Prime Decomposition
On job-hunting, soul-searching, and trying to expand who you think you are
Hi and thanks for subscribing to my newsletter! The breakdown: first a personal essay then some thoughts on my recent work, things I am reading, writing and listening to and finally some recipes and recipe recommendations. Feel free to skip to whatever interests you. Please do also hit reply at any time, for any purpose - these are odd times and I want to offer as much connection and support as I can. Find me on Twitter and Instagram too.
Programming note: Starting August 1st, Ultracold will launch a paid subscriber option. All letters will remain free, but should you want to offer small financial support for me as I navigate a permanent move to Brooklyn and wait for my first post-PhD paycheck in September, the option will be there. I might occasionally share some paid-only content, but my intention is very much not to put my writing behind a paywall, but rather explicitly acknowledge that the time I put into this work may actually be worth something to some folks.
PRIME DECOMPOSITION*
I sent in my first application for a postdoctoral research position - a postdoc - on the September 1st of last year. I spent the rest of that fall and winter alternately working on other applications, my dissertation, and cold emailing researchers that might want to hire me. By December, I had applied to 24 postdocs. By the end of February, when I defended my dissertation, it was almost fully certain that none of the institutes, research groups or professors hosting these positions were going to make me an offer of employment. When she flew back to Illinois from her sabbatical to attend my defense, my advisor let slip that she was staying awake at night worrying about my future. The head of graduate studies in my department first encouraged me to be patient and consider re-applying during the next grant cycle then, probably after seeing the sadness on my face, suggested I take some time off to be with my husband and do some soul-searching. These conversations, and this disappointment, would have been even harder had I not had the crutch of telling everyone about how I almost died in December, how I spent Christmas in the ICU, how viscerally confronting the fragility of my body had made me reconsider everything.
I don’t think I was lying when I said that. The last few years of graduate school had pushed me into a fairly unsustainable lifestyle. I was sleeping very little, working out a lot, losing weight, feeling nauseous at all times, and always stressing about plotting out the next time I would get to see my partner while also not slipping any deeper into credit card debt. I worked on multiple research projects, never said no to any of my advisor’s side hustles, taught introductory and general education classes and led multiple student organizations. In an attempt to cultivate hobbies that would force me into taking breaks from work I also made a lot of bread, did a lot of yoga and spent a lot of time writing this newsletter. I had always been the kind of person that overcommits and the kind of person that is driven by pressure. Early in my PhD, I’d say to myself that I thrived under pressure, that I did my best work when I was pushed, that I was most focused in the face of distractions. Later on, even before all the rejections started rolling in, I had to admit to myself that I didn’t thrive under pressure, I was just used to it. I needed to be busy and tired so that I could stay away from thinking about myself or my future to deeply.
***
PHYSICIST
I am writing to express my interest in the institute postdoctoral fellowship advertised on website. I am currently in the final year of my Ph. D. at the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign (UIUC) and expect to graduate no later than May 2020. My thesis work is supervised by professor. It consists of theoretical studies of ultracold quantum gases in novel geometries, quasi-one-dimensional topological systems and one-dimensional quasiperiodic systems. Throughout this work, I have maintained strong ties to experiments, especially in the realm of atomic, molecular and optical (AMO) physics.
In my research, I have used the Gross-Pitaevskii formalism and superfluid hydrodynamics techniques to study collective excitations of spherically symmetric Bose-Einstein condensates (BECs). In our published work, collaborators and me studied the physics of filled and hollow three-dimensional spherical BECs and the hollowing-out transition connecting the two. This work constitutes the first extensive study of a change in the physical topology of a quantum fluid. As hollow BECs are not experimentally feasible on Earth due to effects of gravity, our study has direct implications for experiments in progress in the microgravity environments on the International Space Station. In addition to my work on BECs, I have used the transfer matrix formalism to study localization-delocalization physics and topological phases in one-dimensional and quasi-one-dimensional systems. Using this technique on coupled Su-Schrieffer-Heeger chains led my collaborators and me to propose a novel experimental realization of the Hofstadter butterfly. This work also inspired a realization of an analog of the Kitaev chain in a meta-materials system in the group of professor (school). Further, using transfer matrices allowed collaborators and me to study Aubry-Andre-Harper models having beyond nearest neighbor hopping through new visualization techniques. Here, I have also been a part of an experimental collaboration with the group of professor (school). focusing on emergence of single particle mobility edges in such models.
During my research thus far, I have maintained a strong interest in collaborating with experimental researchers and connecting theoretical work in condensed matter physics to AMO and other experiments. I wish to maintain this connection in the future, continuing my studies of both ultracold quantum gases (such as BEC) and topological and quasiperiodic systems. I believe institute would be a great environment for further pursuing and deepening this connection. I am confident that my training as a condensed matter theorist and my experience with ultracold atomic systems have prepared me well for projects involving both. In this regard, I see avenues for collaboration with research groups of professor in the realm of ultracold quantum gases and professor in the realm of disorder and localization. I believe that working at institute would be exciting and productive for me, and that my current experience makes me a strong candidate for this position. Thank you for your time and consideration.
