I don’t know how to explain a situation that is so removed from the life most of us know (or at least the life I knew).

Instead, I post my highlight reels of mosaic ruins, shisha bars, and the Mediterranean coastline on Instagram because how can I describe to you the frustration of getting off a bus to stand in line at yet another “security checkpoint” only to re-board the same bus hours later? Would you understand if I told you about the uneasiness that accompanies every passing of checkpoint gates which resemble a cross between a prison and a slaughterhouse… and the shame of feeling relieved to have reached the other side? Or what it’s like to be treated like a criminal simply for travelling home from work and never knowing when you will be pulled out of line to be questioned by soldiers with fingers pressed tightly over the triggers of their guns? For that matter, what right do I have as a non-Palestinian to voice my resentments? When my friends back home ask me what Palestine is like, the best I can come up with is “indescribable” but of course it’s not indescribable. Dana has helped me see that I have a responsibility to put into words what I’ve learned here.

I won’t go into the politics, laws, or historical debate behind the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, but I can share a little of the “facts on the ground” as I’ve seen them. I think that these examples of injustice, mistreatment, and violence also underlie each of your work, if in a different context.

The prevailing narrative in the West is that Israel is a vulnerable state and has been forced to impose severe security measures because it is surrounded by hostile Arab states. We hear about Hamas launching rocket attacks into Israel and read news stories of Palestinians stabbing Israeli soldiers. In time, even if we don’t agree with Israel’s policies, we unconsciously begin to sympathize with the Israeli government’s motivations. The moment you step into Palestine though, you realize that the power dynamics are in fact very much reversed. Like the annexation wall, Israel’s military control of Palestine and its oppression of the Palestinian people are inescapable at every turn. A population under occupation cannot live in dignity because it is always subject to discrimination and an undercurrent of fear. Generations of Palestinians have been dispossessed of their homes, denied opportunities to study, work, move, or practice their religion freely, killed extra-judicially and callously, and intentionally deprived of basic necessities such as access to medical care, electricity and water. The Palestinian government itself is also riddled with corruption and responsible for serious human rights perversions. For Palestinians, human rights exist like clouds in the sky - you can see them but you can never seem to reach them.

In the short time I’ve been here, I’ve learned to tell the difference between the sound of gunfire and fireworks. I’ve read judgments in which the Israeli courts perform the most fantastic legal acrobatics to justify forcibly removing Palestinians from their lands. I’ve breathed in the toxic fumes and witnessed the seepage from an Israeli chemical plant which has devastated a Palestinian town and made its people sick. I’ve come to understand the magnetism of religious martyrdom, as both a means to escape an intolerable reality and demand for a justice sought but never known. I’ve heard my colleagues explain again and again to villagers who have experienced settler violence that the only thing we can do is get their stories out to the international community, because in a country under occupation, there is no realistic avenue of legal recourse. I’ve seen that six-year-olds can be torn from their parents and detained without charges, children can die from falling off tractors because neighboring settlement hospitals won’t open their doors to Palestinians, and a half million-dollar humanitarian aid project can be demolished in just one day on the pretext that it was erected without a building permit. I’ve long since stopped asking “but why?” because occupation, colonization, and apartheid don't give reasons.

Out of everything I’ve come across however, the most striking is the resilience and generosity of the people who have been the most harmed in this conflict. Their spirit and gratitude for what remains is a powerful statement that however desperate a situation seems, as long as there is hope, tomorrow can be better.

I participated in OSIRG because I was curious about the world. I wanted to understand whether there was a collective psychology to humankind that might explain the wars, exploitation, and human rights abuse that have always been a part of our history. I see now that the question is more complex and maybe the answer doesn’t lie in the human condition. In fact, it is dangerous to categorize any person or situation from such a definitive standpoint lest we forget that those on the other side are also human beings, and in so doing, lose our own humanity and compassion. While solutions must end with accountability, they begin with understanding… so I try to remember Aya’s infamous line: maybe “conservatives just need a hug” sometimes.

We are all in different places and championing different causes. Some of us are working on issues close to our hearts and others are working in new fields. Yet, in spite of the diversity of our experiences, I feel more connected to you now than ever before. I share deeply your indignation towards inequality and unfairness and your determination to break these shackles of abuse. At the end of the day, I don’t imagine that 20 years of cruelty and ridicule faced by a transgender woman is any more or less traumatic than a little boy who is slowly starving because his government is pursuing a war in the name of religious rhetoric or a young father who has been mistakenly shot because of institutionalized racial profiling.

