Belle & Sebastian’s Boaty Weekender
Shoegazer Titanic sets sail to Sardinia
Twee Scots hold out promise for late bloomers
People are interesting, even if they need to be glued back together
There’s a woman in Sweden I think about sometimes. We’ve never met, but I’ve seen enough of her to know how brave she is. Her star turn happens halfway through Ten Meter Tower, a short documentary that features one or two people at a time standing on a diving-board platform that’s ten meters high, or almost 33 feet, trying to talk themselves, or one another, into jumping off. She’s blonde, fit, and the eldest of the bunch by far. Like many others that day who were part of the Gothenburg swimming-hall experiment — “a portrait of humans in doubt,” according to the directors — she’s up there alone, surrounded by a handful of cameras and microphones capturing the slightest of reactions and reflexes. Bent over, hands clasped over knees, she does some breathwork before stepping forward, all the way to the edge, meaning she’ll now receive the roughly $30 participation prize no matter what follows. Then she …
Agricultural Digest
In early August, a group of Iowa farmers sat down with three members of the House Select Committee on the CCP to discuss their allegations that the Chinese government is stealing proprietary American seeds. In 2011, the FBI famously caught one Chinese national doing just that; in fact, he was part of a larger seed-smuggling ring that is just one piece of the estimated $225 billion to $600 billion a year in intellectual property being stolen by China. Illinois Democrat Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi was sympathetic to the farmers, saying, “We can’t have a situation where we’re constantly developing secrets and research and doing the hard work of innovating — and then all of a sudden having that stolen from us.”
One of the farmers, a sixth-generation soybean grower named Suzanne Sherron, cautioned the group, noting that “one out of every three rows of soybeans you saw as you were driving here goes to China — …
The Bull Calf
Nature is cruel yet tender
Stagnant cow patties and stale urine are the alternatives to honoring a mother’s decision
Life and death in the scent of spoiled milk
There’s a film of dried milk crusted across the backs of my hands, down my forearms and the tops of my thighs, sun dried and getting sweeter as it sits. It’s similar to the way grass smells when it’s been drawn out by the hot summer sun, but richer. “Let Him Fly” by Patty Griffin is moving through my earphones with such resonance, but our sweet bull calf didn’t make it. I feel defeated, sitting here wafting in the familiar scent of bottled milk and powdered electrolytes, which I spent my morning feeding him in desperation. The smell now reminds me of death, of loss.
At lunch, my partner Grant and I sit quietly. The weight of what we’d just witnessed is heavy in our bodies. Feet up on the picnic table, we’re tired, spent. This work is hard. In all my emotions, I also sense peace. I share this, as we look out over the pasture just beyond our stoop, where the grass is growing drier with each passing …
