Getty / w-ings Today, in Tonya Harding news: Taffy Brodesser-Akner has written a wonderful profile of Harding for the New York Times, and it’s a good read if you feel like crying. It also does a wonderful job of contextualizing Harding’s struggle with the skating judges even before her career was destroyed by her ex-husband’s […]
Megan Burbank
Posted inArts
Beyond The Americans
At Blue Sky Gallery, an Essential Look into the Life and Work of Photographer Robert Frank
At Blue Sky Gallery, an Essential Look into the Life and Work of Photographer Robert Frank
Posted inNational Politics
Let’s Discuss Daphne Merkin’s Bad Take on #MeToo
nito100 / Getty Daphne Merkin, a writer who, frankly, I expect better of, has written a very bad take on the #MeToo movement for the New York Times under the header “Publicly, We Say #MeToo. Privately, We Have Misgivings.” It does not improve from there! Let’s dive in. But privately, I suspect, many of us, […]
Posted inBooks
Sung Yim’s Debut Memoir Depicts Trauma and Recovery With No Empty Platitudes
Author photo by Jason Quigley “[A]s my mom and I both know she failed to love me right, we also both know she always did love me,” writes Sung Yim in their new memoir, What About the Rest of Your Life. “That’s why love can be both arbitrary and dangerous.” That line contains Yim’s central […]
Posted inNational Politics
Vice Has Always Had a Woman Problem
So hip. So edgy. So sexist! PeopleImages / Getty By now, you’ve heard the news: America’s newfound reckoning with sexual abuse and assault (both are wrong! AND EVERYWHERE!) has hit every industry, it seems, including journalism. Case in point: recent departures at Vice following news of widespread mistreatment of women employees. The New York Times‘ […]
Posted inBooks
Sung Yim’s Debut Is One to Watch
What About the Rest of Your Life Depicts Trauma and Recovery With No Empty Platitudes
“[A]s my mom and I both know she failed to love me right, we also both know she always did love me,” writes Sung Yim in their new memoir, What About the Rest of Your Life. “That’s why love can be both arbitrary and dangerous.” That line contains Yim’s central throughline: the way loving an […]
Posted inMovies & TV
The Mercury‘s Favorite Movies of 2017: Lady Bird
With the exception of the 1994 version of Little Women, very few movies can make me cry for a sustained hour and a half. But Lady Bird is one of them. For ladies of a certain age (let’s say “old millennials,” aged 29-31, ballpark) who grew up with dial-up and flip phones and theater camp—but […]
Posted inNews
Remembering 2017: When Witches Cast a Spell on He Who Must Not Be Named
GETTY / VERAPETRUK [Yeah, go ahead and tell me 2017 sucked. Much of it did, but it was also an exciting year for activism and major progress at the state level on reproductive rights. Please join in me in a retrospective look at all the shit that got done this year thanks to scrappy activists, […]
Posted in?!?!?
Remembering 2017: The Week We Published a Newspaper With No Men in It
MARLOWE DOBBE [Do you remember this? It was a real thing we did. It still fills me with pride whenever I remember it. —MB] It’s the shameful open secret of our industry: Journalism is kind of a boys’ club. Since 2009, VIDA: Women in Literary Arts has tracked the gender breakdown of bylines in major […]
Posted inNews
Remembering 2017: When Sexual Assault and Harassment Finally Started Having Consequences
FRANCKREPORTER / GETTY IMAGES [Yeah, go ahead and tell me 2017 sucked. Much of it did, but it was also an exciting year for activism and major progress at the state level on reproductive rights. Please join in me in a retrospective look at all the shit that got done this year thanks to scrappy […]
Posted inNews
Remembering 2017: That Time Oregon Passed Its Most Comprehensive Reproductive Rights Law Yet
SEBASTIAN KACZOROWSKI / GETTY [Yeah, go ahead and tell me 2017 sucked. Much of it did, but it was also an exciting year for activism and major progress at the state level on reproductive rights. Please join in me in a retrospective look at all the shit that got done this year thanks to scrappy […]
Posted inNews
Remembering 2017: That Time I Followed the Northwest’s Regional Abortion Fund Through Their First Week
ILLUSTRATION BY SYLVIA STØLAN [Yeah, go ahead and tell me 2017 sucked. Much of it did, but it was also an exciting year for activism and major progress at the state level on reproductive rights. Please join in me in a retrospective look at all the shit that got done this year thanks to scrappy […]