Your Mid-Week Experiment
You've got homework, people
Sorry I was late with the weekend essay. I plead a combination of tech issues and a holiday weekend in which I actually relaxed with friends. But also, I became deeply involved with Masha Gessen’s The Future Is History: How Totalitarianism Reclaimed Russia. I meant to write about it in last weekend’s yesterday’s essay about Mikhail Gorbachev, but that went in a different and unexpected direction. So this weekend I’ll be writing about how rewriting history changes our present and redirects our future.
And that means you have a reading list.
First, obviously, buy Gessen’s book.
Next, read “The World Putin Wants: How Distortions About the Past Feed Delusions About the Future” in Foreign Affairs. It’s only a little bit egg-heady — Fiona Hill and Angela Stent from the Brookings Institution co-wrote it — but I’m sure you’ll do fine with the text. You’re quite clever.
After that you can read Marc Fisher’s “Is the United States headed for civil war?” in the Washington Post.
Finally, spend some time with the Texas Freedom Caucus’s in-no-way hysterical letter about proposed changes to the social studies standards.
And if you want to see some of Gessen’s interviews, I’ve included some links below.
Or you can skip all that, wait for this weekend’s essay, and just check out the fun stuff.
Not a lot of new music this week. Here’s a Gary Clark Jr. cover of “Stay.”
Getting some serious alt-vibes from Eight, a band I’ve never heard of and can’t find anything about on the internet after searching for… oh, about half a minute.
The great thing about the Bob’s Burgers movie is that, unlike other animated series made into movies (The Simpsons comes to mind), Bob’s works great as a movie musical.
Been on a German kick lately. First up is I’m Your Man, a robot romance movie streaming on Hulu.
Kleo, a revenge story set in 1990 Berlin, is a fun take on German reunification.
I will watch Steve Carell do anything, and The Patient, streaming on Hulu, is testing that promise. If you feel the same way I do but don’t know the premise of this show, skip the trailer and just watch the pilot. The Patient has a helluva premise, and if you can stand a dark show, then this might be your next binge. Wait, no. Do not binge this show.
RAP SH!T, Issa Rae’s follow-up to Insecure, has an inventive visual device. The view sees a lot of this show through phones — just as the characters live most of their lives through phones. This show is also not for everybody, but Rae has won me over. I didn’t care for Insecure, but RAP SH!T shows a mind at work.
Thanks to Noom, I lost 40 pounds over 2020-21 and have kept most of it off since then. Click on the blue box to get 20% off. Seriously, this works. No, this isn’t an ad. Yes, I really lost all that weight with Noom.
We set up a merch table in the back where you can get T-shirts, coffee mugs, and even tote bags now. Show the world that you’re part of The Experiment.
We’ve also got a tip jar, and I promise to waste every cent you give me on having fun, because writing this newsletter for you is some
Buy the book Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick banned from the Bullock Texas History Museum: Forget the Alamo: The Rise and Fall of the American Myth by Bryan Burrough, Chris Tomlinson, and myself is out from Penguin Random House. Out in paperback now!