In It Together
On the joy of crowds, plus the history of Arlington National Cemetery, tales of long-distance running, Martha Stewart, Johnny Carson, Michelin-starred BBQ, and more.
It’s been a week since the election. As I typed that out, I had to check my calendar to make sure, because it felt more like six months had passed. But nope, still just a week.
The result was paradoxically great and terrible for democracy. The great was obvious: There weren’t colossal breakdowns in our national fabric; votes were made (after widespread inefficiencies in many areas led to long wait times) and votes were counted. If this doesn’t sound remarkable to you, you likely had more faith in the workings of our electoral system than roughly 50% of the country did until it was clear their man was going to win. Because it both is and isn’t remarkable, right? It’s remarkable what we get to do every two years as citizens, and it’s remarkable that it works as well as it does. It’s likewise remarkable that we’ve done it for so long now that it’s begun to seem unremarkable. We are the gold standard when it comes to this sort of thing, and we’ve got the receipts to prove it. Democracy, and its association with the “will of the people,” won out.
But a bitter truth about democracy is what our once and soon-to-be-again president failed to grasp: Sometimes the other guy wins. So as we might raise a glass to the notion that the system once again held, that our norms and laws carried the day, it’s worth remembering to pour one out for the vision of America that was just voted for by, at last count, more than 75.1 million of our friends, family members, neighbors, and strangers.
For all they were voting for, the basic tenets of democracy were not high on that list, namely because the candidate for whom they pledged their support did not rate them very highly. The systems and norms that are powered by democracy were dealt a blow by Donald Trump’s reelection. That much is simply true, and the fact that it might be viewed as irrelevant to those who so fervently support him is saddening. It might, for some, be difficult to comprehend that degree of disconnect; it might make them distrustful of friends, family members, neighbors, and strangers. It might make them want to withdraw, to close ranks, to shelter in place from what appears to be endemic spread of terrible ideas and even worse messaging. But I’m going to advocate for its opposite.
Without planning to, Courtney and I found ourselves in the company of others this weekend, and you know what? It lifted us up. It buoyed our spirits. And this might be tempting for some to say, “See? Things really aren’t that bad. I don’t see what all the fuss is about.” That, quite frankly, is too simplistic to be taken seriously. Real damage to democracy is being threatened and the results—to institutions, sure, but to individual human beings—will be catastrophic in some (or many) instances. No amount of relaxation and fun discounts that, but it does show us a way through it.
We shared meals and stories and played games and, most importantly, laughed and enjoyed the camaraderie. It wasn’t a showy reminder, but it did remind us of what was important, what we valued, and who we wanted to share our lives with. I hope the same is possible for you, if not this past week then in those to come.
Ten Worth Your Time
- Yesterday was both my little brother’s 30(!) birthday and Veterans Day, of which he is numbered as well. With service on the mind, I thought I’d share this cool history lesson on how Arlington National Cemetery, where the National Veterans Day Ceremony is held, came to be.
- Will Leitch wrote a particularly uplifting account of his experience running the New York City Marathon for New York magazine. It was a nice reminder of the connections available to us as humans. One subsection reads in its entirety:
I lived in New York City for 14 years. On marathon days, I would usually roll out of bed, cigarettes and vodka-heavy screwdriver in hand, and cheer incoherently for people I did not know to run faster. I did this mostly for me, to make myself feel useful, to feel like I was part of something that I would never have considered participating in myself. Now that I’m a runner (and considerably healthier) and have been on the other side of that rope, I sort of want to hug old me for his support. When you come out to cheer people on, it legitimately makes a difference to them. I think it might have saved me in this race.
- From things I’ll likely never do (run a marathon) to things I’ll definitely never do: run an ultramarathon. But as this New York Times story’s headline indicates (When Running 250 Miles Is The Easy Part), rarely are the challenges simply putting one foot in front of the other for one young runner with autism.
