Barbie Gets a Hijab and Other Good News

In the midst of the world spiraling into chaos, Christina Brinkley's New Yorker article on the new Barbie made me smile.And in the good news department, the young people's climate change lawsuit is moving forward. There's a story for our time, taking shape in the real world.In another space, the kind that exists in real time but places the mind somewhere between reality and story, I am revising like a maniac. This is necessary in practical terms, on account of the project at hand that calls for manic revising. In the weird world of what we call writing process for lack of any better term, it leaves me exhausted while simultaneously tapping unknown reserves of enthusiasm and energy.But in between bursts of revision, I'm reading Philip Pullman's glorious new book, The Book of Dust #1: La Belle Sauvage. It's right there on the little rug next to my treadmill desk, where I can snatch it up and indulge as needed. At the moment, the hard part is putting it down. It will likely go on my rereading list in the future. Pullman's fictional world at once closes in on human frailties and offers hope in the form of its smallest, most seemingly instinctive acts of empathy.