***
This is all to say that when I realized that a postdoc just won’t happen for me in any sort of easy or normal way, I knew that I could not stand another six months or a year of fighting tooth and nail to get one. I was ashamed and scared and heartbroken. I was so angry with everyone that had, for years, been telling me how many great places would want me if I just kept working hard. I was so angry with everyone that wouldn’t admit that something had gone wrong once all of my peers had positions for next years safely secured and I was sending follow-up emails upon follow-up emails just to get a rejection confirmation. I also had to admit to myself and everyone else that I was too tired to work through those feelings and then give the whole thing another go.
And I understand what postdocs are like – two or three years of working even harder than in graduate school to publish even more in volume and more quickly in the hope of being successful when applying for tenure-track professorships later on. Needless to say, those professorships are even more scarce than postdocs. Once, while we were chit-chatting in the hallway in-between seminars, a faculty member told me their postdoc was the best time of their life because even though they worked ten or twelve hours a day, they still got to hike on the weekends. They loved the one-two-punch of being immersed in physics and in nature. I got stuck on ten-hour days instead of the mountains as a takeaway of that story.
I spent a lot of time in graduate school pushing research projects forward as much as I could. I always tried to be the one collaborator that actually reads all the emails and does all the proverbial homework. I consciously worked to make a habit of having an attitude of stick-with-it-ness and I aimed to always be the famed self-starter everyone wants in their workplace. However, this didn’t seem to be enough to ready me for a fight that would still end up with ten-hour days and more uncertainty in a year or two. One of my advisor’s former students spent almost eight years in various postdocs before being offered the kind of professorship that might become permanent after another half a decade of pushing to publish, publish, publish. I think that story was supposed to be one of inspiring perseverance. I also think I just don’t have that sort of energy in me.
When I was in middle-school, I played piano. Not because I was musically talented or because my parents could particularly afford it, but because I really wanted to. We bought a keyboard, enrolled me in some courses, and I struggled through it for six years. My teacher sometimes hit my hands with a ruler and made me play scales for our whole hour session when I did particularly badly with other pieces. During one recital, I tripped while getting on stage and almost landed on my face which definitely made my actual performance comparatively less embarrassing. At home, I would practice in tears and tell my mom, still through tears, to not let me give up. I never really got that much better, but I did set a precedent for myself: pain is acceptable when you really want something but giving up is not. Graduate school was another six years of various degrees of struggle, again working on something that I maybe only had a small bit of talent for. Deciding to not wait for another funding and postdoc application cycle and looking for “a regular job” instead was maybe the first time since the beginning of music school, when I was eleven or twelve, that I actually just gave up.
***
TEACHER
In college, I taught calculus. Most of my students were apprehensive about, or intimidated by, the subject. Having had a different experience myself – enthusiastically learning calculus in high school and jumping right into an accelerated course on real analysis as a college freshman – I was worried about teaching them. Realizing that I had to meet students where they are and teach them well even if they are not initially passionate about my course made me grow as an educator. I learned to be self-reflective about my assumptions and expectations and consciously work on my communication and presentation skills. I became passionate about helping students prepare for advanced classes by building both skills and confidence.
While pursuing a doctorate in physics, I mostly taught introductory courses. Largely, these courses served as foundation-building for students majoring in any science or entry-points into the major for physics students. I facilitated problem-solving sessions, helping students work in small groups after presenting a brief lecture. This work further taught me how to make material accessible and provide motivation and context for students encountering it for the very first time. I became a patient and well-organized instructor able to teach multiple sections, meet grading deadlines and proctor exams in the evenings. I was repeatedly ranked as excellent by my students and when I served as a mentor teaching assistant to my peers most received the same ranking.
In 2017, I completed a college teaching course and taught an advanced quantum physics class as a part of the Mavis Future Faculty Fellowship. Learning to structure a syllabus working backwards from learning outcomes and to tailor assessments to those outcomes, among other topics, helped me approach teaching in same systematic, detail-oriented manner I applied to my research. Teaching an advanced course also expanded my skill set. Here, I developed and delivered lectures, designed exams and homeworks and held office hours. Learning quantum mechanics is essential for students wanting to become physicists and they tend to be excited about it. In one-on-one meetings with students, I was often asked questions beyond the scope of the course. I was excited to discuss challenging material, aiming to be accessible while also not underestimating my students. In the same year, I collaborated with professor on an interdisciplinary course on physics and art that she had been developing. The class I helped structure and designed elements off serves graduate and undergraduate students majoring in physics or art. It has been offered multiple times since and received great feedback. This succession of teaching challenges, from being a teaching student to lecturing and developing materials in specialized courses, taught me to be thorough and thoughtful in my preparation for instruction and flexible and enthusiastic in the classroom.
