Author Archives

Em Perper
Bookseller, writer, editor.

‘In the Name of Our Own Fear’: Eula Biss on Vaccination, Privilege and Fear

In light of the recent measles outbreak in California, I want to share this excerpt from an interview with Eula Biss, author of On Immunity. After the birth of her first child, Biss’s research turned to vaccination, and she ruminated on a culture in which no man, woman or child is an island. Michael Schulson interviewed Biss at Salon:

Salon: You point out that people who oppose vaccination tend to be wealthier, whiter and more educated than the population at large. Why does this kind of social (but not medical) immunity hold a particular attraction for this demographic group?

Eula Biss: I should say that there are a few different demographics that tend not to vaccinate.

I think there’s a lot going on there, actually. Maybe the largest component is the kind of thinking that attends privilege. What I mean is a pattern of thought that’s been developed over a long period of time.

One of the favorite narratives [of privilege] is that we’ve just worked harder, so we deserve more. But there’s another narrative. It has to do with vulnerability, and that’s a narrative that I first started thinking about and noticing when I was writing about race. It justifies certain ways of wielding privilege, on the argument that the person who is privileged is actually not powerful but very, very vulnerable and needing protection, and that the people who are dangerous are the people who are less privileged. There’s a story line that runs something like this: vaccination may be OK for some people, but my child is uniquely vulnerable. My child is actually too vulnerable to receive this preventative medicine, and therefore I’m going to opt out of this public health initiative to spare my child this risk.

Salon: The healthcare system is large and confusing. To what extent does anti-vaccination sentiment involve individuals trying to reckon with these enormous systems that are just so hard for us to comprehend?

Biss: I think there are many, many facets to this question, and I think that is one facet. In some cases, lack of information and lack of understanding is compounded by the fact that vaccination works quite differently from other medical interventions. Just because you understand something else, like how stitches or aspirin work, it doesn’t mean you’ll understand vaccination in great detail without having it explained to you.

One of the shortcomings of our medical system is that doctors have very little time with their patients. There isn’t really the time for a doctor to sit down and carefully explain to you how the vaccines are working, what each of the different diseases are that your child is being vaccinated against, why those diseases are of concern, who they’re of concern to, and basically the whole public health strategy or justification behind mass vaccination.

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Björk’s New Album Is ‘Almost Like a Diary’

Photo: Peter Reid

This time, it’s personal: Björk describes her latest album, Vulnicura, as a singer/songwriter endeavor. In this extraordinary interview with Jessica Hopper (an excerpt from the upcoming issue of the Pitchfork Review), the enigmatic musician talks candidly about sexism in the arts and her musical partnerships and influences, and she touches briefly on the emotional devastation that inspired her songs. Here, Björk shares her advice for other women artists:

I have to say—I got a feeling I am going to win in the long run, but I want to be part of the zeitgeist, too. I want to support young girls who are in their 20s now and tell them: You’re not just imagining things. It’s tough. Everything that a guy says once, you have to say five times. Girls now are also faced with different problems. I’ve been guilty of one thing: After being the only girl in bands for 10 years, I learned—the hard way—that if I was going to get my ideas through, I was going to have to pretend that they—men—had the ideas. I became really good at this and I don’t even notice it myself. I don’t really have an ego. I’m not that bothered. I just want the whole thing to be good. And I’m not saying one bad thing about the guys who were with me in the bands, because they’re all amazing and creative, and they’re doing incredible things now. But I come from a generation where that was the only way to get things done. So I have to play stupid and just do everything with five times the amount of energy, and then it will come through.

When people don’t credit me for the stuff I’ve done, it’s for several reasons. I’m going to get very methodical now! [laughs] One! I learned what a lot of women have to do is make the guys in the room think it was their idea, and then you back them up. Two! I spend 80% of the writing process of my albums on my own. I write the melodies. I’m by the computer. I edit a lot. That for me is very solitary. I don’t want to be photographed when I’m doing that. I don’t invite people around. The 20% of the album process when I bring in the string orchestras, the extras, that’s documented more. That’s the side people see. When I met M.I.A., she was moaning about this, and I told her, “Just photograph yourself in front of the mixing desk in the studio, and people will go, ‘Oh, OK! A woman with a tool, like a man with a guitar.’” Not that I’ve done that much myself, but sometimes you’re better at giving people advice than doing it yourself. I remember seeing a photo of Missy Elliott at the mixing desk in the studio and being like, a-ha!

