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The men in the detail turned serious only when we passed through a tunnel. “I hate tunnels,” one growled tensely. “Why?” I asked. “Everything bad happens in tunnels,” he said. “We learned that in Iraq. They can block you in on both sides and do anything they want to you in the middle,” he explained. He only began to relax again when we emerged safely on the tunnel’s other side. “Everything bad happens in tunnels,” I thought, reflecting on the past four years, Facebook’s single-minded race to domination, and every strange, churlish thing that happened that I just had to shake off, because I was trapped in the middle and had to get through to the other side.
I like these security guys, I thought. It seemed healthy to be hanging out with people who had fought in real wars.
lol
The following day, we were sitting at lunch on the roof of the hotel with the skyline of São Paulo stretching as far as we could see when Mark declared imperially, as he gazed at the view, “We’re going to write a book about Facebook together someday.” That sounds fun, I thought, but then my mind reeled with questions. What would that book even be like? The book I would write about Facebook would be so different from the one Mark would write. It was weird that he assumed I thought the same way he did. My face must have betrayed my doubts and questions, because Mark looked at me with his typical coy smirk, and said, more directly than usual, “I don’t know if I trust you.”
You shouldn’t, I thought, giving him a half-innocent look. But Mark’s idea had planted a new one in my head. I could leave to write my own book, I thought. And after so many years of biting my tongue and speaking on behalf of Facebook, it would be a relief to finally speak and write as myself. After all, as The Wire teaches, you should never trust anyone, in business, at least. Keep your hackers close. Mark, who preferred to hire hackers, knew that. And at that moment, I felt almost, for a second, close to him, as if in the mutual ground of breaking into something—him, the business of registering the identities of everyone in the world, me, the company culture he had built—we had finally found a common bond.
guessing at the page number
Because you see these low-level foreign workers working two or three jobs, twelve, fourteen, sixteen hours a day, longing for home (a waiter shows me exactly how he likes to hold his two-year-old, or did like to hold her, last time he was home, eight months ago), and think: Couldn't you Haves cut loose with just a little more?
But ask the workers, in your intrusive Western way, about their Possible Feelings of Oppression, and they model a level of stoic noble determination that makes the Ayn Rand in you think, Good, good for you, sir, best of luck in your professional endeavors!
is this where Saunders gets woke and becomes a socialist
[...] Although we must remember, said the husband to the wife, this is, after all, a once-in-a-lifetime experience! Yes, yes, of course, she said, I don't regret it for a minute! But there is a look, a certain look, about the eyes, that means: Oh God, I am gut-sick with worry about money. And these intelligent, articulate people had that look. (As, I suspect, did I.) There wasn't, she said sadly, that much to see, really, was there? And one felt rather watched, didn't one, by the help? Was there a limit on how long they could stay? They had already toured the lobby twice, been out to the ocean-overlooking pool, and were sort of lingering, trying to get their fifty bucks' worth.
nothing really special about this passage, it's just so sad and so relatable
Part of me wants to offer to help. But that would be, of course, ridiculous, melodramatic. He washes these stairs every day. It's not my job to hand-wash stairs. It's his job to hand-wash stairs. My job is to observe him hand-washing the stairs, then go inside the air-conditioned lobby and order a cold beer and take notes about his stair-washing so I can go home and write about it, making more for writing about it than he'll make in many, many years of doing it.
Margaret Atwood is a famous Canadian genius. Our crowd consisted of approximately three hundred Margaret Atwood fans, with the remainder of the crowd being my fan. [...]
this essay kinda sucked (not subtle enough to be good satire imo) but this part was mildly funny
Dear Optimist:
My husband, who knows very well that I love nothing more than wearing bonnets, recently bought a convertible. He's always doing "passive-aggressive" things like this. Like once, after I had all my teeth pulled, he bought a big box of Cracker Jack. Another time, when I had very serious burns over 90 per cent of my body, he tricked me into getting a hot oil massage, then tripped me so that I fell into a vat of hydrochloric acid. [...]
this was like the only letter that was mildly funny. the rest was like falling into a vat of hydrochloric acid
And what will you do if we let you go? I ask him in my mind. Will you try to get in here again? Next time, you could be looking at five years.
He hesitates, averts his eyes.
Seriously? I say. My God, is it worth it? Are things really that bad where you live?
And he just looks at me, as if to say: Would I keep trying if it didn't make sense to keep trying, if the possible reward didn't justify possibly getting caught? Do I look stupid?
He doesn't look stupid. He looks handsome and sad and ashamed.
But mostly what he looks is: busted.
Busted, and waiting to pay the price.
about a Mexican guy who gets caught crossing the border
this is one of the best moments in the essay (maybe the entire book)
If, at the moment when someone cuts us off in traffic or breaks our heart or begins bombing our ancestral village, we could withdraw from judging mode, and enter this other, more accepting mode, we would, paradoxically, make ourselves more powerful. By resisting the urge to reduce, in order to subsequently destroy, we keep alive--if only for a few seconds more--the possibility of transformation.
very This Is Water, though not as well-written tbh
[...] Huck and Tom represent two viable models of the American Character. They exist side by side in every American and every American action. America is, and always has been, undecided about whether it will be the United States of Tom or the United States of Huck. The United States of Tom looks at misery and says: Hey, I didn't do it. It looks at inequity and says: All my life I have busted my butt to get where I am, so don't come crying to me. Tom likes kings, codified nobility, unquestioned privilege. Huck likes people, fair play, spreading the truck around. Whereas Tom knows, Huck wonders. Whereas Huck hopes, Tom presumes. Whereas Huck cares, Tom denies. These two parts of the American Psyche have been at war since the beginning of the nation, and come to think of it, these two parts of the World Psyche have been at war since the beginning of the world, and the hope of the nation and of the world is to embrace the Huck part and send the Tom part back up the river, where it belongs.
I don't think I've read either but even so, this is an interesting analysis of the two characters