Like Marko said “Although we were all strangers in that rooftop terrace more than a month ago, today, we are together. I hope that we keep this bond strong.”

#palestine #occupied palestinian territories #west bank #open society foundations #osirg #human rights #international humanitarian law #armed conflict #resistance is existence #nakba #open society internship for rights and governance #central european university #budapest #falastin #annexation wall

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thesnhuup · 6 years

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Pop Picks – December 4, 2018

December 4, 2018

What I’m listening to:

Spending a week in New Zealand, we had endless laughs listening to the Kiwi band, Flight of the Conchords. Lots of comedic bands are funny, but the music is only okay or worse. These guys are funny – hysterical really – and the music is great. They have an uncanny ability to parody almost any style. In both New Zealand and Australia, we found a wry sense of humor that was just delightful and no better captured than with this duo. You don’t have to be in New Zealand to enjoy them.

What I’m reading:

I don’t often reread. For two reasons: A) I have so many books on my “still to be read” pile that it seems daunting to also reread books I loved before, and B) it’s because I loved them once that I’m a little afraid to read them again. That said, I was recently asked to list my favorite book of all time and I answered Leo Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina. But I don’t really know if that’s still true (and it’s an impossible question anyway – favorite book? On what day? In what mood?), so I’m rereading it and it feels like being with an old friend. It has one of my very favorite scenes ever: the card game between Levin and Kitty that leads to the proposal and his joyous walking the streets all night.

What I’m watching:

Blindspotting is billed as a buddy-comedy. Wow does that undersell it and the drama is often gripping. I loved Daveed Diggs in Hamilton, didn’t like his character in Black-ish, and think he is transcendent in this film he co-wrote with Rafael Casal, his co-star. The film is a love song to Oakland in many ways, but also a gut-wrenching indictment of police brutality, systemic racism and bias, and gentrification. The film has the freshness and raw visceral impact of Spike Lee’s Do the Right Thing. A great soundtrack, genre mixing, and energy make it one of my favorite movies of 2018.

Archive

October 15, 2018

What I’m listening to:

We had the opportunity to see our favorite band, The National, live in Dallas two weeks ago. Just after watching Mistaken for Strangers, the documentary sort of about the band. So we’ve spent a lot of time going back into their earlier work, listening to songs we don’t know well, and reaffirming that their musicality, smarts, and sound are both original and astoundingly good. They did not disappoint in concert and it is a good thing their tour ended, as we might just spend all of our time and money following them around. Matt Berninger is a genius and his lead vocals kill me (and because they are in my range, I can actually sing along!). Their arrangements are profoundly good and go right to whatever brain/heart wiring that pulls one in and doesn’t let them go.

What I’m reading:

Who is Richard Powers and why have I only discovered him now, with his 12th book? Overstory is profoundly good, a book that is essential and powerful and makes me look at my everyday world in new ways. In short, a dizzying example of how powerful can be narrative in the hands of a master storyteller. I hesitate to say it’s the best environmental novel I’ve ever read (it is), because that would put this book in a category. It is surely about the natural world, but it is as much about we humans. It’s monumental and elegiac and wondrous at all once. Cancel your day’s schedule and read it now. Then plant a tree. A lot of them.

What I’m watching:

Bo Burnham wrote and directed Eighth Grade and Elsie Fisher is nothing less than amazing as its star (what’s with these new child actors; see Florida Project). It’s funny and painful and touching. It’s also the single best film treatment that I have seen of what it means to grow up in a social media shaped world. It’s a reminder that growing up is hard. Maybe harder now in a world of relentless, layered digital pressure to curate perfect lives that are far removed from the natural messy worlds and selves we actually inhabit. It’s a well-deserved 98% on Rotten Tomatoes and I wonder who dinged it for the missing 2%.

September 7, 2018

What I’m listening to:

With a cover pointing back to the Beastie Boys’ 1986 Licensed to Ill, Eminem’s quietly released Kamikaze is not my usual taste, but I’ve always admired him for his “all out there” willingness to be personal, to call people out, and his sheer genius with language. I thought Daveed Diggs could rap fast, but Eminem is supersonic at moments, and still finds room for melody. Love that he includes Joyner Lucas, whose “I’m Not Racist” gets added to the growing list of simply amazing music videos commenting on race in America. There are endless reasons why I am the least likely Eminem fan, but when no one is around to make fun of me, I’ll put it on again.

