Hello, hope you had a smooth week and watched something besides the debate. Nice vibe above (this restaurant is usually pretty busy, this was a Monday).
Links
Even if you have watched this stupid Netflix show, Emily In Paris, you might enjoy this Willa Paskin breakdown of why so many people have shotgunned the whole thing — she always has these warm, curveball takes, especially about stuff that makes “taste wobble before us like a possessed seesaw.”
This is a books newsletter but the breakdown here of the levels of fun is incredibly useful, especially as someone who almost exclusively exists in the third tier described here.
Here is a funny series of photos of Mookie Betts — the easiest player to root for — in the Dodgers dugout.
Dodgers’ ace Walker Buehler, the rare person to bring athletic glory unto Vanderbilt University, learned everything he knows there! (No, this is a sharp piece about inside the mind of a highly competitive pitcher, with particular insights from Vandy coach Tim Corbin.)
Mormons make up a major voting bloc in Arizona, and are, of course, highly conservative — but with some interesting facets (pro-immigrant, pro-freedom of religion) that make them uniquely skeptical to Trump. This is an interesting breakdown of like real conservative voters dealing with whether to vote for him.
Quibi (if you missed this, it was a streaming platform) was an insane mess — see: this real thread from Tom Gara about the actual shows — but this makes a compelling argument about the kinds of media businesses that would be good to return to over the Facebook era.
This is the most complicated and challenging (but lucid!) piece anyone’s written about Kamala Harris’s justice record — from someone who served in prison, whose mother was the victim of a crime, and who works now to get people out.
My colleague Elamin Abdelmahmoud wrote a thoughtful piece about trying to remain hopeful during times of duress (like, you know, now).
And my colleague Ryan Brooks profiled four black activists in their 20s about how even as the Instagram posts fade, they continue doing the work — this is in a compelling way about how small, local wins (e.g. removing a statue) is part of a larger, historical tide.
If you haven’t read Chris Christie’s piece on what he did wrong, it’s worth the read.
A note on all this
Thanks for subscribing. Hope you enjoy. The goal here is just to offer up some links you may have missed, and maybe the occasional commentary on something in politics or a book I may have read that you, the reader, might enjoy. If you have thoughts on any of this, hit me up at katherinemillernyc@gmail.com or just tweet at me.