Culture

Here’s Your End-of-September Care Package

Give yourself a break. Read something good.

Close-up photograph of a large brown grasshopper, amid pink and purple foliage and grey-green foliage. — Behold this absolute beauty I spotted in Philadelphia this month.

Hey aunties. Here we are, together again. How lovely!

I started doing these care package links roundups at this time last year, not realizing how much I’d come to love them. They’ve become my ongoing excuse to save all the most wonderful media I encounter: things that make me laugh, or make me cry in a good way; things that make me want to share them with everyone I know, or with a specific, select group; things that make me want to put my fists up and start doing triumphant punches and kicks in the style of baby Wonderwoman. And it’s a joy to have such wonderful, loving aunties and auntie-adjacent people to share them with (that’s you). Thanks for being here. Thanks for all that you do to make the world more warm and fun and loving and humane for your communities, and for all the people who will come after us.

Now it’s time for September’s care package: a collection of writers and others communicating wise, compassionate, funny, insightful, surprising, and/or useful stuff around the internet. As you may know, we aim in the care packages for a blend of organizing and activism (e.g., how to revitalize main streets), community care (e.g., a paean to the group chat), useful stuff (e.g., an amazing resource for finding good books for middle-grade readers), catharsis (e.g., a big dose of love and empathy for our newly empty nesters), and good old fashioned escapism (e.g., why we’re mad at Zohran Mamdani for failing to prevent 9/11).

Guest curator Gemma Hartley kicks off this month with a bunch of recommendations apropos of her area of expertise: namely, the righteous anger of women. Gemma writes beautifully and with courage about the toughest topics – like mental illness, religious fundamentalism, sexual assault, and their intersections – while also bringing the warmth and the ridiculous jokes. It’s a heck of a balance to strike, and she nails it.

Then I’ll round things off with a bunch of my own recommendations, including:

A dispatch from the front desk at a residential care facility
The slightly unhinged account of one man’s attempt to neither use nor even touch plastic for 24 hours (final tally of violations: 164)
Abbi Jacobson as Gloria Steinem on Drunk History
Cookie Monster as Katniss Everdeen on Sesame Street
Why the phrase “Norwegian Consumer Council” should make you want to drop everything and open YouTube as fast as possible, now and forevermore

Note that I’ve included gift links where possible, and gift links often expire after 30 days.

Make it to the end of the roundup to watch the cute kid video of the month: This month it’s a kid videobombing his big sister’s video in the most preposterous and excellent way.

September Around The Auntie Bulletin

I wrote about the time I donated my eggs.

I shared an excerpt from Elizabeth Preston’s new book, The Creatures’s Guide to Caring, in which she explains about helpfulness in primates, alloparenting, and other highly relevant Auntie-Bulletin-type stuff.

I reshared my post from last year on demystifying American public schools, because it feels like the right time to do that, and plus I went all the way to freaking Philadelphia (I crossed three time zones, aunties! Three!) and then as soon as I got back I got sick, so my writing capacity this month was a bit low. (If you’ve been grappling with Nikole Hannah-Jones’s recent viral New York Times article (gift link) about her regrets vis-a-vis sending her kid to a failing school, you may also appreciate my post about how to support public schools).

The Auntie Bulletin Graphy Story Strip with Stick Figure People in Various Colors

Our Guest Curator for September: Gemma Hartley

I’m currently reading Gemma Hartley’s new book, No One Loves an Angry Woman: An Exvangelical Coming-of-Rage Story, and aunties, it’s so good. I first became acquainted with Gemma’s work long before I knew Gemma herself, by way of her viral 2017 article in Harper’s Bazaar, “Women Aren’t Nags – We’re Just Fed Up,” which helped kick off the discourse about women’s emotional labor. More recently, Gemma has been writing publicly about her sexual assault as a teenager with tremendous ferocity and love, and – in my corner of the internet at least – helping to set the terms of the response to the Epstein horrors. If you’re mad about what happens to women, if you’re mad about what has happened to you, No One Loves an Angry Woman is for you.