What I’m reading:

Lesley Blume’s Everyone Behaves Badly, which is the story behind Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises and his time in 1920s Paris (oh, what a time – see Midnight in Paris if you haven’t already). Of course, Blume disabuses my romantic ideas of that time and place and everyone is sort of (or profoundly so) a jerk, especially…no spoiler here…Hemingway. That said, it is a compelling read and coming off the Henry James inspired prose of Mrs. Osmond, it made me appreciate more how groundbreaking was Hemingway’s modern prose style. Like his contemporary Picasso, he reinvented the art and it can be easy to forget, these decades later, how profound was the change and its impact. And it has bullfights.

What I’m watching:

Chloé Zhao’s The Rider is just exceptional. It’s filmed on the Pine Ridge Reservation, which provides a stunning landscape, and it feels like a classic western reinvented for our times. The main characters are played by the real-life people who inspired this narrative (but feels like a documentary) film. Brady Jandreau, playing himself really, owns the screen. It’s about manhood, honor codes, loss, and resilience – rendered in sensitive, nuanced, and heartfelt ways. It feels like it could be about large swaths of America today. Really powerful.

August 16, 2018

What I’m listening to:

In my Spotify Daily Mix was Percy Sledge’s When A Man Loves A Woman, one of the world’s greatest love songs. Go online and read the story of how the song was discovered and recorded. There are competing accounts, but Sledge said he improvised it after a bad breakup. It has that kind of aching spontaneity. It is another hit from Muscle Shoals, Alabama, one of the GREAT music hotbeds, along with Detroit, Nashville, and Memphis. Our February Board meeting is in Alabama and I may finally have to do the pilgrimage road trip to Muscle Shoals and then Memphis, dropping in for Sunday services at the church where Rev. Al Green still preaches and sings. If the music is all like this, I will be saved.

What I’m reading:

John Banville’s Mrs. Osmond, his homage to literary idol Henry James and an imagined sequel to James’ 1881 masterpiece Portrait of a Lady. Go online and read the first paragraph of Chapter 25. He is…profoundly good. Makes me want to never write again, since anything I attempt will feel like some other, lowly activity in comparison to his mastery of language, image, syntax. This is slow reading, every sentence to be savored.

What I’m watching:

I’ve always respected Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, but we just watched the documentary RGB. It is over-the-top great and she is now one of my heroes. A superwoman in many ways and the documentary is really well done. There are lots of scenes of her speaking to crowds and the way young women, especially law students, look at her is touching. And you can’t help but fall in love with her now late husband Marty. See this movie and be reminded of how important is the Law.

July 23, 2018

What I’m listening to:

Spotify’s Summer Acoustic playlist has been on repeat quite a lot. What a fun way to listen to artists new to me, including The Paper Kites, Hollow Coves, and Fleet Foxes, as well as old favorites like Leon Bridges and Jose Gonzalez. Pretty chill when dialing back to a summer pace, dining on the screen porch or reading a book.

What I’m reading:

Bryan Stevenson’s Just Mercy. Founder of the Equal Justice Initiative, Stevenson tells of the racial injustice (and the war on the poor our judicial system perpetuates as well) that he discovered as a young graduate from Harvard Law School and his fight to address it. It is in turn heartbreaking, enraging, and inspiring. It is also about mercy and empathy and justice that reads like a novel. Brilliant.

What I’m watching:

Fauda. We watched season one of this Israeli thriller. It was much discussed in Israel because while it focuses on an ex-special agent who comes out of retirement to track down a Palestinian terrorist, it was willing to reveal the complexity, richness, and emotions of Palestinian lives. And the occasional brutality of the Israelis. Pretty controversial stuff in Israel. Lior Raz plays Doron, the main character, and is compelling and tough and often hard to like. He’s a mess. As is the world in which he has to operate. We really liked it, and also felt guilty because while it may have been brave in its treatment of Palestinians within the Israeli context, it falls back into some tired tropes and ultimately falls short on this front.