My doctoral training focused on research, but I held a teaching position for most of the past six years. Working in theoretical condensed matter physics expanded my problem-solving skills, exposed me to complex, new physics and allowed me to always be a learner. As a long-time student I understand the importance of teachers and mentors. This was underscored for me as I moved through higher education and was often one of the few women in the room. I credit my perseverance to teachers that had encouraged and challenged me when I was learning physics basics. Being a diversity, equity and inclusion advocate and a leader in a mentoring organization in graduate school informed my teaching in addition to training I received as an instructor and made my interactions with students having different academic or personal backgrounds more important. I would be excited to stay invested in teaching in the future and continue helping all students build their foundations, jump-start their learning and own the knowledge that excites them.
***
I want to say that the regular job hunt was freeing and exciting because there were suddenly so many professions I could choose and people I could become. However, after so many years of being invested in being one single thing, even confronting the fact that I was already more than that seemed to painfully erode the identity I had built up for myself over the years. I frantically emailed everyone I could think of asking for advice. I went to all the career seminars and scheduled appointments with all accessible career counselors (fully understanding how lucky I was to even have this option). I signed up for alerts from multiple job sites and genuinely invested time in trying to teach LinkedIn algorithms to show me something other than data engineering jobs (a favorite second choice profession for many physicists). I made a website for myself. I made a jobs spreadsheet and started writing cover letters, re-formatting my resume and setting reminders for follow-up emails.
The trouble with the way in which we talk about jobs and employment is that it requires us to not only sell ourselves, but market only those parts of ourselves that seem most narrowly suited for adding value to the employer. I didn’t find the number of options possibly within my reach as a new PhD freeing because I never got around to thinking about myself as a whole, connected, integrated entity. I had always been, in my own mind, a revolving set of identity options, someone who would put on a different hat in different settings. And there was always a hierarchy to those hats as well, the one labeled Physicist always front and center. If I was not going to be doing research, could I still be that Physicist? On my website and my LinkedIn profile, I did what I had seen others do and segmented myself into discrete categories: physicist, educator, mentor, organizer, writer. When I started writing cover letters and messing with my resume, I led those labels guide me. Practically, this was the correct way to approach the process. When we caught up over Zoom and I shared some of the application packets I had put together for jobs in science education, science outreach and science communication, my career counselor was rather pleased with how I’d handled this narrowing of my person and her skills and interests. This was also emotionally challenging: it made me feel like I failed at the thing I thought I was and now I didn’t even know who I actually am instead.
***
SCIENCE WRITER
My family had always been surprised by my wanting to be a scientist. I learned to read very young, devoured books and newspapers as a child, and pleaded with my parents to send me to journalism summer camps in middle school. They took it more seriously once I declared a Physics and Mathematics major in college, and once I entered a doctoral program in theoretical physics they had few doubts left. However, reading and writing about science never stopped being of great interest to me.
Throughout my Ph. D. training, I have held many teaching positions and participated in outreach and science communication projects. By choosing to teach mostly introductory and general education courses, I developed the ability to explain complex physics concepts clearly, avoiding jargon and taking into account my students’ previous knowledge. Through my extensive mentoring work, I similarly often interacted with younger undergraduates and always aimed to model my excitement concerning contemporary physics research and to highlight its importance for the world around us. In 2017 I used some of that experience to co-develop an interdisciplinary, project-based course on the intersection of physics and art with Prof. S. Vishveshwara. This course was aimed at graduate and undergraduate students majoring in either field. Mentoring art students and distilling physics research into accessible information that can be expressed in creative ways greatly improved my ability to be concise and effective in how I communicate science.
More pointedly, I grew my skills as a science writer by attending The ComSciCon-AIP conference in September of 2019 and the Science Talk conference in March of 2020. Here, I engaged with the science communication community beyond my work as an educator and received related advice and training. In the past year, my articles have been published on the Scientific American Opinions blog, the Lifeology blog (focused on the connection between science and art), and The Xylom, an award-winning project where scientists share personal stories. Complementary to these writing projects, I have extensive experience in publishing original research in peer reviewed journals and presenting at large conferences such as the APS March Meeting. Across these settings, I learned how to select the most salient and relevant research results and present them in a way that concisely underlines their importance in the context of physics as a field. My writing has thus been well received and found instructive by technical, specialized readers and the general public alike. Combined, these experiences make me confident in my ability to evaluate, digest and communicate theoretical physics concepts or experimental techniques at various levels of expertise and technical proficiency.
