The World Beyond BetterMost > The Culture Tent
In the New Yorker...
Jeff Wrangler:
I enjoyed the Aug. 22 article on the super-recognizers. I think that would be a cool ability to have.
I also like the article on the Underground Railroad.
serious crayons:
--- Quote from: Jeff Wrangler on August 25, 2016, 01:42:23 pm ---I also like the article on the Underground Railroad.
--- End quote ---
I liked that one, too, especially when she stopped to consider that the number of slaves who escaped -- through the UR or other means -- were just the tiniest fraction of a percent of the total number of people over hundreds of years who spent their lives in slavery with no hope of escape.
I thought about that a lot when watching "12 Years a Slave." That guy's experiences and the things he witnessed were unquestionably horrific, yet I couldn't help thinking that in a relative sense he was "lucky" to get out after 12 years. Millions of others never did.
I've always been interested in Colson Whitehead, the novelist whose "Underground Railroad" partly inspired this piece. I plan to read that book, and others of his have sounded intriguingly original. It's so mind-blowing to think that if he'd lived less than 200 years ago ... well, it's hard to even mentally grasp.
She also, only slightly more subtly, makes the point that white UR participants, or abolition activists, or even sympathizers were also just a tiny fraction of the white population as a whole.
Jeff Wrangler:
--- Quote from: serious crayons on August 25, 2016, 02:44:15 pm ---I liked that one, too, especially when she stopped to consider that the number of slaves who escaped -- through the UR or other means -- were just the tiniest fraction of a percent of the total number of people over hundreds of years who spent their lives in slavery with no hope of escape.
She also, only slightly more subtly, makes the point that white UR participants, or abolition activists, or even sympathizers were also just a tiny fraction of the white population as a whole.
--- End quote ---
That's more or less why I liked the article, too. In other words, the importance of the UR has been exaggerated.
Interesting to read the UR article in juxtaposition to Jeffrey Toobin's profile of Bryan Stevenson.
Jeff Wrangler:
I recommend Adam Gopnik's article about the Attica prison revolt (Aug. 29).
It's not a fun read, but it is worth reading, though very sobering. It's about a historical event that occurred when I was 13 years old, and all I really knew about it was "prison revolt, upstate New York, 1970s."
Jeff Wrangler:
--- Quote from: Front-Ranger on August 23, 2016, 10:02:20 pm ---In the new issue, the article "The Country Restaurant" by Nick Paumgarten, is very interesting. The restaurant, in a rural area south of Albany, NY, is not really a restaurant but more of a food laboratory. Its proprietor claims that it is booked up until 2025 with patrons from 80 countries willing to pay $400 each to dine there. After reading the article I'm still not sure it's a real thing or rather, as one critic calls it, Brigadoon.
--- End quote ---
I read that article, too, and something seems a little fishy about the restaurant and the chef to me.
I also noticed the cartoon with Luke Skywalker, C-3PO, and R2-D2, where C-3PO says that R2-D2 "feels empty inside." I heard not long ago that Kenny Baker, the actor who "inhabited" the little 'droid, had passed away, so I don't quite know how to take the cartoon.
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