I managed to get the littles out of the city this weekend and into their grandparents’ backyard, where my anxiety re: tick season has replaced my anxiety re: wildfire season. What a time to be alive. If you need a go-to tick repellent, my woodsy brother swears by these patches. If you’re more of an indoor gal, then you know seeing The Odyssey is harder than getting home from Troy. (We’ve reached the Taylor Swift phase of ticketing.) After you’re done praying to the cinema gods, check out these seven books hitting the bestseller lists thanks to Christopher Nolan (just don’t ask him to read a Nancy Meyers script). Shoutout to Emily Wilson, the first woman to translate Homer’s epic into English, the main inspiration for Nolan’s script, and the latest to offend the manosphere. (Lupita Nyong’o is in good company.) Honorable mention to Madeline Miller, whose novel Circe is in my personal pantheon. And now, the news…
— Kate Preziosi / Editor / New York, NY
Politics
A New Maine Character
What's going on: Seventeen days after Graham Platner ended his Senate campaign following a rape accusation, Maine Democrats have picked his replacement. Meet (drumroll, please) Troy Jackson, a former State Senate president, a fifth-generation logger, a progressive Democrat, and another straight white dude. Like Platner, Jackson has an outsider energy that Dems hope can motivate voters to — say it with us — “see themselves having a beer with him.” While Jackson is mostly controversy-free so far, he does have a reputation for losing his temper (highlights include “the water bottle incident”). But there are two key ways he’s very different: He has substantially more political experience — he began his career as a Republican in the 90s — and substantially less campaign money.
What it means for Democrats: Jackson has to win over voters in less than 100 days on a shoestring budget, especially compared to his rival, five-term incumbent Republican Senator Susan Collins. (As he put it last week, “You know, Susan’s got $12 million. I got $12.”) And Jackson has to do this by striking a tricky balance: Ride the grassroots progressive wave that helped Platner win the primary… while distancing himself from Platner. Cue Republicans releasing their first attack ad this weekend calling Jackson “like Graham Platner, but worse.” Maine plays an outsize role in the midterms: Democrats must flip four Senate seats to take the majority, and Maine is one of just a few states up for grabs. If Jackson loses, the party’s path to a majority gets much narrower.