I have been involved with physics research since I was an undergraduate and have therefore been part of the physics community as a student, a teaching assistant, a published research article author, an outreach project coordinator, a science communicator and a conference attendee. I am comfortable interacting with physics students, faculty and researchers, and I have engaged with many in collaborative research projects for over six years. My yearly attending of large research conferences increased my familiarity with the physics community beyond my university as has my involvement with a national network of mentoring programs. During my doctoral training I acquired not only expertise in physics but also the ability to learn quickly and spot and systematize important insights and scientific advances within the existing literature. Though I have mostly focused on research thus far, I am keenly aware of the importance of sharing it with people outside of my community of specialists and advocating for its importance and impact overall. I would be excited to lend my voice and expertise to this goal by being a part of your team.
***
Throughout my work on equity, diversity and inclusion in physics, I’ve had many conversations about what it means to bring your whole self to work. Many traditionally underrepresented physicists really wish they could do that. They feel like they have to code-switch, or stay in the closet, or talk or dress differently and this distracts and exhausts them. People who feel like they have to self-censor at every step of doing the work, and science is and will probably always be a team sport, don’t usually excel at that work. Feeling whole in physics spaces could only make you a better physicist, we’d all agree in these discussions. During my months-long quest to find a job, I started to realize that many workspaces are designed to prevent us from being whole people because the potential messiness of it seems like a threat to utility. Dealing with complicated people is complicated so it’s easier to pigeon-hole them even if that makes them less good at what they do. It requires less overhead and less training to treat people a little more like narrowly-focused cogs and a little less like multi-acted persons. It also became clear to me that we tie our identities to our work with such force that even if we were more rounded before, some fragmentation is inevitable. I’ve had to read enough Marx as an undergraduate at the University of Chicago years ago to know that it’s very likely that capitalism just doesn’t want us to be full people.
I’m still trying to make sense of the fact that I spent six years giving up most comforts and a fair amount of self-respect to try and be a scientist and somehow still didn’t make it. I have been entertaining the fantasy that I could be a science writer lately which has had me reading a lot of press releases about new experiments and studies, the kind that are exciting enough to be turned into a pitch for an editor that probably won’t email you back. A few nights ago, one about a new theory of strange metals showed up in my inbox and a few days earlier an experiment with ultracold molecules caught my eye. The research world still feels so much like my world so reading these releases gave me small jolt of excitement and a less small sting of loss. Processing those feelings in tandem slightly stumps me. A while back, a fellow Access Network alumna challenged me to think about whether I’ve decided to leave academia or if I was getting pushed out and whether there is a space for healing anywhere in-between. I seem to have a knack for finding myself in in-between spaces and I am hoping that going forward I will find a way to settle into them more. I hope that within the next year I will find a way to live that will give me the luxury of time and bodily satisfaction needed for the emotionally draining work of turning discomfort into insight instead of just scheduling, often altruistic, tasks over it.
***
ORGANIZER
For a long time, I hesitated to call myself an organizer. I had organized and moderated panels on justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion (JEDI) issues in physics, I led a graduate-undergraduate mentoring program, and served as a diversity advocate on an advisory board working with senior administrators at my university. Yet, the same insecurity that made me call myself a physics student instead of a physicist kept me from fully owning that work. I always wanted to be a physicist and completing a Ph. D. fulfilled a goal I had set in middle school. I did not realize back then that there would be few people like me pursuing the same, nor did I anticipate finding a mission in changing that.
In 2018, I attended the Access Network (AN) assembly and after many workshops on organizing and advocacy realized that physics student really was not all that I could or wanted to be. The AN is a national network that consists of nine programs supporting mentoring and JEDI-centric initiatives in STEM at higher education institutions. They deliberately provide space for community-building and fostering of leadership among traditionally underrepresented students. Working with the AN has been transformative. In 2019, I was an Assembly Fellow and worked with a team of organizers across the Network to design and execute the three-day Access Assembly conference. I handled logistical concerns such as housing and accessibility for over fifty attendees. I also collaboratively designed and ultimately led workshops during the Assembly. Later, I participated in developing a process for on-boarding future AN leaders and a task force planning the Network’s expansion. Working with other program leaders, I assessed how the AN can stay in alignment with its goals over time and what it practically means to be accountable and self-reflective as an organization. This past spring, I mentored the 2020 class of Assembly Fellows as they designed a virtual Assembly held in June. Here, I led weekly meetings and provided them support with researching JEDI-related topics, exploring ways for communicating them to Assembly attendees, and keeping the process consistent with the Networks values. During the virtual Assembly I facilitated daily feedback sessions with all of the attendees and provided logistical support for Fellow’s workshops and guided discussions. My ability as a facilitator, a connector and someone who is great at keeping spreadsheets has been crucial for this work. Through my overall work with the AN, I developed a more holistic view of advocacy in STEM and became effective in supporting organizing and outreach work with a mindset of long-term sustainability. I enjoy this work – finding ways to amplify JEDI work and make it more efficient and loud – tremendously.