I’ll also say that the exvangelical piece has been really blowing my mind. I’m not sure if you’re familiar with this term, “exvangelical”? Or “deconstruction?” Both refer to getting out from under the thumb of fundamentalist religion. Speaking as someone who was raised in a very devout (but politically progressive) Christian household, Gemma’s research into Mary Magdalene has been kind of earth shattering for me. Did you know that she wrote a book of the New Testament and Church leaders in the 4th century just, like, deleted it?? No girls allowed! I kind of knew this, but I didn’t really. Now, aunties, this information has landed with me. And that’s what Gemma is so great at: landing the punch.

She has some good recommendations for us this month. See for yourself.

Left: Gemma Hartley holds a mic and reads from her book. She has wavy auburn hair dyed green at the ends, and wears glasses, green eyeshadow, and a long-sleeved, sparkly black dress. Books on shelves are visible in the background. Right: the cover of No One Loves an Angry Woman, with large white cursive font over a Renaissance-era painting of an angry looking woman. — Gemma Hartley reads from No One Loves an Angry Woman at her book launch party in Reno. Gemma says: “I’ve been reflecting on how lucky I am to live somewhere that has such a strong literary community bolstered by truly fantastic bookstores. My book launch was hosted at The Radical Cat, a bookstore and cat adoption center that is such a pillar in our community. They consistently host amazing free events — letter writing to prisoners, clothes mending workshops, free write-ins and writing workshops — and their newsletters are all about how to get involved in local mutual aid.”

September has been an excellent month for the deconstruction homies, with powerhouse books out from Kristin Kobes Du Mez (Live, Laugh, Love: The Secret History of White Christian Women and the World They Made) and Sarah Stankorb (Damned if She Does: Why Women Quit the Church and What It Means for the Future of Religion) as well as Chelsea Kim Long’s Faithfully Dissident Daughters: Reclaiming Christian Womanhood Beyond Patriarchy and No One Loves an Angry Woman: an Exvangelical Coming-of-Rage Story by yours truly. I wholeheartedly recommend all of them (and their backlists).

The lead up to a book launch can be intense and unmooring, and as such, I’ve been coping with some mild depression. Here are some of the resources I return to when I get despondent.

Episodes 5 & 6 of Heated Rivalry, watched together as a little dopamine injection. Also, my collection of their unhinged press tour! My favorite might be this clip where Hudson Williams tells a fan that they’ve cured Asian hate.
Speaking of dopamine hits, I keep little collections of ridiculous shit that makes me laugh from around the internet. Some examples:
- This clip of Tim Curry from the Command & Conquer video game that’s been making the rounds (most don’t include the full clip where he rolls the “r” on rrrrrained, which is simply unacceptable)
- The car scene from Twilight with this old facetune filter. I think a lot of it has to do with the person filming who is losing it. Contagious laughter is such a balm.
- This alligator meme is one that makes my kids unravel with laughter, which is probably why I love it so much.
Ross Gay’s Book of Delights never fails to remind me of the beauty of the world.
I also recommend having a small list of friends who you know can be first responders when you need folks to check in on you. I had someone bring me dinner and come over for a 30 minute tea time, another who calls and then does meme check-ins afterwards. I most recently sent her this one.

Meme of an upset-looking black cat hanging upside down from a tree branch, with the caption "mentally I'm here."

If you’re looking for some anger resources for the self-described angry woman, here are some of my go-to recommendations:

Articles that changed my brain chemistry and lit me up with rage: ”Mother, Writer, Monster, Maid” by Rufi Thorpe (of Margo’s Got Money Troubles fame), and ”The Undertow” by Astrid.

My favorite newsletters for Angry Women: Cindy DiTiberio’s The Motherlode, Kate Manne’s More to Hate, Zawn Villines’s Liberating Motherhood, and Amanda Montei’s Mad Woman.

And of course, book recs: Rage Becomes Her by Soraya Chemaly, How to Think Like a Woman by Regan Penaluna, Good Woman by Savala Nolan, Men Explain Things to Me by Rebecca Solnit, When Women Were Dragons by Kelly Barnhill, and Blood Over Bright Haven by M. L. Wang.

