annotations: a comic and an essay (both good)
How to draw a horse; say hello to Emily; and other things I read
This is annotations, a newsletter in which I annotate a story (or stories) every two weeks and also read and write other stuff.
annotated: two stories that excavate the personal through art
This marks the second time I am taking a broader look at multiple stories instead of annotating just one. Up today are:
“How to Draw a Horse” by Emma Hunsinger for The New Yorker
“The Catastrophist, or: On coming out as trans at 37” by Emily Todd VanDerWerff for Vox.com.
Collage by me lol. Illustrations (L-R) by: Emma Hunsinger, Annie Mok.
On the surface level, it may seem like a bit of an odd pairing: “How to Draw a Horse” is a comic, while “The Catastrophist” is a text-based essay (albeit with some beautifully expressive illustrations). One is ostensibly about, well, how to draw a horse, while the other is about a well-known TV critic’s experience coming out as trans.
But at their core, they are similarly moving stories that use similar techniques to engage in a similar type of exercise: that of revealing deeply personal truths through the study and dissection of art, which intertwines with revelations and journeys of the most intimate kind.
“It is impossible to write about something as personal as art without revealing at least something of yourself,” VanDerWerff writes toward the end of her essay. She begins with the personal: “In March 2018, I came out to myself as a trans woman. Six weeks later, I started having the dream.” The Handmaid’s Tale makes its appearance only a few paragraphs later, an equally important and inextricable part of the narrative. The inclusion of the series isn’t just a nod to VanDerWerff’s role as a critic, nor a cheap framing device; it’s essential to her subconscious fixations, and, as she describes it, a vital step in how she learns to acknowledge her womanhood. Shifting between her personal account and The Handmaid’s Tale in alternating sections, VanDerWerff weaves both components into the story of Emily, herself, coming to terms with her identity and her name in this particular time and place.
While VanDerWerff’s essay opens nakedly with the personal, Hunsinger’s comic develops as more of a dawning realization. The story and each section kick off with the art of drawing horses, before transitioning to the artist’s life, her youth, her fixation on a classmate. The described key elements to drawing a horse—the body, the movement, the mystery—are about the animal, but also about the artist herself, an analogy for her behavior around the girl she likes. Almost an inversion of VanDerWerff’s alternating personal-art structure (personal —> art —> personal —> art —> personal, etc.), in this comic, the art clears the path for the personal. A gentle reveal.
Published within a few days of each other, the parallels between these two works are striking, although they have slightly different starting points. I like the mix of personal essay and art rumination, and how those two strands inform and build on each other in both pieces. They disarm, in a good way.
read
The incels going under the knife to reshape their faces to become more “Chad”-like, and the plastic surgeon who has become their go-to. (Bonus: an interesting Q&A with the writer, Alice Hines, on how she reported the story.) [The Cut]
Jamie Lauren Keiles really wrote the feature that made me want to donate to Mike Gravel’s presidential campaign that literal leftist teenagers are running!! [NYT Magazine]
A story by Min Jin Lee, author of very good book Pachinko. [The New Yorker]
On the existential fear of losing your online persona. [Lithub]
Why New York can’t have nice things (save for after you’ve just had a particularly awful subway ride). [Intelligencer]
noted
I found this useful and think some of you may, too: Anne Helen Petersen’s method for book reading/research (ultimately in service of book writing). It’s worth reading in full if you, too, are thinking of writing a book or another long thing, but here’s the tl;dr of how to “gut” a pile of books:
Compile books and organize according to different buckets
Read a book’s intro and first chapter closely, then start skimming the rest of it (underlining or highlighting along the way)
Transcribe all underlined/highlighted portions and organize in Scrivener
Tweet about it or talk about it in some way outside your own head to fully digest the material
May we all write the books we want to someday!
wrote
P.S. You may have heard that the Vox Media Union (of which I am a member) walked out of work on Thursday in our fight for a fair contract. As of press time, our bargaining committee is still going at it (they have literally been bargaining non-stop since yesterday morning, including through the night!). Your support in the form of a tweet, a RT, etc. would be appreciated!
Yours in solidarity,