By the end of July, most of us at 国产吃瓜黑料 had our eyes glued to this year鈥檚 action-packed Olympic Games. But when we weren鈥檛 watching athletes like , Sifan Hassan, and triumph in Tokyo, we found time to read classic short stories, stream a soothing gardening documentary, and learn all about coyotes. Here鈥檚 everything we loved last month. 听听
What We Read
I picked up a copy of Denis Johnson鈥檚 story collection at the recommendation of associate editor Abigail Barronian, who shares my enthusiasm for writers such as Lucia Berlin, Raymond Carver, and Eve Babitz. Jesus鈥 Son, at less than 150 pages, delivers beautiful and crushing portraits of uniquely American iconoclasts. These are characters who seem to walk out of Danny Boyle鈥檚 Trainspotting and onto the eerie backdrop of Jim Jarmusch鈥檚 Midnight Train. If you鈥檙e a filmmaker, a photographer, or a person seeking some relief in the poetic tragedy of human life, this is a great one for you. 鈥擡van Grainger, assistant video producer
In July, I started reading by Dan Flores, which tells the ecological and cultural history of coyotes in North America. First revered by multiple Indigenous peoples as a mythical character鈥擟oyote Man, a clever, anthropomorphized trickster鈥攁nd later deeply misunderstood by the colonizers in the United States, coyotes have long held a complicated relationship with humans. They鈥檝e inhabited the continent for millions of years and managed to survive cruel eradication attempts by westward-moving Americans in the 1800s and 1900s (who, it should be mentioned, also slaughtered millions of wolves, bison, and other wildlife that got in the way of settling the West, many of which never fully regained their population numbers). Flores argues that the animal鈥檚 resilience has made it an emblem of North America, where it has learned to live comfortably around bustling communities, having even migrated as far east as New York City. I grew up in East San Diego, where seeing coyotes on the trails where I rode my horse was common, if not a little unnerving when their familiar yipping howl began around dusk. Reading this book helped me understand why these animals are so important to North America鈥檚 ecosystem and took me back to those special moments when I鈥檇 lock eyes with a coyote on a path before it darted into the brush. 鈥擬aura Fox, assistant editor
Although I haven鈥檛 yet had a chance to escape to the beach this summer, I鈥檝e been living vicariously through two works of literary fiction that take place in seaside locales. The first is Maggie Shipstead鈥檚 2012 debut novel, , which follows a WASPy听East Coast family over the course of a disastrous wedding weekend on the fictional New England island of Waskeke. The second, Colson Whitehead鈥檚 , is a series of vignettes about a teenager named Benji Cooper spending the summer of 1985 in a predominantly Black enclave of the Hamptons. The novels鈥 plots are comfortingly low stakes, and both Whitehead and Shipstead write in lavish, evocative prose. (For instance, here鈥檚 Whitehead鈥檚 teenage narrator on the joys of Coca-Cola: 鈥淗ow could one not be charmed by the effervescent joviality of a tall glass of the stuff鈥攖he manic activity of the bubbles, popping, reforming, popping anew, sliding up the inside of the glass to freedom, as if the beverage were actually, miraculously, caffeinated on itself. That tart first sip, preferably with ice knocking against the lips for an added sensory flourish, that stunned the brain into total recall of pleasure, of all the Cokes consumed before and all those impending Cokes, the long line of satisfaction underpinning a life.鈥) Both writers have new out this year; I鈥檓 looking forward to reading those next. 鈥擲ophie Murguia, associate editor
What We Listened To
My recommendation this month is a podcast called 鈥攁nd to be transparent, I鈥檓 blood-related to half of this podcast team, which is made up of my brother Payton Barronian and his friend Courtney Bush. They鈥檙e reading the entire Bible and making an episode about each book, which is weird, considering that Payton is an ex-Christian with some religion-related trauma and Courtney has basically never stepped foot in a church. But they鈥檙e both brilliant, funny, and deeply curious, which makes the whole experience fascinating. Christianity has, of course, profoundly shaped the Western world and many of our psyches, and this extended conversation between friends offers a welcome way to take a lighthearted, sideways look at the book that made it all happen. These old stories are weird and wild, and it鈥檚听been a gift to encounter them defanged and refracted by the lens of two joyfully agnostic minds. 鈥擜bigail Barronian, associate editor
What We Watched and Otherwise Experienced
, which you can stream on Amazon Prime, is a documentary about a massive garden created by Frank Cabot in Quebec. When Cabot inherited the land from his parents, he slowly built on the garden his mother had started years before until it morphed into a 20-acre work of art. Each section has a different theme: there鈥檚 a Japanese-style garden complete with a teahouse; a 鈥渓iving room鈥 garden, where shrubs are shorn into shapes resembling a couch and a table; two rope bridges over a huge ravine; a forest and wildflower section鈥t goes on forever. Though he began it as a private garden, Cabot, who also founded the Garden Conservancy in 1989, slowly opened up tours to the public. Since Cabot鈥檚 death in 2011, his son has stepped in as caretaker of his father鈥檚 life鈥檚 work. While The Gardener is a far cry from an edge-of-your-seat adventure film, there鈥檚 something soothing about watching the beautiful shots of flowers, vegetable gardens, and unique architecture play across the screen. 鈥擜bigail Wise, digital managing director
When I was a kid, one of my favorite original PlayStation games was Nagano Winter Olympics 鈥98 by Konami. This was before the era where you could easily look up online reviews of new releases, so I had no idea that it was, in fact, a bad game. But I liked the music and spent hours mashing the arbitrary combinations of buttons needed to perform aerial skiing tricks, sweep the curling ice, and navigate the short track. So when I saw the for PS4 on the sale shelf, I had to get it. To be clear, the Tokyo 2020 game is also not particularly great, though it鈥檚 certainly more polished than its ancestor, and the custom avatars are fun. I just enjoyed buying something off the shelf (with no research!) that I could play on the couch with my friends until we got frustrated enough to stop. This, to me, is how console gaming should be. 鈥擩on Ver Steegh, digital project manager