Finally, I highly suggest checking out the Friends of your Local Library (mine is Friends of the Washoe County Library) and your local Freedom to Read chapter.

At 12pm on Saturday, 10/24, you can meet Gemma Hartley at Thistle & Nightshade (“a bookstore for weirdos and others”) in Reno, NV.

Back to Lisa

Truth: There’s too much content. (She says, suggesting forty things to read).

Rejoice, for the Norwegian Consumer Council is back and better than ever. (ICYMI, here’s what they did for round one).

“A kid, probably 16, came up and said he never reads but really wanted to start but had no idea where to begin. I saw myself in him so I gave him Dharma Bums for free, and he came back two hours later, smiling in near disbelief because he liked it so much.” Booksellers speak: reading is far from dead.

Care packages used to be paywalled but they aren’t anymore because I’m SO NICE. Support The Auntie Bulletin with a paid subscription and keep ‘em coming!

UPGRADE

From McSweeney’s: “I can’t believe Zohran Mamdani is attending the twenty-fifth anniversary memorial of 9/11, when he did nothing to prevent the attacks.”

Illustrated infographic panel labeled "Electric Light," showing a warmly rendered living room/kitchen scene with a blue armchair, orange lamp, gallery wall art, a bookshelf, and a kitchen with a stove and hanging pendant light. Beside the illustration, text headed "Light without fire" quotes an 1880 witness account of Wabash, Indiana becoming one of the first cities lit entirely by electric light. It reads: "The people, almost with bated breath, stood overwhelmed with awe, as if in the presence of the supernatural. The strange, weird light, exceeded in power only by the sun, yet mild as moonlight, rendered the Court House square as light as midday." — Check out this awesome tour of all the modern conveniences in a typical apartment, accompanied by reflections from those who first beheld them.

Will the enshittification of everything teach us to become more empowered consumers? An intriguing article from Vox on the Ford Pinto, the new iPhone, and the right to repair. (gift link)

Rosie Spinks has the AI take I actually want to read right now.

Screenshot of a Substack Note from user TidyDad, reading: "NYC teacher here. Best policy change that happened at school this week was the ban on tech. Kids read books. They played games. Built puzzles. Talked to one another. It’s like stepping back to pre-Covid times." 5K likes, 38 comments, 109 restacks. — via

Speaking of children thriving in an analog fashion, if you’ve got a middle grade reader in your life, this newsletter is a gem.

And lest we hate on technology too too much, Hanif Abdurraqib wrote a lovely paean to the group chat. He recalls: “One night, after a book signing, I retrieved my phone in the venue’s greenroom and found the full saga of my friend’s child swallowing a small toy, ending with the kid sleeping in the back seat of the family’s car after a visit to the emergency room. To exit one world, where I’d been the center of attention, and to be thrust into another, focussed on a toddler’s well-being, felt like a needed corrective for the ego.”

Slightly overexposed photo of a man in a handknit blue sweater and chinos sitting awkwardly on a wooden chair on a mostly-empty NYC subway car, surrounded by orange plastic seats. On his face is a weirded-out expression. — I loved and keep telling people about this article where journalist A.J. Jacobs spent a day trying to live without using or even touching plastic (gift link). Here he is sitting on the wooden chair he brought on the subway. Also, an important moral of this story is that, in the modern world, it’s impossible to abstain from plastic: Jacobs was super rigorous and still clocked 164 violations over the course of the day. (I was influenced by this article to buy toothpaste tablets and it turns out I love them).

Another gem from The New York Times this month: a deep, multimedia dive into the process of recording an audiobook. (gift link)

LA Material is my favorite new local media, and I don’t even live in California. Check out this article about the invention of wheelchair basketball at a VA hospital in the San Fernando Valley. It’s so good: “Rynearson created a set of rules for the game, most notably that athletes were allowed two pushes of their wheelchair after a dribble, and went about organizing a game between vets and able-bodied doctors in wheelchairs. The doctors were routed and Rynearson took the newly-christened Flying Wheels on a barnstorming tour across the United States to face off against other VA hospitals. By 1948, the sport drew nearly 16,000 attendees at Madison Square Garden.”