- This Eater article is just a lot of fun. The writer attempts to host a party guided to the letter by Martha Stewart’s 1982 book, Entertaining. It’s a recitation of her party preparation and meditations on what Stewart means to culture, both then and now.
- Johnny Carson left The Tonight Show before I really came of age to appreciate him, but what I do remember are those long-forgotten compilations that were advertised at length on cable, which were essentially YouTube clips long before YouTube was a thing. I remember him with cracking wise with famous guests but more than anything I remember him being introduced to countless animals. I remember laughing not just at the cute or impressive things the animals did, but at Carson’s interaction with them, so quick off the cuff. I remember thinking what a shame that I’d missed out on so much that made me laugh so consistently. All of this is to say that Johnny Carson was more legend than man to me as I grew up, and I was put back in the frame of mind when I read Isaac Butler’s review of a new Carson biography in The New Yorker.
- For a deeper dive on Carson, here’s a delightful Youtube playlist of the man with those aforementioned animals. His utter joy while holding one of the twin orangutans babies, his amazement at Poncho the singing parrot, and the quick-witted put-up-your-dukes posturing after a young baboon punches him in the mouth are some of my favorites. And for those eager to go even deeper, here’s a link to the Esquire story that Butler mentioned in passing, the one interview Carson agreed to after his retirement. (Fair warning: This one requires a subscription.)
- I recently got a chuckle out of a Bluesky post that answered the unspoken question “What’s the matter with young people these days?” about as good as any other guess: They got to go straight to high speed internet. I was thinking of that post when I read the news that Elwood Edwards, the voice of AOL’s “You’ve Got Mail,” had passed away. AOL did a short profile in honor of the man whose voice became synonymous with the internet for many of us. It’s an interesting detail that the four phrases that Edwards recorded were all purchased for a flat $200, which seems incredibly cheap for how ubiquitous the company would be in the early booming years of the internet. Edwards’s human touch was something that modern companies, like ChatGPT, could learn from, argues Bloomberg Businessweek.
- A few weeks ago, I wrote about Point Nemo, the most remote place on Earth. I felt it was a somewhat in conversation with this piece from National Geographic about the largest uninhabited island in the world, the Arctic’s Devon Island.
- From the uninhabited to the very inhabited, this excerpt from Jared Sullivan’s Valley So Low: One Lawyer’s Fight for Justice in the Wake of America’s Great Coal Catastrophe ran in Oxford American felt like a hometown tale. Not only was it in my native Tennessee, but just outside of Knoxville, which was home for years; when it described the twin smokestacks of the Kingston Fossil Plant, I could picture them in my mind’s eye, standing as they ever have on every trip I’ve ever made to and from Knoxville. It’s the story of an industrial disaster “nearly a hundred times larger than the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill, and it would rank as the single largest industrial disaster in U.S. history in terms of volume.” It’s the story of the 2008 coal ash disaster of Kingston, Tennessee.
- Who ever said BBQ can’t be fancy? Probably somebody from my hometown, where pulled pork from Pappy John’s is a reliably affordable way to feed many mouths and thus was often catered as a banquet food of choice. I’ve experienced more famed and fancy BBQ that’s certainly elevated its standing in my mind, but now apparently there are not one, not two, not three, but four Texas BBQ joints with a coveted Michelin star.
More From Me
Over on my blog, I’ve been writing about various topics of interest to me.
Panic World: An Internet Rabbit Hole of the Best Kind
Consuming Malcolm Gladwell's New Book as a Podcast
Culture Diary
Here’s a collection of what I’ve been consuming in the past week.
The legend for my list was stolen from Steven Soderbergh, where ALL CAPS represents a movie, Sentence Case is a TV show, ALL CAPS ITALICS is a short film, Italics is a book, and bold is a live performance or show. A number in parentheses after a TV show highlights how many episodes I watched. An asterisk after an entry means it’s a rewatch. The source of the movie or show, whether streaming service, physical media, or in theaters, is shown in parentheses as well.