Working as a physicist, I developed problem-solving skills, learned to gather and digest information quickly, and to be a self-starter. Working at a large research university, I engaged with scientists having varied backgrounds and experiences. All of my research work has been collaborative and taught me to communicate complex physics concepts, critiques of existing research and academic goals clearly and constructively. Teaching and mentoring experiences made me patient and respectful when discussing and explaining science. Taking an interest in science communication, I furthered these skills by writing popular science articles for outlets such as Scientific American blogs. As a leader, I gained skills in executing logistical tasks and effectively coordinating with other organizers. At the time of my doctoral dissertation defense, I confidently owned my work as a scientist and an organizer. Now, I am determined to further pursue the intersection of these roles and leverage my skills and experience to cause a larger impact. I would cherish the opportunity to do so as a part of your team.
***
It takes a fair amount of privilege to commit to soul-searching or trying out new things just to see whether they fit. Primarily, it takes financial security to just pick up a paying thing here and there, only when you like it. Having grown up without much money and having been taking care of myself as an immigrant and a student (which constrained my employment options tremendously) for years, I’ve never felt like I could afford, emotionally or literally, to be reckless or impulsive. The past few weeks I was starting to, as another first, really consider whether maybe I should indulge and just let my husband pay the bills for a bit while I figure it all out. This would have required me to let go of a hefty amount of ego and to express a kind of vulnerability that also feels like a privilege reserved for some other people. However, as everything I thought was a given kept dissolving, I started thinking that maybe it was fitting that I dissolve my ego as well. Maybe I could write about science freelance. Maybe I could work part-time for non-profits empowering women in science. Maybe I could wait for the pandemic to pass and just go shelve boxes of pasta or pour coffees at some neighborhood spot and never tell anyone I have a PhD in theoretical physics ever again. Oddly, all of that felt more wholesome than whatever would happen to me every time I looked at a job board and tried to divine what sort of positions I was on the edge of being qualified for after years I spent strictly inside the academic bubble.
***
WHOEVER YOU NEED ME TO BE
Early in the week, I watch a paperclip levitate inside an MRI together with an artist who asks me what it might feel like when the spins of all the atoms in your body simultaneously flip inside such a machine. This discussion will factor into a performance piece I am production manager for, one that features actors, physics students and a cameo from a Nobel laureate. The next day, I attend a meeting of the Graduate Employee Organization and present a part of the budget I have worked on with the Finance Committee. We push for a clear membership number goal and plan a big drive to sign those new members up. A few weeks later, I will be one of the people knocking on office doors and engaging many of them one-on-one. Mid-week, I teach introductory quantum mechanics to future engineers and they ask me how a bunch of differential equations relate to semiconductor technology that makes smartphones work. In the afternoons I dive into other equations for my own research and daydream about ultracold atoms in space. At the end of the week I call into a meeting for a conference I am co-organizing with students and researchers from eight other universities interested in mentoring and diversity advocacy in science. First, we discuss the best way to order Thai food for over fifty attendees while keeping everyone safe and our spending reasonable. Next, we break into groups and a younger organizer discusses an Impostor Syndrome workshop we are co-developing for the conference. On Friday night, I practice yoga, make bread that needs to sit in the fridge overnight, then work on an essay for a newsletter I will be sending out that week.
Did all of this actually happen during one seven-day block? Maybe not, but it is certainly what every one of my weeks has felt like for the past six years.
Though I have always wanted to be a scientist, working on my Ph.D. has turned me into a person whose head fits one more hat every year. I became a teacher and an educator, then a mentor, then an advocate, then an organizer and finally a science communicator and a non-fiction writer. I have given talks about condensed matter physics and on how to plan team building overnight retreats. I kept a lot of heavily color-coded spreadsheets and practiced explaining the Pauli exclusion principle without ever saying the words field theory. I mentored artists in developing dances based on black hole mergers, coached physics students in writing poetry, and once carried two very heavy chairs across campus because they were a stage prop a physicist-turned-performer really needed. I always considered myself to be a quick learner and good with managing my time, but the complex web of tasks that was graduate school – ranging from communicating science through my teaching and outreach work to managing complex projects like organizing a conference and working on diverse teams of researchers – pushed me on both fronts and prepared me for a variety of future challenges. I would relish the opportunity to apply the skills I gained as a project manager, a community builder and a lover of science by being part of your team.
***
The position I ended up accepting is one I was genuinely excited about. I had interviewed for it a long time ago and after every interview felt like I could actually do it. I liked the people that I spoke to, I liked the mission of the place and preparing for the second, more hands-on, interview didn’t stress me out as much as I was worried it might. I had other interviews that left me feeling scared or uncertain even when I got called back for another round afterwards. This felt different and I was rather heartbroken when I was told that the institution in question may not actually be able to afford to hire me. I was overjoyed and relieved when they crunched through all of the numbers and determined that they actually I could.
I did not take this job just because I needed a paycheck or just because I was scared of what my identity would morph into if I let “unemployed” attach itself to me for too long. It is also true that I knew that I couldn’t do much better than this financially or with respect to having some stability going forward if I decided to wait for something more perfect. I am still trying to not be a fatalist, to be flexible in what I believe has to happen, and this opportunity was so good that it required almost no negotiation or tacit compromise with myself.
