Author Archives: Shelley Gaske

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Five Words From … What the Chicken Knows: A New Appreciation of the World’s Most Familiar Bird

cover of What the Chicken Knows Welcome to the latest installment of “Five words from …” our series which highlights interesting words from interesting books! In this installment, Sy Montgomery recounts her poultry husbandry journey, showing us that the “chickenverse” is a deeper and more interesting place than we imagined.

augury

“The word ‘augury’ comes from the Greek word meaning ‘bird talk’, for to understand the language of birds was to understand the gods.”

Montgomery’s chickens communicated with her and each other through elaborate noises that conveyed specific meanings. For more on how birds communicate, check out Barbara Ballentine and Jeremy Hyman’s Bird Talk: An Exploration of Avian Communication.

crop

“When Peanut was a year and a half old she developed a blockage in her crop–the muscular compartment where birds store and soften their food.”

The average chicken’s crop can hold about an ounce and a half of food.

ermine

“There was the skunk, and another time a mink, another time a neighbor’s dog and once an ermine. The tiny ferocious weasel in its snowy winter coat had slipped through our barn’s foundation and decapitated one of our hens.”

Keeping live chickens is an invitation to meet the local predators and Montgomery encountered plenty of wild animals eager for chicken dinners. The ermine (also called a stoat) is a common visitor to chicken coops across Europe and North America.

overpet

“Then it starts all over again, until the hen has had enough and has reached what we call “overpet.” She fluffs her feathers, shakes, and, fortified by affection, strolls off to continue her chicken day.”

Many animals have less-patient responses than chickens to overstimulation (sometimes called sensory overload).

sex crouch

“And just as the hens always do with me, she assumed her distinctive squatting posture. This is a well-known chicken behavior usually directed at a member of her own species. It is actually known as a “sex crouch.” It’s a position that a chicken normally uses to make it easy for a rooster to mount her.”

Hens will begin showing this behavior (called lordosis in mammals) when they are mature enough to start laying. When chickens see a human they know, they might squat in this position, hoping to be picked up or petted.

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Five Words From … More, Please: On Food, Fat, Bingeing, Longing, and the Lust for Enough by Emma Specter

cover of More PleaseWelcome to the latest installment of “Five words from …” our series which highlights interesting words from interesting books! In this book, Vogue culture writer Emma Specter writes about her struggles around diet culture, eating disorders, and learning self-acceptance doesn’t have to be all or nothing.

Night Eating Syndrome

“Night Eating Syndrome (NES) is classified as its own eating disorder, one that affects about one in ten people who have obesity.”

NES as an eating disorder that can be comorbid with anxiety, depression, and insomnia in adult men and women. More information and help can be found on the Sleep Foundation’s website: Night Eating Syndrome: Symptoms, Causes, and Treatments.

SMILF

“Frankie Shaw’s SMILF ran for two seasons on Showtime, and while the series wasn’t perfect on screen or off … the story that endeavored to tell about women parenting, class, addiction, and food was profoundly ambitious.”

Slang for “single mom I’d like to fuck,” though in some cases the “S” stands for “step” or “soccer”. In the context of the television show, the “S” represents South Boston.

fat icon

“Yes, today’s teenagers have fat icons like Paloma Elsesser, Barbie Ferreira, and Aidy Bryant to look up to, but representation can go only so far and do only so much.”

Specter posits that a handful of representatives have little influence against the global institutions selling the idea that weight loss and thinness are the only routes to happiness.

meta-shame

“I now know that what I was experiencing was what Sonia Renee Taylor refers to in her 2018 book The Body Is Not An Apology as meta-shame, or the state of feeling shame for feeling shame about our bodies.”

Specter shares that the roots of body-shaming have been difficult to eradicate, especially when she hasn’t felt she has been able to find self-acceptance in the “correct” way.

terror management

“In times of stress or fear, people focus more than usual on the things they believe they can control, this is called terror management.”

Specter discusses that during the COVID pandemic, quarantine allowed people to scrutinize their eating and food consumption (often in disordered ways) as a means to feel agency in their own lives.

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Five Words From … There’s Always This Year: On Basketball and Ascension by Hanif Abdurraqib

Welcome to the latest installment of “Five words from …” our series which highlights interesting words from interesting books!

Cover of There's Always This Year
Hanif Abdurraqib’s 2024 memoir, There’s Always This Year: On Basketball and Ascension, finds him refusing to separate life from its external influences. Structured as a basketball game with quarters, intermissions, and timeouts, Abdurraqib meditates on basketball, belonging, and the art and function of looking back.

naked

“I propose the difference between being naked and being bare is that in a state of nakedness, the end can be seen even if it hasn’t arrived yet. It has less to do with what one is or isn’t wearing, or showing, and more to do with how poorly one keeps the inevitable hidden.”

Abdurraqib opens with an exploration of male baldness as an exercise in self-discovery and self-worth, framed by both the “Fab Five” 1991 recruits for the University of Michigan Men’s Basketball team, and Abdurraqib’s father. The decision to shave one’s head (and the acceptance of genetics) investigates vulnerabilities and self-truths for the mentioned men.

homecoming

“For all of the reasons I love the hood, the greatest reason is for how we honor our homecomings. The people who will show up to praise your return simply because it is a return. Doesn’t even have to be spectacular, though it often is.”

