#michelle orange

[lostography]

...each morning I thrashed my way back into the world, having just found my footing when the sun began to set.

Michelle Orange, This Is Running for Your Life

[lostography]

It is, of course, and always has been all about the body.

Michelle Orange, This Is Running for Your Life: Essays

[lostography]

It all feels a little rushed, doesn't it--the crucible of confronting one's own taste and the terms on which it was formed?

Michelle Orange, This Is Running for Your Life: Essays

[bigtickhk]

Michelle Orange Tackles a Writerly Taboo: Her Mother

Few subjects may be as resistant to successful literary examination. But in “Pure Flame” the author, assisted by a literature on feminism and motherhood, brings a cleareyed approach to her relationship with her mother, an ambitious businesswoman.

Pure Flame: A Legacy by Michelle Orange https://amzn.to/2SYINML 

https://bookshop.org/a/17891/9780374238704

[mysticmismarriageof]

Gone Girls

Rachel Monroe's study of women and true crime – Michelle Orange

[perceptioninstitute]

Do The Right Thing at 25

Do The Right Thing, one of the greatest movies of all time, turns 25 this week. A landmark film, not only for establishing Spike Lee in the upper reaches of the pantheon of living American filmmakers, but for its searing (literally) look at African American male identity.

The Village Voice has a great essay up about the film by Michelle Orange:

Here, as elsewhere, notably the equally fascinating but exuberantly messy School Daze (1988), the frankness of a dialogue centered on problems and questions of black identity finds an unlikely complement in Lee's heightened aesthetic, a formal blend of the pointed and the playful encapsulated when his choral rhythms and compositions erupt into a full-blown musical number (about good and bad hair). Like his characters, Lee is an expressionist, enthralled by and given to performative impulses. As often as they rupture into violence, his films (especially the early ones) explode with joy, shimmer with wit and tenderness, and above all advertise a director so irrepressible he can't keep his own sloe eyes off the screen.

You can read the whole thing here. 

[booktweets-blog]

We police public 'role models,' as though it were preferable--or possible--for any one of us to see any other exactly as she is. As though perfect example is the only one worth following. Or we worry about unrealistic expectations, the flawless body that gets more distant even as it crowds us further into a corner. Well-conceived ideals require space to take hold, but they leave space too, for the determination of some ultimate self, and for self-respect.

Michelle Orange This Is Running For Your Life "The Dream (Girl) Is Over"

[housingworksbookstore]

hi housing works! i'm looking for some books for my mom. she likes creative nonfiction (especially short stories) and also books about how brains work. she really likes oliver sacks & has read all of his stuff. suggestions on either of these (contemporary or not!) would be so helpful! thank you for all yr wonderful work! <3 rae morseless

Your mom sounds super-rad, first of all. Some of my favorite creative non-fiction recent reads include:

Zadie Smith, Changing My Mind — Everything from Smith’s stint as a movie reviewer, to literary criticism, to more personal essays.

Michelle Orange, This Is Running for Your Life — Lots of pop culture, especially film, with a personal twist.

Michael Paterniti, The Telling Room: A Tale of Love, Betrayal, Revenge, and the World’s Greatest Piece of Cheese — This one isn’t a collection, it’s a whole book, but it’s so good. Paterniti tells the story of this piece of cheese in rural Spain while exploring storytelling itself. I loved it.

For how brains work, try Jon Ronson (The Psychopath Test, Lost at Sea). I’ll ask around and update this with some more for that category — comment with any ideas!