Reports of the Rapture’s imminent arrival turned out to be greatly exaggerated, so we’re back with another roundup of some of the great writing here at Paste Media. This week, our features explore the latest from Mona Awad and Cate Le Bon, a divisive sitcom character, a pointed new anime, and the Trump administration’s preoccupation with bombing boats. Read on, we’ve got at least a few hours before the next apocalypse warning.
“A tale as old as time: The miasmal assembly lines of mass-produced merchandise; a graveyard of EPCOT balls; class warfare; scavenging through the trash of a gilded theme park for scrap; rundown worker housing; and an animatronic princess, entrails spilling out of its abdomen, throwing herself from the castle tower. No one hates Disney like Dana Terrace. The animation director has concentrated her personal, professional, and maybe even existential frustration with the entertainment industry into the for-adults cyberpunk indie animation Knights of Guinevere. That its pilot premiered last week amid a mainstream backlash against the corporation is a moment of serendipity for a much more personal retribution years in the making.”
“Mona Awad, a Canadian writer who received her MFA from Brown, enjoys challenging the status quo: academia in Bunny, beauty standards in Rouge (2023), health in All’s Well (2021), and gender in all of the above. In all three books, her heroines lose touch with reality and yearn for something bigger and better than their lives; they succumb to cults in Bunny and Rouge, and to the lure of magic healing in All’s Well, which features her protagonist miraculously cured of her chronic pain. Awad’s gifts shine in her chosen tropes, but she’s occasionally failed to thoroughly interrogate the toxic environments in which her characters operate. While Rouge critiques the overwhelming whiteness of the beauty industry (drawing on Awad’s partial Egyptian heritage), Bunny is oddly silent on race and sexuality. The Bunnies, though hilariously awful, don’t really resemble real MFA students: It’s unusual these days to find an all-white MFA cohort, and I’ve never met a writing student, let alone four, who dresses like a princess or speaks in such cloying tones. While this makes a perfect environment to isolate Sam in the novel, it doesn’t resemble any kind of reality.”
From Paste Magazine
Cate Le Bon’s Installation of Healing by Elise Soutar
“Despite the overwhelming sensation her work held for me, Cate Le Bon insists she does not know how to write a love song. In the aftermath of a major breakup and a move back to her home country of Wales from California, as well as the onset of debilitating physical ailments, she insisted she didn’t want to write about the personal tumult—but found it chasing her between studios and over borders anyway, forcing her to face the heartbreak head on despite her general impulse to express emotion obliquely. The resulting record, Michelangelo Dying, contains a similar musical palette to its predecessor, but sprawls more freely, as if grandiosity is the only cure. What might be usually perceived as a sense of remoteness in her writing bubbles over into a stirring plainspokenness she had to force herself to choke up—as if the heaviness was too much to keep to herself, seeping out in the thickness of her voice.”
From Splinter
Why Are We Bombing Drug Boats? by Jen Kirby
“In August, Trump signed a secret memo ordering the military to target drug cartels, typically the purview of law enforcement. In addition to Tren de Aragua, the administration has designated other cartels and criminal gangs as foreign terrorist organizations. The United States has designated “military zones“ at the southern border. The U.S. has advanced F-35 stealth fighter jets stationed in Puerto Rico. The Drug Enforcement Administration apparently lobbied for military strikes in Mexico. U.S. Naval warships are in the waters near Venezuela, prompting real questions as to whether Donald “No New Wars“ Trump is going to invade, or carry out strikes against drug cartels within Venezuela, something reportedly discussed by the administration.”
From The A.V. Club
The Paper‘s Esmeralda Grand is a lot. Is she too much? by Saloni Gajjar
“Since she’s initially painted in broad strokes, it’s easy to write off Esmeralda as a problematic figure who gets on everybody’s nerves. This attention-seeking, crafty, and hilarious archetype is a staple in a lot of workplace sitcoms. Just look at Abbott Elementary‘s Ava Coleman (Janelle James), Brooklyn Nine-Nine’s Gina Linetti (Chelsea Peretti), 30 Rock‘s Jenna Maroney (Jane Krakowski), Parks And Recreation‘s Tom Haverford (Aziz Ansari), or Superstore‘s Dina Fox (Lauren Ash), to name a few. But with time, their narcissistic tendencies softened to make room for emotionally complex development without losing the humor. Thankfully, much like The Office pulled off with Michael and Dwight, The Paper‘s writers start to deepen Esmeralda already while maintaining her specific brand of jokes.”