Going into it, though, I want to keep the memory of these past two months of job-searching and soul-searching close to me. I want to keep reminding myself that I will now not just sharply transition from being one thing to being just another. Ironically, I hope to be less tired – a constant, ever-present feeling throughout my time in graduate school – by spending more time on more interests and by relegating fewer of them to the “side-thing” label. I have no illusions that the next year will be an easy one, especially as my partner is starting a postdoc and will have to work harder than ever. Now that figuring out who I might be beyond “physics grad student” does not feel like a matter of financial success or ruin though (despite the fact that our move to Brooklyn will not be any semblance of affordable), and I don’t have to feel like an absolute parasite in my in-laws’ household, I might actually try and enjoy it.
Best,
Karmela
P. S. One of these cover letter led to a job offer, one to a phone interview, and one at least got me a very nice rejection email. I’ve hoarded a bunch more and would be happy to share if anyone would find them useful.
*A prime decomposition consists of writing some given a number as a product of prime numbers. As each prime number is not divisible by any other number, decomposing a non-prime number into primes is, in some sense, equivalent to breaking it up into its smallest building blocks.
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ABOUT ME LATELY
LEARNING Last week, in this section I wrote about wanting to lean into laziness. In the seven days after that I mostly still stayed busy. I took meetings, worked on paper manuscripts and referee responses, tried to finish a writing project, semi-successfully networked with some science writers and pitched some more writing. My husband and I stayed at his brother’s apartment most of the week, feeding his cat and watering his plants while he was off camping with his family, so our day-to-day routines were set to a more private and comfortable backdrop than we’ve had for most of our quarantine stay in Brooklyn. Having a taste of what working from home when it’s just the two of us could be like was nice. It has also been a pretty potent reminder of how few chances over the years we have had to control when and where we will be together and what we would do with that time. We started very tentatively asking friends to recommend places to move to in the fall, and I am realizing that there will be an awful lot for us to figure out and learn together. Next week we will be in Illinois, putting six years of my life into suitcases and boxes. I used to joke that I only ever deep clean my apartment there when I know my partner will be visiting. Now, we will do the exact opposite and clean together with the intention of not visiting again. I’m thankful that I don’t have to handle this by myself even though I have no idea how simple or how complicated it might get. We will stay in the basement of my husband’s parents’ house for most of August but the chance for us to learn how to build a household together is starting to become somewhat visible when I try to look into our future. I am excited about that.
WATCHING We’ve made it to season three of Hannibal and I sort of have no idea what to make of this show anymore. It continues to be both gruesome and gorgeous and throughout season two it got more surreal as well. There’s a lot of attention to detail in how Hannibal is filmed. It alternates between large, baroque set pieces regardless of whether they are about food or murder, and hypnotically slow and tight close-ups of items in what often turn out to be hallucinations. And there is a lot of hallucinating and cryptic dialogue in the latter half of Hannibal. I pretty much forgot that the first third or so of Hannibal was basically a monster-of-the-week style police procedural because I got invested in the relationship between two of the show’s protagonists and all the odd psychological turns that come with that. I do like the shift towards a more spiritual, existential quest that season three has taken, but it has also ramped up everything to eleven, becoming as over the top as a TV show can get. Part of me likes to imagine that this over-the-top-ness means that the creators of the show were given all the freedom they wanted and that’s a comforting thought even when their product is very much not. I also wonder, however, why the story couldn’t just stop after the quite impactful and strong ending of season two. Did some executive thought they could make more money from showing gore, mild queerbaiting and lots of scared Gillian Anderson on people’s screens for another season? Regardless, something about the whole thing must work because it still has us pretty hooked.
During our week of apartment-sitting we were confronted by my brother-in-law’s DVD collection, so we tore ourselves away from Hannibal for a night and watched the 1980s film Altered States. This is one of those movie that my husband and I both heard discussed on Supercontext and immediately texted each other (as had been our MO throughout doing long-distance) to say it should be on our to-watch list. Neither of us actually ever wrote this list down, but we would mention Altered States to each other here and there so when we sat down to actually watch it, I thought I knew what we were in for. Altered States, however, was more weird and more hokey and more philosophical than I expected. The way academics talk about science in the film is oddly similar to how some talk in real life (the scene of drunk William Hurt in a restaurant bothering everyone with his research white whale was a familiar one) but the science probably doesn’t matter all that much for the story. The most surprising thing about Altered States was exactly this realization that it is not really about the true nature of man or some Yung-ian prehistoric synchronicity or even psychedelics, but rather about the power of love and human connection. Framing the main character’s on-and-off lover as his savior from complete devolution is troublesome in more way than one, especially as she is given almost no character development of her own, but her success at the film’s end warmed my heart ever so slightly more than I thought it would. This is not exactly a good movie (in addition to its problems with gender, the way native people are represented is quite reductive as well), but it does capture a certain moment in thinking about the human psyche and the matchingly outdated visuals make it an overall fascinating watch.