June 11, 2018

What I’m listening to:

Like everyone else, I’m listening to Pusha T drop the mic on Drake. Okay, not really, but do I get some points for even knowing that? We all walk around with songs that immediately bring us back to a time or a place. Songs are time machines. We are coming up on Father’s Day. My own dad passed away on Father’s Day back in 1994 and I remembering dutifully getting through the wake and funeral and being strong throughout. Then, sitting alone in our kitchen, Don Henley’s The End of the Innocence came on and I lost it. When you lose a parent for the first time (most of us have two after all) we lose our innocence and in that passage, we suddenly feel adult in a new way (no matter how old we are), a longing for our own childhood, and a need to forgive and be forgiven. Listen to the lyrics and you’ll understand. As Wordsworth reminds us in In Memoriam, there are seasons to our grief and, all these years later, this song no longer hits me in the gut, but does transport me back with loving memories of my father. I’ll play it Father’s Day.

What I’m reading:

The Fifth Season, by N. K. Jemisin. I am not a reader of fantasy or sci-fi, though I understand they can be powerful vehicles for addressing the very real challenges of the world in which we actually live. I’m not sure I know of a more vivid and gripping illustration of that fact than N. K. Jemisin’s Hugo Award winning novel The Fifth Season, first in her Broken Earth trilogy. It is astounding. It is the fantasy parallel to The Underground Railroad, my favorite recent read, a depiction of subjugation, power, casual violence, and a broken world in which our hero(s) struggle, suffer mightily, and still, somehow, give us hope. It is a tour de force book. How can someone be this good a writer? The first 30 pages pained me (always with this genre, one must learn a new, constructed world, and all of its operating physics and systems of order), and then I could not put it down. I panicked as I neared the end, not wanting to finish the book, and quickly ordered the Obelisk Gate, the second novel in the trilogy, and I can tell you now that I’ll be spending some goodly portion of my weekend in Jemisin’s other world.

What I’m watching:

The NBA Finals and perhaps the best basketball player of this generation. I’ve come to deeply respect LeBron James as a person, a force for social good, and now as an extraordinary player at the peak of his powers. His superhuman play during the NBA playoffs now ranks with the all-time greats, Larry Bird, Magic Johnson, MJ, Kobe, and the demi-god that was Bill Russell. That his Cavs lost in a 4-game sweep is no surprise. It was a mediocre team being carried on the wide shoulders of James (and matched against one of the greatest teams ever, the Warriors, and the Harry Potter of basketball, Steph Curry) and, in some strange way, his greatness is amplified by the contrast with the rest of his team. It was a great run.

May 24, 2018

What I’m listening to:

I’ve always liked Alicia Keys and admired her social activism, but I am hooked on her last album Here. This feels like an album finally commensurate with her anger, activism, hope, and grit. More R&B and Hip Hop than is typical for her, I think this album moves into an echelon inhabited by a Marvin Gaye’s What’s Going On or Beyonce’s Formation. Social activism and outrage rarely make great novels, but they often fuel great popular music. Here is a terrific example.

What I’m reading:

Colson Whitehead’s Underground Railroad may be close to a flawless novel. Winner of the 2017 Pulitzer, it chronicles the lives of two runaway slaves, Cora and Caeser, as they try to escape the hell of plantation life in Georgia. It is an often searing novel and Cora is one of the great heroes of American literature. I would make this mandatory reading in every high school in America, especially in light of the absurd revisionist narratives of “happy and well cared for” slaves. This is a genuinely great novel, one of the best I’ve read, the magical realism and conflating of time periods lifts it to another realm of social commentary, relevance, and a blazing indictment of America’s Original Sin, for which we remain unabsolved.

What I’m watching:

I thought I knew about The Pentagon Papers, but The Post, a real-life political thriller from Steven Spielberg taught me a lot, features some of our greatest actors, and is so timely given the assault on our democratic institutions and with a presidency out of control. It is a reminder that a free and fearless press is a powerful part of our democracy, always among the first targets of despots everywhere. The story revolves around the legendary Post owner and D.C. doyenne, Katharine Graham. I had the opportunity to see her son, Don Graham, right after he saw the film, and he raved about Meryl Streep’s portrayal of his mother. Liked it a lot more than I expected.

April 27, 2018

What I’m listening to:

I mentioned John Prine in a recent post and then on the heels of that mention, he has released a new album, The Tree of Forgiveness, his first new album in ten years. Prine is beloved by other singer songwriters and often praised by the inscrutable God that is Bob Dylan. Indeed, Prine was frequently said to be the “next Bob Dylan” in the early part of his career, though he instead carved out his own respectable career and voice, if never with the dizzying success of Dylan. The new album reflects a man in his 70s, a cancer survivor, who reflects on life and its end, but with the good humor and empathy that are hallmarks of Prine’s music. “When I Get To Heaven” is a rollicking, fun vision of what comes next and a pure delight. A charming, warm, and often terrific album.

