Lucy Sante! Many other beautiful things!

Hope you’re hanging in there. We technically already sent a newsletter out this week, but it didn’t have a Weekly Rhubarb so it doesn’t count, ya know? So here’s another one.

It was truly such a treat to interview Lucy Sante for this week’s episode. What a joy to speak with someone who has so much knowledge and experience about so many topics that matter to me — memoir and literature, New York punk history, the economic precarity that artists and journalists currently find themselves in, etc etc — but who also is a true baby trans. YMMV as you listen, but I found her energy to be very grounding and calming. And fun!

This is the Lucy before & after picture referenced in the episode, by the way! Unhinged of me to include a before & after pic in this newsletter, but she put it in the book, and her PR people sent it to me for use, and I was like sure, why not, we all agree it's a consensual little joke here! 

There’s a quote I read in the episode that goes like this: “Youth today seems balkanized, splitting themselves into smaller and smaller units and feuding with others over “the narcissism of minor differences.” This is true with regard to identity politics, but it even extends to music and culture in general.” Yesterday, I bumped into a NYT article (sorry!) I think supports this quote very well, so here’s a gift link to that. 

(I just randomly had the thought: do people think I give money to the NYT and WaPo, since I’m often sending gift links? The answer is that I absolutely don’t, but generous patrons with legacy subscriptions let me use their accounts and gift links, and I’m very grateful to them.)

Anyway! I also recommend reading Lucy’s essay Commerce, which she mentioned on the podcast as one of her all-time favorites. (Content warning for drug use, suicide, that kinda vibe.)

We also talk about Cecilia Gentili’s service in this week’s episode. You’ve surely heard about the service and its fallout by now, either from us or on social media or in the mainstream news(!?!), but here are two stories about the service that I recommend:

• “A Mother to Us All” in Interview Magazine, featuring photos and quotes from Cecilia’s family and friends.
• “The Matriarchal Legacy of Cecilia Gentili” by Grace Byron, for Vogue.

Photo: A screenshot from the Interview Mag article linked above, which features Tomás Matos saying "Every time I put a heel on, bitch, and every time that I suck a dick, bitch, I'm going to be like, 'Y'all, Cecilia would be proud.'"

Next week on the show, I’m excited to share my conversation with artist Shing Yin Khor. Shing is a true multimedia artist and maker; their creations include graphic novels,“keepsake games,” tarot decks, webcomics, marionettes, divination tools, Gritty t-shirts, large immersive installations, and Animal Crossing-based performance art, among other things. I really recommend taking a look at their work before you listen tomorrow! (They’ve been making a lot of fun wooden puppets lately. Why not?)

Photo: Shing wearing overalls and posing with a marionette they made. 

I know I’ve already included many links, but brace yourself because there are several more coming at ya. Here’s Links & Stuff.

Palestine/activism:

• Artist Victor I. Cazares has stopped taking their HIV meds until the NYTW calls for a ceasefire in Gaza (!!!!!)
• Speaking of, please donate to one of these vetted GoFundMes helping families escape Gaza
• Flaming Hydra (a great new media cooperative!) just de-paywalled their interview with Barbara Smith

Everything else:

• I finally clicked purchase on a bunch of Secret Room’s Life On Earth prints so I can now officially tell y’all to go buy some without worrying they’ll sell out :)
• One writer was brave enough to write a followup to The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas and it’s a banger tbqh 
• A freelancer actually went to Bari Weiss’s “anti-woke” “college” “class” and it’s as lol lmao as you expect!!
• This is a great new article to point to if anyone tries to tell you that “transgressive comedy” (meaning the Shane Gillises of the world) is important lol
• Last but not least: thank you for this one, Danny. 

That’s it for this week. Here’s your Weekly Rhubarb, courtesy of my roommate. One of the all-time best IMHO!!!!

Photo: Ruby tucked into a blanket, sleeping cozily. 

Xo,

Yr resident gender detective