MetaFilter

Popular Mechanics asks Why the Hell Is There a Christmas Tree Shortage?
posted by ShooBoo at 10:09 PM PST - 95 comments

"How This All Happened, 5000 words tracing the boons and busts and expectations in the US since World War II.

"Things were very uncertain, then they were very good, then pretty bad, then really good, then really bad, and now here we are. And there is, I think, a narrative that links all those events together. Not a detailed account. But a story of how the details fit together."
posted by MrGuilt at 8:53 PM PST - 36 comments

John's late, and Paul's fucking around on his guitar, and suddenly magic occurs. Paul McCartney Composing Get Back (Jan 7, 1969) [2m33s] From Get Back, directed by Peter Jackson, now on D+. It's long long long, but that's because it has to be. The Beatles: Get Back Is an Eight-Hour Love Story [Slate, medium read] [more inside]
posted by hippybear at 1:53 PM PST - 111 comments

At Block Club Chicago, Ariel Parrella-Aureli covers Allison Robicelli's recent overnight stay at O'Hare International Airport.
posted by Ipsifendus at 12:47 PM PST - 31 comments

Barton Gellman,
who was right in his September 2020 Atlantic cover story
when he made you feel bad about a coming election and democracy in America
has a new Atlantic cover story
to make you feel bad about the coming election and democracy in America.
Read it to feel bad!
Like Pandora keeping hope alive inside her box,
David Atkins writes in The Washington Monthly about steps to take to feel good about American democracy, and the reasons to believe those steps are conceivable.
posted by Going To Maine at 11:06 AM PST - 78 comments

"Yiling was riding home on her motorcycle when she saw the cat. It was late evening and the air was thick with smells, but the scent of the cat rang out like the clang of a temple bell, cutting through the stench of exhaust and the oil-in-the-nose smell of fried food wafting from the roadside stalls." "The Guest" by Zen Cho is a short, sweet, funny fantasy story in which a young woman meets a cat and takes on a small magical job. [more inside]
posted by brainwane at 7:42 AM PST - 10 comments

The whole question of genre is something that female writers of all stripes have to contend with far more than their male counterparts. Just look at people’s obsession with categorising Sally Rooney. The idea that a young woman’s pastel-covered novels about millennials falling in love might qualify as literary fiction causes a fair few commentators to start frothing at the mouth: in 2019, Will Self dismissed her work as “very simple stuff with no literary ambition” during an interview to promote (and I swear I’m not making this up) a line of macarons for the restaurant Hakkasan. Emma Hughes (@emmahdhughes) writes on women's commercial fiction in The Guardian. [more inside]
posted by Bella Donna at 3:36 AM PST - 37 comments

Warning signs present in 1 in 3 homicides of intimate partners, CBC investigation finds. CW: Descriptions of graphic violence. [more inside]
posted by Alex404 at 2:05 AM PST - 43 comments

If you think that girls high school volley ball sounds like a nice little game, then you haven't been to Iowa City. Here girls volley ball is serious business, with some of the best girls in the country going head to head. The girls who come through here have reached the heights, big-time college scholarships, with dreams of national titles and Olympic medals. This is a story about a girl who achieved none of these, but might be the most celebrated of them all.
posted by dancestoblue at 1:04 AM PST - 6 comments