Resource Roundup #54
For the week of November 2nd.
Hello folks,
It is Wednesday, and if you’re confused why you’re suddenly getting a resource roundup (which we usually send out on Fridays) in your inbox right now, there are two reasons:
I am a busy human these days who dropped the ball on this on Friday. Honestly is key, people!
Wednesdays are usually when you receive new episodes of the Good Folk Podcast. Due to some unforeseen technical difficulties with the audio for this week’s episode, it will have a delayed release. Keep an eye on your inboxes, and enjoy this extended resource roundup in its place today!
This is an older article, but I’m really into this idea of a Rural-Urban exchange program led by Art of the Rural. You can learn more about the present-day state of the program on the Art of the Rural site here, which is currently based in Kentucky and Minnesota.
It’s no longer running, but I recently came across The Goldenrod substack, and there is truly such a wealth of resources for rural studies and rural journalism here. These poems by Misty Skaggs are gorgeous. They shut down over how difficult it became to fund the project, which is another great reminder to support the publications and authors you love.
Love this story on pawpaws by Gabrielle Griffis in JMWW. So beautiful:
“There are many feelings you haven’t experienced in a long time, and you’re losing your ability to care about the sublime. The sublime doesn’t care about you.”
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It actually makes me very happy to see the comments on this video about a man talking about his non-binary spouse Dilan, most of which are about how people did not expect the words he is saying to come out of someone with an accent so deep, and how this realization led them to think about their own bias. Other comments talk about how healing it is to hear someone who sounds like them speak about queer rights and love, which I deeply agree with. This is also a good time to remind everyone that the South has the largest population of LGBTQ+ individuals in the country— not even counting those who have yet to come out.
I got the chance to meet and chat with Michelle Lanier yesterday, who I can only describe as someone who has incredible presence. I feel very lucky to have crossed paths, and to have gotten to hear about her new piece in Bitter Southerner, which touches on bodily autonomy, memory, and family. Read this.
And then read this, also in Bitter Southerner, because what’s better than badass women on motorcycles fighting for a better future for their home state of Texas?
And then go vote.
The Atlantic on Black country music and its deeply-rooted history in America.
And Nylah Burton in Andscape about the stereotypes of “unhealthy” Black Southern food. I’ll let the title speak for itself: Black Southern Food Isn’t Killing Us.
Elias Canetti on being a writer in a troubling world— which is when artists are needed most of all. This makes me think of this quote I was sent recently by Rainer Maria Rilke:
“We have no reason to harbor any mistrust against our world, for it is not against us. If it has terrors, they are our terrors. If it has abysses, these abysses belong to us. If there are dangers, we must try to love them, and only if we could arrange our lives in accordance with the principle that tells us that we must always trust in the difficult, then what now appears to us to be alien will become our most intimate and trusted experience. How could we forget those ancient myths that stand at the beginning of all races—the myths about dragons that at the last moment are transformed into princesses. Perhaps all the dragons in our lives are only princesses waiting for us to act, just once, with beauty and courage. Perhaps everything that frightens us is, in its deepest essence, something helpless that wants our love. So you must not be frightened if a sadness rises before you larger than any you’ve ever seen, if an anxiety like light and cloud shadows moves over your hands and everything that you do. You must realize that something has happened to you. Life has not forgotten you, that it holds you in its hands and will not let you fall. Why do you want to shut out of your life any uneasiness, any miseries, or any depressions? For after all, you do not know what work these conditions are doing inside you.”
I’ve been waiting for this song by ash tuesday to drop since I first heard a snippet of it on TikTok, and it does not disappoint. I have had this on repeat for days. So good. SO GOOD: The very next words out of my mouth better be something profound
or I'm out…
The Proud Boys showed up to protest a drag brunch hosted at Hugger Mugger Brewing in Sanford, NC. I have been to this brewery many times and this makes me incredibly sad. Lindsey Knapp, the organizer of the event, is calling on other individuals and organizations to support, and I want to wholeheartedly back her here. Knapp and others involved in the event received death threats and were told they would be shot for “pedophilia”. I always want to believe this place is changing, and then you hear stories like this, and it breaks my heart. Just a few months ago I drove home from work through Sanford— where I used to teach— and past a giant pride flag hanging downtown and thought to myself, maybe we are finally safe here. I guess not. And having spent time with kids here, I can tell you it’s not the youth who are pushing this type of hatred and fear, which just makes me ask— when did we get here? And how can we do better?
Still, still, still I have hope, which is not blind optimism, but a core belief that there is something here worth fighting for:
Here are the leaves from North Carolina this past weekend:
And here is a poem about the leaves, which reminds me that between the death and rebirth of everything, there is a moment of being alive:
