Required Reading
This week: a 200-year-old message in a bottle, the poetry of Marcellus Williams, Ta-Nehisi Coates changes his mind, a new Mozart banger, and much more.
‣ Archaeological students in France recently found what they say is a 200-year-old message in a bottle, Julia Binswanger writes for Smithsonian Magazine. (Reminds me of having to artificially age paper in elementary school by dunking it in black tea, but hey, an exciting prospect nonetheless):
The site is located near Dieppe, a port town in Normandy, and it was once home to an ancient Gaulish village. During recent excavations, the students found a salt bottle inside a clay pot, per a post on the town of Eu’s Facebook page. The bottle was resting beside two coins.
“It was an absolutely magic moment,” excavation leader Guillaume Blondel, who works as an archaeologist for the town, tells BBC News’ Hugh Schofield. “We knew there had been excavations here in the past, but to find this message from 200 years ago—it was a total surprise.”
The archaeological site, which sits on a cliff, is in danger due to erosion, and the student volunteers are trying to learn as much as they can about the area before it’s too late. So far, they’ve discovered several pieces of 2,000-year-old pottery and other artifacts from the same period.
‣ Ella Dorn opines in the New Statesman about an upcoming AI-generated art review by late art critic Brian Sewell ... who "hasn’t had any by-lines in nine years, mostly on account of being dead":
The ironies of this stunt are carefully calculated: the critic was fascinated by forgeries and counterfeiters, and once admitted to actually painting over a faux Hogarth and selling it to the Tate. He made a point of declaring himself “unmoved” by Young British Artists (distrust of the new, perhaps?). It is funny to dispatch a robot to review Van Gogh, a man so overwhelmed by the force of human emotion that he cut off his own ear. Sewell’s estate are said to be “delighted” with the arrangement, which the Standard claim will be a one-off.
Readers of the slimmer, rarer “London Standard” (as is the rebrand) are being scammed. Not only is the title trying to bring Sewell back from beyond the grave, but the cover of its first edition features an AI rendered Keir Starmer too. It is – like all AI “art” so far – uncanny and unappealing to look at. And it’s certainly noteworthy that a newspaper struggling to survive in the digital age has not resisted this supposed AI revolution, but submitted to it. The entire gesture is rather supine.
‣ For Intelligencer, Ryu Spaeth delves into Ta-Nehisi Coates's new book on insidious mythmaking and the lethal power of narrative, rooted in the misconceptions about the occupation of Palestine that he himself once believed:
Coates traveled to the region on a ten-day trip in the summer of 2023. “It was so emotional,” he told me. “I would dream about being back there for weeks.” He had known, of course, in an abstract sense, that Palestinians lived under occupation. But he had been told, by journalists he trusted and respected, that Israel was a democracy — “the only democracy in the Middle East.” He had also been told that the conflict was “complicated,” its history tortuous and contested, and, as he writes, “that a body of knowledge akin to computational mathematics was needed to comprehend it.” He was astonished by the plain truth of what he saw: the walls, checkpoints, and guns that everywhere hemmed in the lives of Palestinians; the clear tiers of citizenship between the first-class Jews and the second-class Palestinians; and the undisguised contempt with which the Israeli state treated the subjugated other. For Coates, the parallels with the Jim Crow South were obvious and immediate: Here, he writes, was a “world where separate and unequal was alive and well, where rule by the ballot for some and the bullet for others was policy.” And this world was made possible by his own country: “The pushing of Palestinians out of their homes had the specific imprimatur of the United States of America. Which means that it had my imprimatur.”
That it was complicated, he now understood, was “horseshit.” “Complicated” was how people had described slavery and then segregation. “It’s complicated,” he said, “when you want to take something from somebody.”
‣ "Microaggression" is a bit of a misnomer, and a new study concretizes the disproportionately harmful impact that online racism directed toward Black women can have on other Black women's sleep quality. Matt Shipman writes in NC State University News:
In-person microaggressions were associated with lower sleep quality scores, but only the vicarious online microaggressions were uniquely associated with greater likelihood of clinically-relevant poor sleep quality.