What I’m reading:

I recently read Min Jin Lee’s Pachinko, on many people’s Top Ten lists for last year and for good reason. It is sprawling, multi-generational, and based in the world of Japanese occupied Korea and then in the Korean immigrant’s world of Oaska, so our key characters become “tweeners,” accepted in neither world. It’s often unspeakably sad, and yet there is resiliency and love. There is also intimacy, despite the time and geographic span of the novel. It’s breathtakingly good and like all good novels, transporting.

What I’m watching:

I adore Guillermo del Toro’s 2006 film, Pan’s Labyrinth, and while I’m not sure his Shape of Water is better, it is a worthy follow up to the earlier masterpiece (and more of a commercial success). Lots of critics dislike the film, but I’m okay with a simple retelling of a Beauty and the Beast love story, as predictable as it might be. The acting is terrific, it is visually stunning, and there are layers of pain as well as social and political commentary (the setting is the US during the Cold War) and, no real spoiler here, the real monsters are humans, the military officer who sees over the captured aquatic creature. It is hauntingly beautiful and its depiction of hatred to those who are different or “other” is painfully resonant with the time in which we live. Put this on your “must see” list.

March 18, 2018

What I’m listening to:

Sitting on a plane for hours (and many more to go; geez, Australia is far away) is a great opportunity to listen to new music and to revisit old favorites. This time, it is Lucy Dacus and her album Historians, the new sophomore release from a 22-year old indie artist that writes with relatable, real-life lyrics. Just on a second listen and while she insists this isn’t a break up record (as we know, 50% of all great songs are break up songs), it is full of loss and pain. Worth the listen so far. For the way back machine, it’s John Prine and In Spite of Ourselves (that title track is one of the great love songs of all time), a collection of duets with some of his “favorite girl singers” as he once described them. I have a crush on Iris Dement (for a really righteously angry song try her Wasteland of the Free), but there is also EmmyLou Harris, the incomparable Dolores Keane, and Lucinda Williams. Very different albums, both wonderful.

What I’m reading:

Jane Mayer’s New Yorker piece on Christopher Steele presents little that is new, but she pulls it together in a terrific and coherent whole that is illuminating and troubling at the same time. Not only for what is happening, but for the complicity of the far right in trying to discredit that which should be setting off alarm bells everywhere. Bob Mueller may be the most important defender of the democracy at this time. A must read.

What I’m watching:

Homeland is killing it this season and is prescient, hauntingly so. Russian election interference, a Bannon-style hate radio demagogue, alienated and gun toting militia types, and a president out of control. It’s fabulous, even if it feels awfully close to the evening news.

March 8, 2018

What I’m listening to:

We have a family challenge to compile our Top 100 songs. It is painful. Only 100? No more than three songs by one artist? Wait, why is M.I.A.’s “Paper Planes” on my list? Should it just be The Clash from whom she samples? Can I admit to guilty pleasure songs? Hey, it’s my list and I can put anything I want on it. So I’m listening to the list while I work and the song playing right now is Tom Petty’s “The Wild One, Forever,” a B-side single that was never a hit and that remains my favorite Petty song. Also, “Evangeline” by Los Lobos. It evokes a night many years ago, with friends at Pearl Street in Northampton, MA, when everyone danced well past 1AM in a hot, sweaty, packed club and the band was a revelation. Maybe the best music night of our lives and a reminder that one’s 100 Favorite Songs list is as much about what you were doing and where you were in your life when those songs were playing as it is about the music. It’s not a list. It’s a soundtrack for this journey.

What I’m reading:

Patricia Lockwood’s Priestdaddy was in the NY Times top ten books of 2017 list and it is easy to see why. Lockwood brings remarkable and often surprising imagery, metaphor, and language to her prose memoir and it actually threw me off at first. It then all became clear when someone told me she is a poet. The book is laugh aloud funny, which masks (or makes safer anyway) some pretty dark territory. Anyone who grew up Catholic, whether lapsed or not, will resonate with her story. She can’t resist a bawdy anecdote and her family provides some of the most memorable characters possible, especially her father, her sister, and her mother, who I came to adore. Best thing I’ve read in ages.

