Before we delve into the posts we’re reading and loving elsewhere on the internet, don’t miss our dispatch from Buenos Aires, where American expats are protesting Trump from afar.
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‘Searching for Souvenirs at Dollywood‘ (Susan Harlan for Racked)
Dollywood is a cultural institution, and Dolly Parton’s fans are myriad. This is a lovely, kind, thoughtful tribute to a person and a sense of place, and also a culture.
I like going to Dollywood in the summer because Dollywood feels like summer. I can hardly imagine it existing in the winter, apart from Christmas. When the park celebrated its 30th anniversary in 2015, I went that summer — my dog Millie spent the day at Doggywood, the park’s “Kennel and Pet Cottages.” And my first trip was with Amanda, a couple of summers before that. It’s a pretty drive from where I live in Winston-Salem, in central North Carolina. You head up into the mountains toward Asheville and through Cherokee, along the Oconaluftee River into Great Smoky Mountains National Park, where you might see elk grazing in meadows. Or a bear.
‘What Happened at Camp Lejune‘ (Lori Lou Freshwater for Pacific Standard)
The story of military pollution in the United States is an extremely dark history. This is a rich dive that explores authorial history side-by-side with the conditions that shaped the writer’s life.
During the same autumn the dead beagles were found, I was sitting in front of a fake backdrop of rusty colored leaves, a slight 11-year-old girl with spaces between my teeth and freckles spritzed across my nose and cheeks, to take my school photo.
‘The Story of Peggy Claude-Pierre, the Eating Disorder Healer Who Promised Everything‘ (Kelsey Osgood for Jezebel)
This is a wild story of an eating disorder clinic that some people identified as a scam, while others clung to as a last possible hope for survival.
In the interview with Sherr, Claude-Pierre said that for many, she represented a “last hope,” and that to outsiders she was a “witch doctor.” Back in the studio, when Barbara Walters asked about the “long-term success”—meaning, did Montreux alums avoid relapse—Sherr told the audience the crew had seen “no evidence of failure whatsoever” while researching the story.
‘Your Climate Change Survival Plan‘ (Starre Julia Varten for Medium)
Climate change is here. What’s your plan for dealing with it?
Three-quarters of the world’s megacities sprawl seaside. More than 40 percent of Americans live in oceanside counties. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration projects that number will increase, even while the seas rise an estimated 20 feet over the next 80 years.
‘Roxane Gay: Insatiable Is “Lazy, Insulting” From Start To Finish‘ (Roxane Gay for Refinery29)
Netflix’s Insatiable has attracted considerable criticism, but this is the definitive review of the show.
This show is supposed to be about desire, about insatiable desire, about wanting so much, wanting too much. But Patty doesn’t seem particularly insatiable. It is everyone around her that is insatiable. Bob Armstrong desperately wants to coach a winning pageant queen, and he wants to stay married to his wife, and he also wants to be with his lover Bob Barnard. Bob’s wife Coralee (Alyssa Milano) yearns to be a respected society lady, and she wants a career of her own, and she wants her husband, and she lusts after Bob Barnard. Nonnie simply wants Patty to love her, to see her, to hear her.
Photo: J. Triepke/Creative Commons