It’s a lot of what people see. During a show, because there are people onstage doing the other bits, I’m just a singer. For example, I asked Matmos to play all the beats for the Vespertine tour, so maybe that’s kind of understandable that people think they made them. So maybe it’s not all sexist evil. [laughs] But it’s an ongoing battle. I hope it doesn’t come across as too defensive, but it is the truth. I definitely can feel the third or fourth feminist wave in the air, so maybe this is a good time to open that Pandora’s box a little bit and air it out.

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Slither and Hiss: Four Stories About Snakes

This week, I’m sharing four stories about snakes and the people who love, hate, and tolerate them in equal measure. But first, a haiku:

Scary, beautiful
Important to religion
Slithering and scaled.

1. “The Pentecostal Serpent.” (Asher Elbein, The Bitter Southerner, September 2014)

An Atlanta zoo. A dusty office at the University of Tennessee. The mountains of Appalachia. A small church in Alabama. How has the life of the handled snake touched each of these? Read more…

Paradise Lost: ‘I Did Not Die. I Did Not Go to Heaven’

Photo: AJ Mangoba

Alex Malarkey was paralyzed from the neck down in a car accident when he was six years old. The young boy claimed to have visited heaven, seen his stillborn sister and talked with Jesus. Years later, he began to recant the story touted in his bestselling book, but no one would listen–until now. Michelle Dean reports at The Guardian:

“I did not die. I did not go to heaven. When I made the claims, I had never read the Bible. People have profited from lies, and continue to. They should read the Bible, which is enough,” Alex wrote.

Jokes playing on his surname have been made far and wide, but Alex Malarkey is not James Frey for the evangelical set. He was not, and still is not, an adult. He is dependent on the care of others. Contesting this book would mean discrediting his own father as his co-author. It would also pit Alex against an evangelical publishing industry that has made huge profits off too-good-to-be-true memoirs that demand readers take them, quite literally, on faith.

At a time when publishing is under pressure from Amazon and e-books, near-death experience books are reliable, even phenomenon-level business: the story of [Colton] Burpo – which includes visions of Jesus on a horse and his miscarried baby sister during an emergency appendectomy – has reportedly sold more than 10m books, and The Boy Who Came Back From Heaven moved over 1m copies before its publisher pulled the book from shelves on Friday.

The publisher, Tyndale House, said in a statement it was “saddened to learn” that its co-author “is now saying that he made up the story of dying and going to heaven.” Since the scandal broke, the Malarkeys have not spoken publicly. According to family members, Kevin Malarkey seems to be standing by the book. The agent who sold Alex’s story to Tyndale House – who reassured them by telling them how the book money could help, his mother wrote on her blog – has also remained silent.

But a closer look at family correspondence and social media postings in the years in between reveals how a push for sales can obscure the truth when it’s easier not to listen. Since at least 2011, Alex and Beth Malarkey have been telling people, on her blog, that the memoir had substantial inaccuracies. Emails obtained by the Guardian from Phil Johnson make clear they have been telling the publisher directly since at least 2012.

When pressed to acknowledge the prior correspondence, Tyndale House admitted in a statement that: “For the past couple of years we have known that Beth Malarkey … was unhappy with the book, and believed it contained inaccuracies.”

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The Danger of Playing Favorites

“Professor?” he said.

I was sitting at my desk. He was still in the doorway. He probably wanted me to ask him to sit, but I didn’t want to. I wanted him to leave so I could finish making the copies and then have a cup of coffee with my husband, whose office is down the hall.

“You should know something,” he said.

I didn’t make eye contact — not because I’m shy but because I was hoping to indicate benevolent annoyance. “What’s that?” I said.