What I’m watching:

The Florida Project, a profoundly good movie on so many levels. Start with the central character, six-year old (at the time of the filming) Brooklynn Prince, who owns – I mean really owns – the screen. This is pure acting genius and at that age? Astounding. Almost as astounding is Bria Vinaite, who plays her mother. She was discovered on Instagram and had never acted before this role, which she did with just three weeks of acting lessons. She is utterly convincing and the tension between the child’s absolute wonder and joy in the world with her mother’s struggle to provide, to be a mother, is heartwarming and heartbreaking all at once. Willem Dafoe rightly received an Oscar nomination for his supporting role. This is a terrific movie.

February 12, 2018

What I’m listening to:

So, I have a lot of friends of age (I know you’re thinking 40s, but I just turned 60) who are frozen in whatever era of music they enjoyed in college or maybe even in their thirties. There are lots of times when I reach back into the catalog, since music is one of those really powerful and transporting senses that can take you through time (smell is the other one, though often underappreciated for that power). Hell, I just bought a turntable and now spending time in vintage vinyl shops. But I’m trying to take a lesson from Pat, who revels in new music and can as easily talk about North African rap music and the latest National album as Meet the Beatles, her first ever album. So, I’ve been listening to Kendrick Lamar’s Grammy winning Damn. While it may not be the first thing I’ll reach for on a winter night in Maine, by the fire, I was taken with it. It’s layered, political, and weirdly sensitive and misogynist at the same time, and it feels fresh and authentic and smart at the same time, with music that often pulled me from what I was doing. In short, everything music should do. I’m not a bit cooler for listening to Damn, but when I followed it with Steely Dan, I felt like I was listening to Lawrence Welk. A good sign, I think.

What I’m reading:

I am reading Walter Isaacson’s new biography of Leonardo da Vinci. I’m not usually a reader of biographies, but I’ve always been taken with Leonardo. Isaacson does not disappoint (does he ever?), and his subject is at once more human and accessible and more awe-inspiring in Isaacson’s capable hands. Gay, left-handed, vegetarian, incapable of finishing things, a wonderful conversationalist, kind, and perhaps the most relentlessly curious human being who has ever lived. Like his biographies of Steve Jobs and Albert Einstein, Isaacson’s project here is to show that genius lives at the intersection of science and art, of rationality and creativity. Highly recommend it.

What I’m watching:

We watched the This Is Us post-Super Bowl episode, the one where Jack finally buys the farm. I really want to hate this show. It is melodramatic and manipulative, with characters that mostly never change or grow, and it hooks me every damn time we watch it. The episode last Sunday was a tear jerker, a double whammy intended to render into a blubbering, tissue-crumbling pathetic mess anyone who has lost a parent or who is a parent. Sterling K. Brown, Ron Cephas Jones, the surprising Mandy Moore, and Milo Ventimiglia are hard not to love and last season’s episode that had only Brown and Cephas going to Memphis was the show at its best (they are by far the two best actors). Last week was the show at its best worst. In other words, I want to hate it, but I love it. If you haven’t seen it, don’t binge watch it. You’ll need therapy and insulin.

January 15, 2018

What I’m listening to:

Drive-By Truckers. Chris Stapleton has me on an unusual (for me) country theme and I discovered these guys to my great delight. They’ve been around, with some 11 albums, but the newest one is fascinating. It’s a deep dive into Southern alienation and the white working-class world often associated with our current president. I admire the willingness to lay bare, in kick ass rock songs, the complexities and pain at work among people we too quickly place into overly simple categories. These guys are brave, bold, and thoughtful as hell, while producing songs I didn’t expect to like, but that I keep playing. And they are coming to NH.

What I’m reading:

A textual analog to Drive-By Truckers by Chris Stapleton in many ways is Tony Horowitz’s 1998 Pulitzer Prize winning Confederates in the Attic. Ostensibly about the Civil War and the South’s ongoing attachment to it, it is prescient and speaks eloquently to the times in which we live (where every southern state but Virginia voted for President Trump). Often hilarious, it too surfaces complexities and nuance that escape a more recent, and widely acclaimed, book like Hillbilly Elegy. As a Civil War fan, it was also astonishing in many instances, especially when it blows apart long-held “truths” about the war, such as the degree to which Sherman burned down the south (he did not). Like D-B Truckers, Horowitz loves the South and the people he encounters, even as he grapples with its myths of victimhood and exceptionalism (and racism, which may be no more than the racism in the north, but of a different kind). Everyone should read this book and I’m embarrassed I’m so late to it.

