Lucinda Williams and the Idea of Louisiana

For The Bitter Southerner, Wyatt Williams explores his Louisiana upbringing and memories of his family and the state through the work of Lucinda Williams, the singer-songwriter born in 1953, the same year as his mother.

What I tried to type out on those nights instead was something about Lucinda’s approach as a poet: the way that, when you can’t exactly explain what you’re thinking or remembering without getting it somewhat wrong, or when the thing you’re trying to explain is inexpressible, sometimes the only way to do it is to just name your world: the places and people and things in it. Sometimes that can be the only way to explain it.

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The Sea Eagles That Returned to Mull

Emma Marris thoughtfully explores the complicated relationship between eagles and farmers on the rugged Isle of Mull. The eagle’s beauty brings tourists, but their talons kill lambs. Should they stay or go? The farmers may be despondent, but Marris describes this rewilding conflict with passion.

This pair of eagles have raised several chicks in years past. A local sheep farmer named Jamie Maclean had complained that they were raising their chicks on a steady diet of his newborn lambs, which are born in spring, just as chicks hatch. And so, with Sexton’s help, the Scottish government agreed to pay for some “diversionary feeding.” Maclean would buy fish from a local fishmonger—at retail prices—with government money, and then put them out for the eagles to eat. The idea was that with the free fish rolling in, they’d leave the lambs alone.

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Who Deserves to Eat at Noma?

There’s nothing new about writing your way through a tasting menu at one of the world’s most lauded restaurants. There is something new, though, about doing so while also being honest with your preconceptions about the restaurant and its clientele; to do so is to risk coming off like a jackass in the process. Armed with a keen descriptive voice and a dash of self-deprecation, Jason Stewart manages to steer his way through.

Like with any exclusive club, the general rule is that the crowd worsens as the years tick by, and it’s no surprise that René is shutting down next year; I’d pull the rip cord too, mate.

I imagine the edimental salad days, back when gourmand freaks with open minds and food writers craving the next big thing lined the reservation book. I got a feel for the evening’s clientele with a welcoming cider: crypto bros, ponytailed tech virgins with bottles of añejo for the chef, and their TikToking wives along for the clout-chasing ride. I’m sure these folks like eating food, but do they really deserve to eat here, the Vatican for the global food bro?

Exclusivity isn’t always bad, so long as you can exclude the right people.

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The Weird and Wonderful Life of L.A.’s Most Bizarre Celebrity Photographer

John Verzi, a former post office worker, lived in a mobile home park in Las Vegas, spending his days watching TV and nights gambling in casinos. But Verzi had an interesting past: he was a gifted photographer, who for six decades had collected 25,000 autographs and taken more than 12,000 photos, including intimate snapshots of the world’s classiest and most famous celebrities. In 2018, Verzi died in his trailer with his collection. Fleishman tells the fascinating story of this eccentric man, with fantastic photographs of movie stars from Hollywood’s golden era.

It was a life of getting to places fast, of tips, winks and confidences. Verzi drove a VW Beetle and traveled with cameras and colored index cards for autographs. He’d get a nod that Frank Sinatra might be in Beverly Hills having a drink or Lucille Ball was playing backgammon at Pips or Jim Morrison of the Doors had arrived at a West Hollywood theater to see “The Beard,” a play that was raided by police for a sex scene. Verzi kept tabs and followed whispers.

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Adorable Little Detonators

I debated on whether or not to recommend this essay on the impact of parenthood on adult friendships. At nearly 7,000 words, it’s too long, and many remarks from both the parents and childless adults Davis speaks with are whiny and irritating. But as a mother to a challenging 5-year-old and someone who constantly wonders whether she should have had a child, the piece hit a nerve. Maintaining friendships has been hard, even before I became a parent, and forming new ones is slow-going, so I work very hard to nurture the ones I have—ones that have survived our baby years, the pandemic, life. I ultimately feel for anyone, parent or not, trying to find their community right now, and root for you as you find your people. At the very least, use the piece as inspiration for a lively, heated conversation.

One Fourth of July, in my early 30s, I went upstate to spend the day with a college friend, her newborn, and one of her neighbors who had just had twins. Four new-new parents, three new-new babies, and me. Looking back, I think it was significant that my friend invited me into her life during a moment of total insanity. But at the time, I remember feeling like I suddenly had no idea who this person was anymore. She tried to engage with stories about my life but was clearly preoccupied. Meanwhile, she and her friend couldn’t stop discussing newborn bowel movements. Even if she didn’t necessarily want to be talking about poop, and was self-conscious about how much she was talking about poop, she needed to talk about her new baby, and all of the mysteries and anxieties, and feel understood by someone. I realized that I could nod and smile but never relate or soothe. I had a panic attack and left before the hot dogs got off the grill. I’m sure she was baffled by my reaction. And seven years later, I’m sure she’s still baffled, while I still have no clue what it felt like on her side of things.

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Ben Kweller is Playing Through the Pain

After facing death by near carbon-monoxide poisoning in 2013, indie artist Ben Kweller retreated from live performances for years. When his son Dorian was killed in a car accident this past February, Kweller leaned into the summer tour he and Dorian were supposed to do together, all because of a promise he’d made to his son.

In 2013, when Dorian was seven and Judah was a toddler, the Kwellers vacationed at a tiny cabin in the snowy mountains of New Mexico. One night, Liz woke up feeling sick, and as soon as Ben stood up out of bed, he fell over. They grabbed the kids and rushed outside to call 911. They were told they’d suffered acute carbon monoxide poisoning, likely due to a leaky wall furnace, and had been minutes away from death. The experience rocked Ben and sent him into a depression that caused him to cancel all his upcoming shows and retreat from playing live. He didn’t step onstage for several years. When Dorian died, Ben knew that unlike in the past, he had to keep playing. “I saw how trauma just kind of took a chunk out of my life and I can’t let that happen again,” he says.

Five months ago, just a few weeks before his planned SXSW debut, Dorian was killed in a car crash near the family’s home in Dripping Springs.

On stage, he acknowledges that some might wonder how he could continue with this tour after such a tragedy. How he could ride on the bus and plan the merch and do the sound check for a tour that started as a collaboration and is now a tribute. How he could find the motivation to give so much of himself to an audience when he’s still learning to navigate this new existence, one transformed by a kind of grief that musician Nick Cave, who has lost two sons, believes can “alter us on an almost atomic level.”

“I promised him,” Ben tells the crowd.

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The Woman on the Line

Never Use Alone (NUA), a safe-use hotline that helps to prevent overdose deaths, is a service that drug users can call while using alone. If they become unresponsive during the call, the person on the other end of the line calls for help. In this intimate piece written by Aymann Ismail and reported by Mary Harris (for her This American Life episode), we follow operator Jessica Blanchard—who is also NUA’s education director—as she answers and navigates some of these calls from her home in Southwest Georgia. A former nurse and also a mother to an addict, Blanchard is nonjudgmental, empathetic, and quite literally an angel, giving the person on the other side of each call another chance at life.

In that instant, Blanchard unlearned everything she had been taught in nursing school about drug addiction. “We’re taught drugs are bad, ‘Just Say No,’ deputy dog, D.A.R.E. That’s the kind of stuff we were taught. That’s not realistic,” she said. “We were taught, ‘Well, you did it to yourself.’ That was the mantra. For some reason, that didn’t feel right to me. I was often deemed a soft, bleeding-heart pushover. I thought I was just being nice.”

After that, Blanchard became involved in harm reduction. “I didn’t want her to die. This whole thing—every fucking thing I do is about her not dying. Then about her and her homie not dying. Now it’s about the entire town,” she said.

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