“People are talking,” he said.

“People are talking?”

“About your favorites.”

“My favorites?”

“Who your favorite students are.”

– At The Millions, author Hannah Pittard is equal parts fascinated and repulsed by favoritism. As a child, Pittard wanted to be the family favorite. Now an adult, Pittard must face her childhood desire to be loved and decide how she wants to translate her love for her nieces and her dedication to her students.

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Committed: Stories About Stays in Psychiatric Facilities

In this week’s list, I wanted to share the experiences of those committed—voluntarily or not—to a psychiatric facility. From One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest to Nellie Bly’s 19th century expose to American Horror Story: Asylum, the “madhouse” occupies a weird space in America’s psyche, equal parts fascinating and feared. But the experiences of the patients and their caretakers are, obviously, very different than sensationalized cinematic accounts.

1. “Something More Wrong.” (Katherine B. Olson, The Big Roundtable, July 2013)

In this well-wrought essay, Katherine B. Olson profiles Alice Trovato, a woman and patient who mothers her unofficial charges and strives to make the most of her stay at Creedmoor Psychiatric Center in the greens of Queens. Read more…

The Comfortable, Comic Genius of ‘Broad City’

Broad City returns tonight, much to the glee of critics and fans alike. At Grantland, Rachel Syme spent time with the comic geniuses behind the show, Abbi Jacobson and Ilana Glazer:

Some people just naturally fall into shtick, and these two can ping-pong forever. It’s chemical, sui generis, and extremely lucky; if you believe in magical forces, then you might call it fated.

“Look, sometimes it is still hard,” sighed Glazer. “Some people are scared of us, and some think we are dumb little girls. But the way we combat that is just being ourselves in meetings. And having a partner makes that so easy, because when all else fails, I’ll just talk across the table at Abbi like we are chilling by ourselves.”

“Honestly, we regularly forget that other people are in these meetings with us,” Jacobson said.” We are so used to just talking to each other. We do it all day long, all night long. I’m on Skype with Ilana when I go to bed and then again when I wake up. It’s not like we never have disagreements, but we also just really like talking to each other the most.”

“And it freaks people out!” said Glazer. “There is so much power in being able to look comfortable in a conference room, and I’m not sure dudes in suits are used to seeing women do that.”

You can see how Glazer and Jacobson would intimidate anyone in a room with them: They talk so quickly that they seem to share a stream of consciousness. They talk like all BFFs in the era of instant messaging, sending verbal links back and forth about things they saw or read, saving little bits and pieces for later. They traffic in pop-culture references and Internet slang; they are each other’s favorite IRL Twitter feed. Ultimately, snippets of these conversations will end up in the show. They are doing work even when they are not working, building on their banter, winding in and out of silly voices and secret handshakes. Their chemistry is electric, but also familiar. Anyone with a best friend would recognize it.

“I don’t think that the representation of women has caught up with the real,” said Glazer. “Every girl I know shits and talks about it, and fucks and talks about it. And people are like, these women are filthy! And I’m like, not compared to my friends. The show may be a cartoon version of us, but the cartoon sometimes gets closer to reality than anything.”

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A Journey to the Center of the Uterus

In one of my favorite pieces of the year so far (I know it’s only been nine days, so what), Jia Tolentino takes the reader into her…gynecologist’s office as she undergoes IUD insertion to ring in 2015. It’s a slightly terrifying, honest and hilarious meditation on birth control, friendship and growing up.

I just searched my inbox and found Gchats going back for years: IUD time maybe. IUD makes so much sense. Maybe I’ll get one for my birthday. Need a damn IUD. Really wanna get that IUD.

So when someone brings up the IUD in conversation, women get quiet and interested. “I sort of want an IUD,” they whisper, like me. And the people who already have one are like: “YASSS BITCH DO ITTT!!! BEING NOT-PREGNANT WITH ZERO EFFORT FOR FIVE YEARS IS EXACTLY WHAT YOUR QWEEN UTERUS DESERVES!!”

