At the Reflecting Pool, and guys, this doesn’t look right
brb etching “the opposite of man is not woman, it’s boy” onto a granite slab so it can be witnessed in perpetuity
There was never anything undeserving or small about Lawrence, KS but look at how that community has thrown itself into the Algerian national team. The community's embrace illustrates how, culturally, we learned that in being hospitable to guests we can live vicariously through others joy in us.
“The Great American Sleepover” has been healing to me tbh
It's not incorrect that at our worst Americans are arrogant, but I think a portion of our arrogance is a result of an extremely self-diminishing and maladaptively perfectionist culture. Mix in some lingering Puritanism and you have a people that struggle to feel and express joy appropriately.
(Not to overly prove the "self-dimishing and maladaptively perfectionist" diagnosis but this is the most positive interpretation of American culture. Far too often we react with anger and hatred out of a belief that everyone hates us, which ironically reinforces legitimate reasons to hate us)
I'm shocked, SHOCKED, to find out they were from Florida.
Well, not that shocked.
Tony Bourdain taught us all that a place is full of good food, good people, and good experiences despite very shitty politics and I think it’s kind of classically American to have thought we were excluded from that Venn diagram
This is so much better than the version I was about to attempt
Particularly international appreciation for “not NY not LA” which feels overdue