“Study participants were asked how frequently they were exposed to vicarious online microaggressions, and they answered on a 0-5 scale,” Volpe explains. “We found that for each unit you go up on that 0-5 scale, the likelihood of clinically-relevant poor sleep quality goes up by 33%.
“The fact that vicarious online microaggressions can adversely impact Black women seems particularly relevant in this election year, with the first Black woman serving as the presidential nominee of a major political party.”
‣ After the state of Missouri executed Marcellus Williams on Tuesday based on shoddy testimony and no DNA evidence, his poems began circulating on social media. In one he reflects on the children of Palestine, on "fireflies dancing in step with the light of the moon" in another. You can read his book of poetry Perspectives and Emotions for free online.
‣ Writer Yashica Dutt, whose 2019 memoir Coming Out as Dalit offered a groundbreaking personal account of casteism, launched her Substack Featuring Dalits this week with a report on caste in Indian film and TV:
In the summer of 2023, Zoya Akhtar’s Amazon Prime Series Made in Heaven — a show ostensibly focused on the lavish Indian wedding complex — unblinkingly created a character that lifted directly from my public work and likeness. Pointing out this seemingly obvious (to me and at least 50,000 of the show’s viewers based on reactions online) fact led the show makers to target an intimidating and vindictive publicity campaign that lasted for months, brutally picking apart my personal and professional life, on social media and in various Indian media and tabloid outlets.
‣ Over three years after the death of musician and DJ Sophie, Jia Tolentino reviews her posthumous album and muses on her lasting creative legacy in the New Yorker:
The album also serves as a reminder of what Sophie had already changed. Her career began at a time when underground-adjacent dance music leaned masculine. Today, the dance floor has been thoroughly feminized and re-queered, leaving this album with nothing to demonstrate or explain. On “Why Lies,” BC Kingdom sings, “I just wanna party with my friends / To the end of the world, immaterial boys and girls / So please save that drama for your mama and daddy and your granny.” The commercial flirtations of Sophie’s work a decade ago led, eventually, to hyperpop—a genre that was effectively named and commercialized by Spotify, and which has nonetheless given rise to a diverse crop of independent artists. “Sophie” pulls back from this world of candy-and-gasoline excesses with a self-assurance that feels lavish in itself.
‣ Dearest gentle reader: It appears the Willy Wonka Experience has competition. Giri Nathan explains this utter flop of a Bridgerton-themed "ball" for Defector:
Gown-clad attendees arriving in limos on Sunday evening absolutely had themselves an Uncle & Me-ass experience upon entry. The assembled testimony across Twitter, Reddit, and local news is damning. According to attendees, despite the prices, there was apparently no particular programming for the event. Tickets were not scanned; "random people" wandered into the venue; vendors were peddling Kit Kats; the dinner, which included chicken wings and blue drink, was reportedly raw; cups were reused. Period-appropriate entertainment consisted of a pole dancer and a solitary violinist.
‣ A peek into the art of crafting tactile picture books for Blind and visually impaired children, starting with the beloved Gruffalo character:
https://www.instagram.com/reel/C_vDR_xqjJc/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link&igsh=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==
‣ German researchers just discovered a lost Mozart composition in the depths of a municipal library, and it's a certified banger. Beethoven, you have 24 hours to respond:
https://www.tiktok.com/@x.chxrli.xox/video/7418264815673642272
‣ And finally, Pesto the colossal nine-month-old penguin is here to remind us that no matter how big you get, you'll always be your mom's baby 🥺:
https://www.tiktok.com/@kevinxpizano/video/7417867347869945131
Required Reading is published every Thursday afternoon, and it is comprised of a short list of art-related links to long-form articles, videos, blog posts, or photo essays worth a second look.
