Before we delve into the posts we’re reading and loving elsewhere on the internet, don’t miss the latest installment in #WednesdayWisdom, on the plague of hipster communists.
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Queens of Infamy: The Rise of Catherine de’ Medici (Anne Thériault for Longreads)
If you love stories about notorious women, the Queens of Infamy series is highly recommended. The latest installment delves into an icon of pop culture and a woman with a deep and sometimes really depressing story that’s often glossed over as though she’s a mere footnote in history.
Since it was still several centuries before the invention of psychotherapy, Henri tried to work through his issues by throwing himself into activities like hunting, jousting, and other sports that involved physical violence. Also tennis, which the French called jeu de paume. (The nobility were all really into tennis at the time; it was an obsession that would end badly for them when the Third Estate, some two and a half centuries later, discovered the tennis court at Versailles.)
Your Notifications Are Lying to You (Beth Skwarecki for Lifehacker)
The tyranny of notifications is real, as anyone who’s dealt with a smartphone for more than 30 seconds knows. They’re less about you than they are about the companies who push them, and yet they still lead you around by the nose.
Former Google design ethicist Tristan Harris points out that social media companies design their products to make it look like your friends are interacting with you, when really they’re just clicking a button that appeared in front of them as they were scratching their own itch for social approval. They upload a photo, and Facebook suggests they tag you. They’re scrolling Twitter, and they heart your tweet because it’s right in front of them.
The Great Mortality (Elisa Gabbert for Real Life Mag)
Many of us are pondering our own mortality at the moment.
There’s a social media phenomenon I’ve started calling the performative death wish. It happened recently when archaeologists found an unopened black sarcophagus in Alexandria. Some feared that the tomb might contain a deadly virus or unleash a curse — after King Tut’s tomb was opened, in 1922, a number of people associated with the excavation died. “I’m pinning all my hopes on the creature in the sarcophagus,” one woman tweeted.
How Many Women Have to Bleed? (Diana Moskovitz for Jezebel)
Last week was painful for women. How much pain do they need to experience before people will wake up?
You could see the effect of such public suffering on Tuesday. Through two trials and a sentencing, Cosby spokesman Andrew Wyatt didn’t get asked too many tough questions, reporters taking his quotes about how Cosby was an innocent man, all the women who said they were raped were liars, and everyone in the entire legal proceeding was corrupt and just using them to present both sides. On Tuesday, reporters pushed back.
What Bird Watching Gave Me After My Miscarriage (Kate McKean for Catapult)
A miscarriage can be a shattering event; how do you pick up the pieces?
It’s exhilarating to ID a bird for the first time, or to solve the puzzle of a tricky ID, either because you are inexperienced—like us—or because the damn bird won’t sit still or come down lower in the trees or turn around so you can see its head. But there in Prospect Park we would spot the tiny yellow butt of a yellow-rumped warbler. Crane our necks to see the difference between a ruby-crowned and golden-crowned kinglet. Whisper in the direction of great blue herons. Count how many red-tailed hawks we could see in one day.
Photo: llee_wu