Abdurraqib remembers his neighbor, high school basketball legend Kenny Gregory, returning from the 1997 McDonald’s All American game, circling the block with his trophies in the front seat before an impromptu parade of neighborhood fans.

miracle

“Miracle is another word for deception. Who or what, can make someone believe anything that would otherwise be unbelievable?….A team is losing until it isn’t, until an architect of the miraculous takes over a game and the deception becomes real.”

Abdurraqib recounts his history of inconsistent prayer, both as a reluctant child and desperate adult, and how miracles are often requested in times of great duress. He witnessed what many Ohioans considered a miracle: the path leading to the Cleveland Cavaliers gaining the first pick in the 2003 NBA draft, where they chose LeBron James.

control

“The people who ignored LeBron’s obvious exit knew they didn’t have any control over what LeBron did or didn’t do, but they were in complete control over when and how their own heartbreak arrived.”

LeBron became a free agent in 2010, forcing locals to process their emotions around their hometown hero leaving. At the same time, Abdurraqib toys with the idea of leaving, as his parole nears completion, for the glimmer of life elsewhere. Here control becomes the basketball court, with awareness and denial being opposing teams.

nostalgia

“Nostalgia is only for the broken-hearted, for the displeased or disaffected, the ones who need to look to the past to give meaning to their present. I’m told there’s nothing in my childhood that will save me from what’s coming, whenever what’s coming arrives…I say I was happier in the past because the pain of the past is a relic. I speak of it, but no longer feel it. I do not know what pain is coming, but I know it is coming.”

Abdurraqib also calls nostalgia “a relentless hustler.” He remembers loved ones and looks ahead to look back on his own death. With clarity and precision, he understands that while nostalgia may honor the death of whole selves and parts of selves, it will never stop the clock from counting down to zero.

Got a book you’d like to see given the “five words from” treatment? Nominate it through this form, or email us!

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Five Words From … White Supremacy is All Around by Dr. Akilah Cadet

Welcome to the latest installment of “Five words from …” our series which highlights interesting words from interesting books!
Cover showing a Black woman in a long striped skirt, using a cane

In White Supremacy is All Around: Notes from a Black Disabled Woman in a White World, Dr. Akilah Cadet shares her life and teachings to show the shadow structures in the United States (and beyond) that continue to give white, non-disabled, cis people advantages at the cost of others. Embracing the adage “when you’re used to privilege, equality feels like oppression,” she provides an actionable framework to label and dismantle white supremacy.

accomplice
“An accomplice is someone who uses their privilege to dismantle racism, oppression, and white supremacy … An accomplice uses their privilege as a road map to know how to show up for others. They are unafraid of what their fellow white peers will say as they embrace being the odd one out.”

Dr. Cadet illustrates the difference between an accomplice and an ally. For her, being an ally is a fair-weather state of being. An accomplice is the person creating daily habits and actions to call out oppression, with or without self-promotion.

intersectionality
“A term coined by Kimberle Crenshaw, intersectionality means the inner sections of our identities, who and what we are.”

“Where ethnicity, class, gender, and characteristics intersect.”

Depending on the situation, a white woman can choose to be seen as white or a woman. Being a Black, disabled woman, Dr. Cadet’s experiences are shaped by being unable to separate these identities; she is not given the opportunity to self-label when living in white dominant culture.

For more on intersectionality, see Kimberlé Crenshaw: The urgency of intersectionality and Intersectionality, explained: meet Kimberlé Crenshaw, who coined the term.

intent
“The intent was not to harm but the outcome was just that.”
“‘That wasn’t my intent’ is an excuse to not do what you said you would do or evade accountability for harm or impact.”

When someone says something that offends another person, Dr. Cadet explains that the speaker’s intent may not have been to harm—but if it did, the speaker still needs to acknowledge accountability for unknowingly causing harm. When speakers refuse to recognize the impact of their words, it may be a way for them to hide behind bias and miss an opportunity to be an accomplice.

white centering
“When white people change the narrative of the story, situation, and harm caused to them–not the BIPOC person.”

Dr. Cadet meets a white woman who openly says the N-word during a presentation on the wine industry. Though Dr. Cadet asks her not to use it, the white woman still does. When confronted about it later, the white lady called the situation a “deeply emotional experience for me,” negating the experience and emotions of Dr. Cadet and instead placing herself and her feelings as the center of the story.

white supremacy
“White supremacy is a structure, system, process, policy approach, benefit and VIP club only for white people. It is the overt and covert racism that Black people experience, the feeling white people have of being superior and feeling like the best. Simultaneously, it is the feeling of resistance when being held accountable.”

Dr. Cadet acknowledges that people born into white privilege can have difficulty seeing and stepping away from it. No one loves the feeling of realizing they may have been wrong about something, or had advantages they weren’t fully aware of; Dr. Cadet stresses that the ability to learn and unlearn personal and systemic bias is key for those with various forms of privilege.

Got a book you’d like to see given the “five words from” treatment? Nominate it through this form, or email us!