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Recommendations galore!
But first, listen to the ever-classic Episode #56: Zardulu. The rats are not what they seem. Plus, a Yes Yes No.
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PJ says, "I am really enjoying the new Lucy Dacus song, 'Forever Half Mast,' which is a good ambivalent Fourth of July jam."
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Emmanuel recommends Evicted by Matthew Desmond. He says, "The book, as the title suggests, is about eviction. In it, Desmond chronicles the struggles of eight families, as they try to make rent in Milwaukee around the 2008 financial crisis. What struck me most about it was how well the book presented both the awfulness of eviction, but also its necessity in our current real estate system. As you meet landlord after landlord, and tenant after tenant, it becomes clear that this tool that in theory should be used rarely, has for a lot of people, become a basic tenant of their business.
Poverty is often talked about as the result of bad choices, and eviction is treated the same way. But what Eviction lays bare is the lie in that thinking, or at least the omission in it. I walked away from this book thinking that if our real estate market depends on people getting kicked out of their homes, bad choices aren’t the problem - exploitation is."
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Intern Emily Rostek recommends the GrowNYC. She says, “I’ve been making more of an effort to stay sustainable and one of the first things that comes to mind when I think of reducing my carbon footprint is what I eat and how I dispose of it. So, in addition to eating less meat, I’ve also started composting. In New York, composting is unnecessarily complicated, but this site makes it more accessible. My apartment doesn’t (and refuses to) have a green bin but this website led me to the closest farmers market, where there’s also a food-scrap drop off site! So from now on, I’ll be storing my compost in my freezer and happily taking it to the Prospect Park Farmers Market each Saturday. One day, maybe I’ll have my own compost bin - I somehow ended up on a worm-selling site the other night, so that day may not be far off."
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Gimlet Editor Jorge Just recommends the parodied oral history from Clickhole of the making of Jay-Z’s seminal album The Blueprint. He says, "You don’t have to be a fan of Jay-Z, or even music, to get something out of this incredibly well-told story about the challenges and joys of artistic collaboration; it will make you a fly-on-the-wall witness to the creation of something with meaning. Something that lasts."
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Science Vs Intern Michelle Dang says, "Are you a lonely studier or freelancer? Do you wish you had someone to keep you in check while trying to be productive? Well, I have an obscure and weird internet resource just for you! Focusmate.com is a site that pairs you up with a stranger for a one-on-one video call work session. You sign on, you say hi, you declare your tasks and work together silently for 50 minutes in solidarity. And then you say bye and realize you are a slightly more accomplished person. I know it sounds bizarre… but if you are a hopelessly distracted person just like me, I highly recommend! Online study and accountability groups are what got me through college."
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