Happy Valentine's Day

A few things I am Live Laugh Loving right now

Happy Valentine’s Day to all who celebrate and happy Friday to those who don’t. My 5 year old told me this morning that Valentine’s day is for “helping, kisses and love”, so let’s all love each other a little extra today and always. It’s rough out there.

Here are a few things I have really been loving recently that I wanted to share.

Recent Reads

Love an engrossing historical fiction drama set in 19th century China? The Lotus Shoes by Jane Yang.

Enjoy multigenerational Palestinian diaspora stories with flawed characters? Too Soon by Betty Shamieh.

Craving a good romp about senior citizens getting up to all kinds of hijinx to save their community center? How To Age Disgracefully by Clara Pooley.

Have a strong stomach and a good therapist for a gruesome gothic coming of age tale about a family of cannibals? The Lamb by Lucy Rose.

Like a good thought experiment about race in America? Sky Full of Elephants by Cebo Campbell.

A box shows up at your front door and inside is a string, the length of which denotes how long your life will be. Do you open it? The Measure by Nikki Erlick.

Recent Watches

Severance — Season 2 is off to a curious start. After the building tension of the first season had me pacing around my living room, I have been thrilled to drop back into this strange world. If you’re new to the show, employees on The Severance floor of the Lumon Industries office undergo a procedure that causes a separation of consciousness between their work selves (“innies”) and their outside selves (“outies”) making each unknown to the other. A really creative show for people who have patience for slow builds with big payoffs.

Mo — A show with as much heart as humor, this is the story of Mo and his Palestinian family who have been seeking asylum and citizenship in the United States for more than two decades. Given we don’t see a lot of positive portrayals of arabs on TV, let alone Palestinians, and given we don’t have much insight into the asylum-seeking process, this show is a breath of fresh air. Bonus points for having a complex and realistic representation of an Autistic character in Sameer, Mo’s brother.

Misc.y Business

SFPL’s Lucky Day Program - The San Francisco Library has a new(ish) program called the Lucky Day program, as in “today must be your…”. Each branch reserves a certain number of new releases and puts them on the Lucky Day shelves. These are books you cannot request or put on hold at the library, but must get in person. That means every time you go to your local library, you get to pick up new and/or popular books that you would otherwise have to wait weeks for via a library hold.

Bookshop.org has started selling ebooks. While we will always encourage getting ebooks through the myriad library apps available to you, Bookshop.org is a great alternative for anyone looking to divest from Amazon who already read their ebooks on a device that supports apps. Like their physical books, purchases of ebooks from Bookshop.org benefit an independent bookstore of your choosing. Learn more here.

Kelly Hayes’ Newsletter - Organizing My Thoughts has been a lifesaver of a newsletter, with advice, interviews and reading lists to ground you and your activism during the firehose of chaos from our new administration. Co-author of the incredible book Let This Radicalize You, Hayes’ work is instrumental in finding ways to be helpful and empowered when everything is working hard to overwhelm us. Here is a recent edition with advice for fighting the administration’s anti-trans bills and how to protect our trans family. At a time when it feels most especially important to prune your news consumption and get focused, this is a great place to start.

Doechii Doechii Doechii — Like many others, I was blown away by Doechii’s NPR Music Tiny Desk performance and immediately took a deep dive into her discography. (If Kendrick says you’re “the hardest rapper” our right now, you pay attention.) Her performance on The Grammys is also worth checking out.

This is me listening to Doechii (video contains lyrics that are NSFW)

Sit down. Be humble.

Kendrick Lamar, Petty King - Speaking of Kendrick, I was not only blown away by his halftime performance at the Superbowl, but have devoured every single analysis of his performance and its symbolism on social media. The thoughtfulness of everything on that stage—the American flag made from the bodies of Black men, a Black Uncle Sam talking about acceptability, Serena Williams doing the crip walk she got in trouble for doing at the 2012 Olympics—all while President Trump sat in attendance?

It was especially fun to see members of the party that just rolled back Diversity, Equity and Inclusion efforts complain about the absence of white dancers, and to see Matt Gaetz get endlessly trolled for complaining about the halftime show.

Between the superbowl and winning multiple Grammys for his Drake diss track, Not Like Us, it’s been a big month for A+ memes!

What have you been really loving recently?

Courtney x