The village of bitches went to work. I moved to New York this fall, and a friend recommended a great gynecologist. I’ve never had a kid and have never been pregnant—which can present a hurdle for some doctors—but this doctor nodded easily when I told her I wanted one. She gave me the insurance particulars and a couple of info sheets, and told me to make an appointment right away

***

“I’m scared,” I said.

“I get it,” she [the gynecologist] said kindly. “But most women are just fine after. I have a Mirena. Also, I’ve put in like five today.” She told me that if I was feeling bad after the insertion I could hang out in the office for as long as I wanted.

I followed her to the room, where she gave me some privacy. I stole an Advil packet and took my pants off. I checked my look in the mirror (not great), sent an email (the piece should be up tomorrow!), weighed myself (I don’t have a scale and I’m an opportunist). HOW’S YOUR VAGINA, beeped my phone. IS IT A WAR ZONE IS IT FREAKYY?! I snapped a quick selfie (waist up) and sent it back. Here I am, Donald Ducking. Here she comes, my OB.

***

Everything was as chill as could be, but the opposite. It is an unnatural state just to be Donald Ducking in a winter sweater, let alone doing it under fluorescent light while a nice woman aims a foot-long applicator straight at your cervix, a body part you’d previously thought of as a sort of Doomsday Gate, set to open only in states of emergency. What was happening was painful; I felt pushed out from the inside. “Now I’m putting the IUD in,” she said, and I breathed, dog-like, with one hand over my eyes.

I heard the OB say “Hmm.” Then, “Uh-oh.” Her head popped up between my knees.

“The device jammed,” she said. “It didn’t work.”

“What do you mean, it jammed,” I said. I was embarrassed because I thought that my cervix had rejected the IUD like a bad magnet. I could tell I was about to cry.

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What Burns Within Us: Five Stories About Fire

Photo: Camila MP

I’m assistant stage managing a play called The Arsonists. It’s an allegory about appeasement during World War II; in a town wracked by mysterious fires, two strangers arrive on the doorstep of a well-to-do businessman. As the strangers stockpile gasoline and fuse wire in the attic, the hapless businessman and his wife can’t bear to think they might be complacent in impending destruction. In rehearsals we listen to music about fire, sung by The Doors, Johnny Cash, Bruce Springsteen and David Byrne. Fire is on my mind, particularly its mythic proportions in the cycle of creation and destruction, and for the purpose of this list, the traditions and careers it informs and influences. Here are five pieces on fire-eaters, firefighters, fire-walkers and fire-growers.

1. “Trial By Fire.” (Dimitris Xygalatas, Aeon, September 2014)

Welcome to San Pedro Manrique. If what matters most is how well you walk through the fire, Dimitris Xygalatas and his team are there to measure how your body and your friends and family are affected by your participation in this extreme ritual. Read more…

Couchsurfing: The Craigslist of Travel

On Sunday, I shared stories about Airbnb. In my research, I read about Jennifer Katanyoutanant’s experiences traveling abroad, using Airbnb’s older (grittier?) brother, couchsurfing.com. Katanyoutanant had a disturbing stay with a Roman impostor who tries to get her into bed—literally—but she doesn’t want to give up the prospect of global friendship:

I had been disheartened when Milena emailed two days before I was supposed to show up to tell me she had an unexpected out-of-town emergency. She told me she’d handed hosting duties over to Raul, her roommate. Despite my disappointment, I still felt thankful that she had gone out of her way to help me out.

When I got off at the wrong stop, I had to walk a couple blocks back to where I agreed to meet him. My travel-sized rolling luggage bounced off the sidewalk every couple steps. I was relieved that I would soon get some rest, even if the company had changed. Twenty minutes later, a twenty-three-year-old guy showed up on a moped. He wore a long-sleeve tee that framed his muscular arms but did little to hide his protruding belly. He had small eyes, and a slightly hooked nose. He introduced himself as Raul, and seemed friendly enough.

But I began to worry. I was about to sleep in the same house with a man who was a complete stranger. Maybe this was a really bad idea.

“Hold on to my waist,” he said.

I climbed onto the moped and grabbed his shoulders instead.

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