Washed Weekly: Reading in Public
A plate of migas and a good book.
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What I’m Cooking, Drinking, And Watching This Weekend
by Dave
What I’m Cooking
Tough time to sit down and write about future meals. I just walked down to the latest food truck turned brick-and-mortar, Paperboy. What a treat. Migas with carnitas and a cortado to boot. I’m satisfied, satiated, and contemplating a nap in the conference room. I just poured a reasonable amount of peanuts in a Coca-Cola bottle. I’m barely hanging on here, folks. I have to punt on this one. I haven’t pulled the cover off the smoker in a few weeks. The steel pan has turned my head. It’s officially summer, and I’m barely stepping foot in my backyard.
Something has to touch those grates.
Beef rib? Chicken thighs? Nothing is off the table.
What I’m Drinking
Does anything pair better with zero plans than ice cold beers in your primary fridge? Yes. Ice cold beers in your garage fridge. That’s day one stuff. I’m anticipating a full-court press from the four-year-old to hit the pool, arcade, and froyo shop on Saturday. Buckle up, Dad. It’s hot, and the boys are looking for fun. If I can split up the pool day and arcade (new spot in town called Pins with mini-bowling), I’ll be ready to ride. I did both of these things solo last weekend. I’m not asking for a medal or anything, but what if Mom drives this time around so Dad can hold onto a little no-guilt 2-beer buzz most of the day? Seems reasonable.
What I’m Watching
We’re starting the new season of The Bear tonight. The Wife had Mahjong Wednesday, and as a gentleman, I waited. By waiting, I mean continued catching up on Love Island USA. I wasn’t mad about it. I’ve now seen Huda make it through two go-home votes. Megan Thee Stallion just made a memorable appearance, and two new bombshells have entered the villa. At this point, I’m starting to think Austin is the most likable person on the show. Hand up- I thought he was a total dolt the entire first week. The dude is authentic. Are they really going to include him referencing his “psychedelic journey” in passing and not give us any context? I need a bottle episode of Austin discussing the time he became a puma after meeting a shaman in Costa Rica.
As for Carmy and the gang, I have high hopes for this season of The Bear. I’m talking Mayor Pete high hopes. Maybe I’ve been too locked-in on other matters- pondering my Mavs fandom, Liver King, Karen Read, or Keegan as a player-captain, but this season dropped with relatively little fanfare in my world. That doesn’t make me any less interested, but I found that weird. The timing is excellent for me, as I am now a steel pan influencer who will only become more obnoxious around the kitchen after watching this show. But you won’t catch me hating on it. “Fishes” and “Forks” are two of the best episodes of television in the last decade. “Change my mind,” said the smug influencer, weirdly sitting at a card table on a college campus.
Two new additions to the playlist. Two removals. Enjoy.
Let The Boys Read
by
A man sits on the subway. Aiming to avoid social media (or just frustrated at the lack of service), he does something that you don’t see quite as often these days. He reaches into his bag, pulls out a bound book, cracks it open, and begins to read. Knowledge from years past floods his brain as he just wants to get home from the office, make dinner, and doze off on the couch watching Love Island like everyone else.
But then it happens.
The next day, he opens his phone. Reluctantly, he logs into Twitter and sees something. Wait, what? Why is there a photo of him on there with thousands of retweets and even more likes? Is he in a simulation?
If you’ve been remotely online lately, you know what I’m talking about. Men who read books in public are being singled out by strangers for being “performative.” It may be a TikTok of a man reading Emily Ratajkowski’s book while sitting at a cafe. It could be a photo of a dude paging through “Jane Eyre” at a pool with a spritz on the table next to him. More than likely, though, these are posted in an effort to shame them.
Largely, I’ve never been a fan of yucking someone’s yum. That is, unless their yum is yucking someone’s else’s yum. But if no yum’s are being yucked, we should all be free to have interests that we want to have. It feels relatively simple, right?
Well, not really. Even this community of readers and listeners shits on the interests some of us have. If I take too many film photos, user DipshitDude442 on Reddit has something to say about it. I talk about a Dead show I went to? “Don’t make it your entire personality, bro!” says another user with a Grateful Dead-themed username. I don’t think taking scenic photos or listening to music hurts anyone in my life, so I’ll keep doing both without much hesitancy.
Reading books, however, is a place that has become ultra-polarizing. While I think this largely exists in New York City (or at least that’s what my feed sends me), men far and wide are being shamed for opening books in public that are typically of female interest. My fear is that this internet trope will spill over and suddenly none of us are allowed to have physical books in public.
Last week while I was flying to Florida for a family event, I wanted to stay off my phone at all costs while flying. I packed “When The Going Was Good” by former Vanity Fair editor Graydon Carter and ended up reading 350 pages straight through during our flight and subsequent reroute (yet another hearty “fuck you” to Delta from me). While I did feel an air of superiority reading in public (as one does), I couldn’t shake the men before me who have been shamed for such activities.
“It’s performative, Will.”
“They’re just reading ‘Beach Read’ so a girl approaches them because she’s read it.”
“They don’t actually want to read the book, they just want people to know they’re reading it.”
But we’re thinking about this all wrong.
Shouldn’t we want straight men reading feminist literature? Shouldn’t we encourage dudes everywhere to pick up some female-written fiction? Even if these guys do have ill intentions, isn’t an outcome where they actually learn something from these books be something we hope for?
As someone who unironically read the aforementioned Emily Ratajkowski book titled “My Body,” I hesitate to tell people because I’m worried they’ll just think I’m a pervert. My favorite fiction author is Sally Rooney — and she’s my favorite because she tears at my emotions and actually makes me feel things other authors don’t. And yes, I even suffered through Cazzie David’s book of essays which was actually a bit torturous.
This summer, I’ve told myself that I need to read more. Not just to gain knowledge, but to spend less time on my phone, curb those ADD feelings I get, and feel accomplished when I get to the final page. But given the landscape of men getting bookshamed, I may start covering my books in wrapping paper like everyone did with their textbooks in middle school.
I mean, what are we actually supposed to do here? Even The New York Times admits that there’s no good male fiction out there in a column from Wednesday:
“One common argument focuses on supply: that men are not reading fiction because the subject matter of contemporary fiction does not speak to men. Jordan Castro, a novelist whose books inhabit the minds of frustrated men, wrote in an email that ‘the general tone and etiquette of the literary world is certainly hostile to masculine expression.’ Conduit Books, a new indie press that debuted this year, will focus on books by male authors, and will center ‘overlooked’ themes of ‘fatherhood, masculinity, working-class male experience, sex and relationships, and negotiating the 21st-century as a man.’”
You want to read "The Right to Sex" by Amia Srinivasan poolside this weekend? Be my guest. You want to spend your commute on the subway knocking out a few pages of "The Bell Jar" by Sylvia Plath? Go the fuck off, king. Find a copy of "Girlhood" by Melissa Febos at the half-price bookstore near your office? Read that shit with pride over a solo lunch break.
My brain is mush at this point. I don’t read enough, I binge-watch Love Island every night, and I truly feel like I’m getting dumber and dumber as the days go on. If I want to read literally any book besides “Mein Kampf,” I feel like I should be able to do so in public without a ton of backlash or viral tweets about it.
Just don’t walk around with a paperback sticking out of your back pocket. We all know that is performative whether you admit it or not.
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