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What I\u2019ve Been Reading Lately:<\/strong> <\/p> Man, what is it about coming-of-age stories this week<\/a>? And what is it about how affecting and effective I find it when coming-of-age stories are told in fragmented, almost dream-like form? I can\u2019t say this book is super similar of House on Mango Street<\/a><\/em>, but it made me think of it. This week, I\u2019m talking about l\u00ea thi diem th\u00fay\u2019s The Gangster We Are All Looking For<\/em>. <\/p> If you\u2019re a responsible reader in the United States, you\u2019ve read a lot of immigrant stories. They have their familiar contours\u2014inherent tragedy of being away from home, the awkwardness and fear of being an immigrant kid, the violent yanking around of class status. In Vietnam, the narrator\u2019s dad is a gangster, a man who brags about an aristocratic line in his family because of a slightly longer second toe. In the US, that man is a welder in space heater factory (who really wants to be a gardener). I say immigrant narratives have familiar contours, but this novel really made me feel<\/em> the uncanniness of being suddenly thrust into a foreign land after war. The extra white space on the page created by the free-floating, stark paragraphs gives a big sense of things being unsaid, things being left unresolved, things being confusing but connected. It\u2019s a very good book, another I have to thank the old used bookstore job for, I feel lucky this book found its way onto my shelves. <\/p> LINKS!<\/strong><\/p> Orcas can sink boats now<\/a>! We\u2019ve deserved this for a long time. Apparently, they\u2019re sinking yachts. Apparently, this is learned behavior spearheaded by juveniles. I hate it when people say the kids will save us, but hey, these orcas? Sinking yachts?<\/p><\/li> Imagine the indignity of these Greenland Sharks<\/a> having their eye parasites picked off of them by some loser scientists. You ever think about how research animals must feel indignant? Here\u2019s a Creaturefector story about the Anelasma<\/em> barnacle\u2014who usually spend their lives hitched to the belly of a lantern shark\u2014who dared to live in a Greenland shark\u2019s cloaca, a catch-all hole for pee, poop, sperm, and eggs. <\/p><\/li> David Roth is one of the best in the business at writing about powerful people. Please enjoy Roth\u2019s deep dive into New York City Mayor Eric Adams\u2019s relationship to skateboarding<\/a>, in theory and in practice. <\/p><\/li> At least once before, I\u2019ve linked to videos of the ocean telling people not to kayak certain places by having whales pop up near their boat like a a flare spot on a grill. Here\u2019s a super scary one of those: <\/p>![\"The](\"https:\/\/substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com\/public\/images\/f8c8ac85-14a4-4d59-9fa4-c4b7099d7d5a_3024x4032.jpeg\")
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