READING This rather nuanced article on sustainable animal farming and engineered plant-based protein. This is the kind of thing that, as a vegan, makes me uncomfortable, but that I still think I need to keep many of what is explored her in mind before getting overly simplistically righteous towards my more omnivore friends. I am skeptical of the notion that an animal can be ethically killed in any way, but I do think that not considering labor concerns and indigenous practices are a blind spot for white and entitled vegans that often speak for all of us and come to represent the movement in the mainstream. Besides, the language of Silicon Valley and disrupting and changing the world through tech has never sat right with me, no matter how much I have at time enjoyed a Beyond burger or a sausage. Personally, I will still feel better about eating these products than anything that comes from an animal, but this story is a worthwhile read that I would recommend regardless of where you fall on the meat consumption spectrum.
As something of a companion piece, I found this article on sustainability during the pandemic by Alicia Kennedy to be insightful as well. She writes:
“Worrying about waste at all may seem like a privilege in the context of a global pandemic, but that highlights how much of a privilege it is to prioritize sustainable choices during non-pandemic times too. Many in my food-centric circle have spent their quarantined time getting into bread-baking, gardening, and generally doing a lot more cooking at home. Having the time to do so still feels new, but the longer we're stuck at home, the more likely some of these practices are to become tiresome. How sustainable, really, are actions that require ample time in the kitchen?
The current moment encourages us to ask ourselves what eco-friendliness that cannot be purchased at the store looks like. Because that’s the trouble with our understanding of sustainability: It’s built upon making consumer choices. It’s defined as reusable cups, canvas totes, and the cooking of heirloom beans rather than policy proposals like the Green New Deal, which seeks to quickly and dramatically reduce greenhouse gas emissions while creating new jobs. Matters of individual choice only go so far as a way of combating climate change.”
Also related to food, a recent issue of the Vittles newsletter featured a great guest post about McDonalds. It touches on idea of individual choices as opposed to more collective change as well. It hit home for me as someone who has brushes with clean and healthy eating afficionados on social media. Framing the problem with McDonalds as one of health allows us to buy into a very American idea of individualism and individual self-improvement and completely disregard that the evil that McDonalds perpetuates bigger than making us fat is how it treats its workers. In introducing the letter, editor Jonathan Nunn writes
“As Mic Wright says in today’s newsletter, trying to fight McDonald’s on issues of consumer harm ─ whether that’s health or taste ─ was and is a tactical error. It ties into a wider trend of trying to frame food issues around the negligible impact on the consumer and not the tangible impact on the workers who make them. It’s the same framing that advocates for no pesticide use in case we ingest a trivial amount, and not because of the health impact on those who spray them; or the idea chlorinated chicken will make us ill and not the factory workers and animals who will be exposed to more unsanitary conditions.
Maybe it’s because we’re inherently selfish creatures, and all arguments need to link back to ourselves somehow, but by focusing on the impact of a cheeseburger on someone who has the agency to choose it as an occasional treat, you take focus away from a chain of people ─ from staff, to factory workers, to farmers, to animals ─ who have no agency. It is possible to find McDonald’s delicious whilst still acknowledging that is it built on a system of exploitation - in fact, maybe the first step to understanding just how evil it is is to admit it.”
And in the article itself Wright raises some great points including
“When Morgan Spurlock targeted McDonald’s with his movie Super Size Me, he fought them on issues of health, attacking the then-popular ‘supersize’ meal option. But his stunt – eating McDonald’s and nothing but McDonald’s for 30 days – was a tactical error. It helped make him famous, but did little to address the real ethical issues in the supply chain or the fundamental inequalities faced by workers. Spurlock attacked McDonald’s on a weakness it was able to easily counter with relatively minor changes, rather than on structural inequalities, which fuel much of the company’s success.”
To round out the fact that I’m reading about food, and around food, a fair amount, the latest letter from Raechel Anne Jolie also struck a chord with me. Discussing grocery stores and how they reflect social class she writes:
“The point, rather, is how deeply capitalism digs its claws into our skin, and how differently those punctures hit depending on your class (and, inextricably, your race). Grocery stores - and this bizarre grocery store game show - are a testament to this. There’s a reason the same act - consumption - has been molded to feel different for people with more money, or at least people with more access to cultural echelons that are monied. Rich people don’t want to feel like poor people, but poor people are expected to want to feel like rich people. “The citizenship of consumption has no place for those who lack the power to acquire,” notes bell hooks. And so everyone buys. If we have access to the spaces that don’t remind us of the reality of poverty, it is expected that we have enough to consume to excess anyway. If we are instead relegated to the spaces that force us to confront our lot in life, it is expected that we will try to buy our way out of it. I remember that feeling - the itchy desperation for just a little bit more. It’s the whole premise of Supermarket Sweep. To come out on top, spend the most. And if you don’t have the most to spend, well, buy another lottery ticket, get yourself on a game show, or just “work harder.””