What I’m watching:

David Letterman has a new Netflix show called “My Next Guest Needs No Introduction” and we watched the first episode, in which Letterman interviewed Barack Obama. It was extraordinary (if you don’t have Netflix, get it just to watch this show); not only because we were reminded of Obama’s smarts, grace, and humanity (and humor), but because we saw a side of Letterman we didn’t know existed. His personal reflections on Selma were raw and powerful, almost painful. He will do five more episodes with “extraordinary individuals” and if they are anything like the first, this might be the very best work of his career and one of the best things on television.

December 22, 2017

What I’m reading:

Just finished Sunjeev Sahota’s Year of the Runaways, a painful inside look at the plight of illegal Indian immigrant workers in Britain. It was shortlisted for 2015 Man Booker Prize and its transporting, often to a dark and painful universe, and it is impossible not to think about the American version of this story and the terrible way we treat the undocumented in our own country, especially now.

What I’m watching:

Season II of The Crown is even better than Season I. Elizabeth’s character is becoming more three-dimensional, the modern world is catching up with tradition-bound Britain, and Cold War politics offer more context and tension than we saw in Season I. Claire Foy, in her last season, is just terrific – one arched eye brow can send a message.

What I’m listening to:

A lot of Christmas music, but needing a break from the schmaltz, I’ve discovered Over the Rhine and their Christmas album, Snow Angels. God, these guys are good.

November 14, 2017

What I’m watching:

Guiltily, I watch the Patriots play every weekend, often building my schedule and plans around seeing the game. Why the guilt? I don’t know how morally defensible is football anymore, as we now know the severe damage it does to the players. We can’t pretend it’s all okay anymore. Is this our version of late decadent Rome, watching mostly young Black men take a terrible toll on each other for our mere entertainment?

What I’m reading:

Recently finished J.G. Ballard’s 2000 novel Super-Cannes, a powerful depiction of a corporate-tech ex-pat community taken over by a kind of psychopathology, in which all social norms and responsibilities are surrendered to residents of the new world community. Kept thinking about Silicon Valley when reading it. Pretty dark, dystopian view of the modern world and centered around a mass killing, troublingly prescient.

What I’m listening to:

Was never really a Lorde fan, only knowing her catchy (and smarter than you might first guess) pop hit “Royals” from her debut album. But her new album, Melodrama, is terrific and it doesn’t feel quite right to call this “pop.” There is something way more substantial going on with Lorde and I can see why many critics put this album at the top of their Best in 2017 list. Count me in as a huge fan.

November 3, 2017

What I’m reading: Just finished Celeste Ng’s Little Fires Everywhere, her breathtakingly good second novel. How is someone so young so wise? Her writing is near perfection and I read the book in two days, setting my alarm for 4:30AM so I could finish it before work.

What I’m watching: We just binge watched season two of Stranger Things and it was worth it just to watch Millie Bobbie Brown, the transcendent young actor who plays Eleven. The series is a delightful mash up of every great eighties horror genre you can imagine and while pretty dark, an absolute joy to watch.

What I’m listening to: I’m not a lover of country music (to say the least), but I love Chris Stapleton. His “The Last Thing I Needed, First Thing This Morning” is heartbreakingly good and reminds me of the old school country that played in my house as a kid. He has a new album and I can’t wait, but his From A Room: Volume 1 is on repeat for now.

September 26, 2017

What I’m reading:

Just finished George Saunder’s Lincoln in the Bardo. It took me a while to accept its cadence and sheer weirdness, but loved it in the end. A painful meditation on loss and grief, and a genuinely beautiful exploration of the intersection of life and death, the difficulty of letting go of what was, good and bad, and what never came to be.

What I’m watching:

HBO’s The Deuce. Times Square and the beginning of the porn industry in the 1970s, the setting made me wonder if this was really something I’d want to see. But David Simon is the writer and I’d read a menu if he wrote it. It does not disappoint so far and there is nothing prurient about it.

What I’m listening to:

The National’s new album Sleep Well Beast. I love this band. The opening piano notes of the first song, “Nobody Else Will Be There,” seize me & I’m reminded that no one else in music today matches their arrangement & musicianship. I’m adding “Born to Beg,” “Slow Show,” “I Need My Girl,” and “Runaway” to my list of favorite love songs.

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thesnhuup · 6 years

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Pop Picks – October 15, 2018

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