We’re back!
Housekeeping notes: Next Monday, paid subscribers get July’s ET Watch Home. This month’s essay will be on Jan Němec’s Report on the Party and the Guests, which is available on Criterion and Eastern European Movies dot Com if you’re interested in watching beforehand.
Paid subscribers also get the premium version of The Election Tricycle, a weekly podcast I co-host on this year’s elections in the United States, United Kingdom, and India.
With that! Onto news, views, and Jews.
THE NEWS
For the Forward, I wrote about Joe Biden and Jonah (from the Bible, not Veep).
This week on The Election Tricycle, we unpacked British election results.
There’s a new Jhumpa Lahiri interview up at Paris Review.
From Notes From Poland: “Parliament has rejected a bill that would have softened Poland’s strict abortion laws. While the measure was supported by the majority of the governing coalition, it was defeated thanks to the most conservative element of the ruling camp, which joined with the opposition to vote against it.”
I feel this is important to include here since I’ve written so lovingly of Alice Munro’s work in this newsletter. From the New York Times: “Andrea Robin Skinner, a daughter of the Canadian Nobel laureate Alice Munro, said her stepfather sexually abused her as a child — and that her mother knew about it, and chose to stay with him anyway.”
MY VIEWS ON…
…some nice things for terrible times!
Dua Lipa’s album Radical Optimism…the extended version.
How Yasujirō Ozu made the same movie over and over again.
Watching a new movie and realizing it’s instantly one of your favorites (for me, this was recently Blind Chance by Krzysztof Kieślowski).
On days that he works in the office, which is most days, Neil gets up, walks our dog, feeds her, and then brings her back into bed so that she can cuddle with me while he gets ready to leave and each time she returns as though she’s been separated from slumber and from me for a too long eternity.
The way people came together to compare and talk about what they read because of that New York Times 100 best books of the 21st century list (I’d read 28; my mom would, I am sure, like me to here add that she’d read 31).
Wine and conversation with friends.
Having a nice phone chat with your parents.
Hearing someone you respect likes your work.
When rain actually cools the day down.
Letting yourself feel hope from time to time.
Listening to Beyoncé’s Renaissance on vinyl.
Tinned fish in the summer.
Veggie burgers.
AND SOME STUFF ABOUT JEWS
I loved this profile of Theodore Meron.
From JTA: “A Jewish couple barred from adopting a child due to their religion are the face of a prominent new campaign to defend the separation of church and state. Americans United for the Separation of Church and State have made Gabe and Liz Rutan-Ram’s case the centerpiece of their critique of Project 2025, a presidential transition blueprint drawn up by conservative think tank The Heritage Foundation that has garnered intense criticism in recent weeks.” (My grandpa worked on a similar issue as a state legislator in Massachusetts …back in the 1950s.)
-ET