This poem by Gwendolyn Brooks and this one by Paige Lewis.
And I’m still really enjoying Alexander Chee’s How to Write an Autobiographical Novel. The essays included in this book roughly follow Chee’s life and are arranged mostly chronologically, but they are all self-contained enough to be rich and interesting without that larger context. He is also just able to write warmly and beautifully about nearly everything, from AIDS-era protests in San Francisco and police brutality to being a cater-waiter in late 90s New York City while he was writing his first novel to writing advice he most cherishes from his MFA to what successful drag feels like. The collection is a great confluence of important life experiences, bearing witness to big changes in the world and simply well-tuned craft of writing.
This thread about billionaires because I am forever frustrated with how quickly we let any semblance of philanthropy distract us from the how obscene of a number a billion actually is.
LISTENING This episode of Radiolab telling various stories connected to the Spanish flu pandemic of 1918. Through a number of seemingly disconnected fragments, it shows just how much culture, politics and public health are interwoven and how much we should hesitate to reduce our current situation to an issue of just economics or just safety.
ACDC’s High Voltage as running music. I grew up on a music diet of dad rock and heavy metal where ACDC was more than well represented. Even though I understand English very well now and have to grapple with some of lyrical choices present throughout my dad’s favorites, my nostalgic response to this music is still really strong. Even without that layer of feelings however, this record is just good. There’s almost no filler songs on it and it showcases ACDC at their most essential and their best. It probably doesn’t hurt that it made me want to pick up my running pace a bit too.
EATING Peanut butter and greens breakfast sandwiches from Lukas Volger. The acidic and salty marinated greens (I add extra squeezes of lime or lemon) pair wonderfully with the fatty peanut butter. As a small tip, browning the assembled sandwiches in a pan is easier if you use cooking spray.
Throughout the week I only turned on the oven twice, one of those times was to make the chocolate cake I am sharing below. I based it on an Oh Ladycakes recipe that doesn’t seem to be available anymore but has been my go-to chocolate cake for a while. Here, I used brown sugar and added some coffee into the batter to make the cake more moist and richer in taste since I knew I would keep it at a single layer and fairly thin. I topped it with a ganache spiked with peanut butter, a recipe for which I have sketched below (but really follow your nose on finessing it). Once frosted, the cake needs to be chilled in the fridge for at least an hour, but we found that it was even better after a whole day so if you’re looking for both a late-night baking project and an excuse to eat cake for breakfast this just may be it.
You will need:
1 cup and 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp baking powder
3/4 tsp fine salt
3/4 cup brown sugar
6 tbsp cup vegetable or canola oil
1/2 c almond, oat or other milk + 1/2 tbsp apple cider vinegar
3/4 c almond, oat or other milk
1/2 tsp finely ground coffee
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1. Put 1/2 tbsp of apple cider vinegar in a 1/2 cup measuring cup then fill with milk until full. Stir and let sit for 10ish minutes. This will act as a “buttermilk” in this recipe
2. Preheat the oven to 350 F and line a round cake pan with parchment paper. Grease the sides with oil or (vegan) butter.
3. In a small mixing bowl, whisk together the flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, baking powder, coffee and salt
4. In a larger bowl, whisk together sugar, oil, vanilla extract, and milk
5. Add the buttermilk and the flour mixture to the bigger bowl, alternating between the two. Start with the flour and end with the buttermilk
6. Whisk to evenly combine all the wet and dry ingredients so that very few clumps remain and there are no visible streaks of flour
7. Pour into prepared pan and give it a few shakes or tap on the counter to get rid of air bubbles
8. Bake for roughly 30 minutes, until the cake has visibly risen, the edges pull away from the sides and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean
9. Let cool completely on a cooling rack
A rough peanut butter ganache outline: break up one bar of 70% percent cocoa or other dark chocolate in a medium-sized heatproof bowl and bring 1/2 of a cup of milk of choice to a boil. Pour the milk over the chocolate, starting with about 1/3 of a cup and let sit a few minutes. After a few minutes start mixing with a whisk or a spatula, until the mixture is smooth, adding more milk in small additions if needed. Add a generous spoonful of peanut butter, at least a tablespoon’s worth, then mix more until smooth and glossy. Let sit at room temperature for 15-20 minutes to thicken then spread on top of the cooled cake. Refrigerate for an hour or so before serving.
There are many ways you could riff on this cake: cover it with (coconut) whipped cream instead of ganache then shave some dark chocolate over the top or spoon some cherry or blueberry compote on it instead, make a chocolate buttercream or a (cashew) cream cheese frosting, go for a vanilla frosting and a drizzle of salted caramel made with either tahini or coconut cream, or serve the cake warm with a scoop of (vegan) ice cream.