How to fix hollowed-out main streets

How to responsibly unload your castoffs

How to quantify the intensity of rain (do not miss this!)

Saying goodbye to a beloved daycare

Naming the process of becoming a woman without children

The kind of social science we need

Grainy black and white photo of several people reacting with horror and disgust at something they're viewing offscreen. Some people cover their eyes or mouths while others grimace or look stoic. In the background, a man with a beard is smiling broadly. — This is a photograph of a test screening audience reacting to the chestburster scene in Alien, 1979, and I just thought you probably needed it in your life. The photo is floating around on Reddit, e.g., here. (And here you can watch the scene in question).

Some of my loved ones have recently launched their kids into the world and are contending with big feelings. If you’re a newly empty nester, or know someone who is, here’s solidarity, love, and wisdom from two greats: Diana Cherry and Ijeoma Oluo, both of whom have kids who just started college.

Speaking of Diana Cherry, here’s a brilliant take on the roots, in Black slavery, of the widespread devaluation of care – and why the United States has mommy issues.

Daniel Lavery wrote about working the front desk at the residential care facility. “You get a rolling chair and you have a lot of systems to manage, so you get to roll back and forth answering phones and sounding efficient.”

Fergus Tuohy wrote about his fairy godmother, the former mother superior. When Fergus came out as gay, she responded: “I love you no matter what. And for all I know, I could be a lesbian. I just never bothered to find out.”

Courtney Martin wrote about the days her father was dying. “Teresa knew, without us even needing to tell her, that we no longer wanted anyone to take your vital signs. She told us that she called you, “Martin Martin,” Dad. She shouted from the end of the bed, “The path is clear Martin Martin! The path is clear!”

Still Processing Dolly and Gloria

It won’t embed properly but I loved this short video from an archaeologist about how we should really remember Dolly’s Appalachian childhood home.

“Dolly built something magnificent that belongs to a foundation. It is generosity without transfer of power. It is charity, and charity is what you get when justice has been ruled out in advance. That’s not a takedown. I mean it as the actual measure of her. She gave more, more consistently, to more poor people, at more personal financial cost, than basically any entertainer of her generation, and she did it while refusing to bank a single reputational point off it. Three medals turned down. A statue turned down. That’s not nothing. That’s a lot more than the people currently tweeting about her have ever done. But if the lesson America takes from Dolly Parton’s death is “be more like Dolly,” America has learned precisely fuck all.”

Gloria Steinem was a champion of men.

Here’s Steinem’s beautiful dedication, in My Life on the Road, to the doctor who performed her abortion when she was 22:

"THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED TO: Dr. John Sharpe of London, who in 1957, a decade before physicians in England could legally perform an abortion for any reason other than the health of the woman, took the considerable risk of referring for an abortion a twenty-two-year-old American on her way to India. Knowing only that she had broken an engagement at home to seek an unknown fate, he said, “You must promise me two things. First, you will not tell anyone my name. Second, you will do what you want to do with your life.” Dear Dr. Sharpe, I believe you, who knew the law was unjust, would not mind if I say this so long after your death: I’ve done the best I could with my life. This book is for you."

While we’re remembering influential people who have died recently, I loved this remembrance of Wendell Barry as a writing teacher. “At some point, I wrote a pithy little essay about body image, and Mr. Berry returned the paper with a C+ on it and a note that read: ‘This is just good enough that I wish it were better.’”

“What you see in an eclipse is entirely different from what you know. It is especially different for those of us whose grasp of astronomy is so frail that, given a flashlight, a grapefruit, two oranges, and 15 years, we still could not figure out which way to set the clocks for daylight saving time.” We’ll let Annie Dillard speak for herself.

Finally, here’s your cute kid video of the month. I can say with 100% confidence that this kid is a delight to have in class.

Simple, colorful illustration showing a pair of abstract stick figures, consisting of a taller figure and a smaller figure holding hands, with a yellow circle (head) on a stick above them. The small figure has a speech bubble with ellipsis dots, suggesting conversation. White background.

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