Robin Writes – Page 3 – Finding history in food, art, and pop culture

The US had an attempted coup on Wednesday.

In 2019, I spent a cumulative three months at home. And I wrote about it here on this blog. It’s a big part of the reason I started writing here. That year was incredibly trying. I was constantly isolated and moving around. I wasn’t able to form new relationships and I was constantly in new places. I was often living in a single room by myself without a real kitchen and I had a very small budget for food. When I wasn’t working, I was binging CosTube and BreadTube, learning to crochet, and playing video games. I could only interact with most of the people I knew, including my infant children, through phone calls and videos. That year, it turned out, was a rehearsal.

It probably won’t surprise anyone to learn that coffee sales are down as a result of the pandemic. Like makeup and gasoline, coffee is less in demand when people aren’t leaving their houses, and like the restaurant industry as a whole, coffee shops often rely on foot traffic or at the very least gathering indoors, both of which are currently discouraged. This is a good moment, as coffee is a little less present in our lives, to question why coffee is such a part of particularly American culture and whether it should be.

Not so much writing this week for a variety of reasons, so now is a good time to remind you that you can find me on Instagram (and Facebook). I post shorter thoughts, links to interesting history and science news, and food photos. I just recorded a few short videos on color in medieval art, the first of which is now live on IGTV. Enjoy!

As a progressive in 2020, you’d have to be willfully ignorant to think that there are no problems with Thanksgiving. But unlike, say, the former Columbus Day, this holiday isn’t just a day off. For a lot of Americans, myself included, this day has been one of the most important yearly events of family gathering for their entire lives. Is there a way to keep that going, or should we let Thanksgiving retire?

There is a conflict bubbling between professional and amateur historians over directly addressing current social issues when talking about history. On one side, people who enjoy hearing about topics like the ins and outs of the Roman Empire claim that there is an unbiased way to present history, without judgement from the present. On the other side, people who write the stories of these topics claim that it’s important to understand the complexity of the past and that all history is biased. I’m not going to make any pretense toward a both sides argument here. History is biased and political, and everyone needs to know that.

It’s amazing how big a part of my identity as a New Yorker bread is.

I started this week off with a visit to a class on plague. Most of my work time was spent compiling manuscripts into an appendix that no one will ever read. And I’m taking out my mounting anxiety by sewing a coat.

In my circles, the death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg is one of those deep losses that aches dully for a long time. Among the women I know, there is a feeling that RBG was one of us, whatever that means. To a certain subset, it means that she was a working mother.

maximios / Blog /