If you're not familiar with the chain, they have 24 locations in France and last year opened their first in New York City. The business hires crew members with intellectual and developmental disabilities, and empowers them through meaningful training and employment. They currently employ 154 people with mental and cognitive disabilities. So, so great.
Most of the online profiles are in French, but here's one in English:
Nothing gets me opening Libby faster than The Millions Previews.
This time, it's their Summer 2024 Preview, obvs, which highlights a new biography of genius filmmaker Agnes Varda, and titles from Rachel Kushner, Joy Williams, Yoko Tawada, Honor Moore, Sarah Manguso, Virginie Despentes, Jo Hamya, László Krasznahorkai, and many more.
There are also two from authors I'm not familiar with that sound right up my alley, both due in August:
The Italy Letters by Vi Khi Nao
"This epistolary novel by Nao, an emerging queer Vietnamese American writer who Garielle Lutz once called “an unstoppable genius,” sounds like an incredible read: an unnamed narrator in Las Vegas writes sensual stream-of-consciousness letters to their lover in Italy. Perfect leisure reading on a sultry summer’s afternoon while sipping a glass of prosecco."
Write your blog with your favorite text editor. Vim or Microsoft Word, both work with Blot. Publish your photos from Lightroom. Work on your site with others using Google Docs or git."
There's no limit on storage so it's great for text-only or image-heavy sites. Quite a deal for $5 a month.
Reuters reporters bought chemicals to make US$3M worth of fentanyl tablets for US$3600.
Chinese chemical sellers will air-ship fentanyl ingredients door-to-door to North America. Reuters purchased enough to make 3 million pills. Such deals are astonishingly easy – and reveal how drug traffickers are eluding efforts to halt the deadly trade behind the fentanyl crisis... Anyone with a mailbox, an internet connection and digital currency to pay the tab can source these chemicals...
I always find this kind of thing interesting as I have a bit of prosopagnosia myself — that's a general face blindness. You could ask me to describe people I've known for decades and I'd have trouble with the face and facial area. If I recognize you on the street — which I won't — it's actually due more to your gait and silhouette than your face. Bless you if you've got every day carry accessories: a cane, a satchel, a dog.
Anecdote Alert
I became aware of my issue when I was about ten. My mother didn't come home when expected. A couple hours later, I called the cops and when they came over, they asked me if I'd seen her that morning. I had. They asked me what she was wearing and I couldn't say. They asked me to describe her and all I could do was illustrate her height. I went and got a photo of her from the mantel and showed it to them. "Does she still look like this?"
"What do you mean? That's her. That's a picture of her."
"It looks like it was taken in the sixties."
I was very baffled as to why that mattered. "Is her hair still this color?" They turned the photo to show me.
"I'm not sure."
"What do you mean? You said you saw her this morning!"
I shrugged. I could not tell them if she had curly hair or straight hair, red hair or blonde hair, if she wore glasses, earrings, or a necklace, if she had any missing teeth, or what color her eyes were. That was 45 years ago and I still cannot tell you the answers to any of those questions. I'd have difficulty answering those questions about anybody, even people I've known decades.
Just then, my mother walked in the door. Before leaving, the cops chided her for raising a kid who played practical jokes on the police.
A few years ago a woman I fancied and knew quite well asked if she'd ever introduced me to her cousin. I said I wasn't sure. She pulled out her phone to show me a picture. As I watched, she flipped through her photos looking for one as I watched. She briefly paused to consider one. I took a good look at it and said, "I've never seen that person before in my life." She looked to see if I was joking. "Seriously. Never," I said.
