Hello, and happy Friday!
I spent part of last weekend spectating the London Marathon — a first in my many years of calling this city home. I wish I’d done it a lot sooner.
Most people will tell you that the atmosphere of the marathon is electric, and I can confirm that this is absolutely true. Although London is a runner’s city at the best of times, there’s something about marathon day that totally grips the place. It feels like an unofficial holiday — one that anyone can show up to and observe. (Although, in my experience, you’ll have a much easier time if you bring along a handy step stool.)
As a spectator, it can feel as though it’s your job to amp up the runners: to cheer them on, to call them out by name when you can (it’s always nice to see people perk up when they realize you’re cheering for them), and to encourage those who look like they could use it (which by mile 23 is just about everyone). But to my surprise, the runners do a lot of the amping up themselves. As silly as it may sound compared to the feat of running 26.2 miles, endless cheering and clapping can be quite exhausting, and the crowd’s energy can ebb and flow. But it would only ever take one runner to raise their arms up, like a conductor to an orchestra, for the crowds to come roaring back again. By energizing us, we energized them, like an endless loop of enthusiasm.
The excitement didn’t stop at the finish line. I was heartened to see this post-race video of one finisher who descended into the London Underground to enormous cheers from his fellow commuters. I was also happy to see this kind of encouragement extended to those for whom the marathon wasn’t a great race, thanks in large part to the uncharacteristically warm London weather. A few talented runners who I follow on social media lamented not being able to finish the race or or doing so at a much slower pace than usual due to injury. The prevailing response from their followers: “The comeback is always stronger than the setback.”
Anyway, this city is amazing. And contrary to what social media and most of your 30-something pals will tell you, not everyone needs to run a marathon. But absolutely everyone should go out and experience what it’s like to watch one. You won’t regret it.
What I’ve worked on
We’ve added a number of cities to the Reuters City Memo archive recently, including London, Beirut, Chicago, Sydney, and Bogotá. If you have any travels coming up, you can look out for our definitive local guides here. Don’t see your city? Hit ‘reply’ and let me know where we should go next.
What I’ve read
This transcript of The Atlantic’s interview with Donald Trump, which had surreal exchanges like this one:
Goldberg: The thing that I can’t get my mind around is that you’re one of the most successful people in history, right? You’ve won the presidency twice—
Trump: Three times.
Goldberg: This is exactly the question! At this point in your career, don’t you think you can let go of this idea that you won? I mean, I don’t believe you that you won the 2020 election.
Trump: I’m not asking you to.
This review of Sophie Gilbert’s brilliant new book Girl on Girl: How Pop Culture Turned a Generation of Women Against Themselves, which is available where all good books are sold!
There were several passages in Sophie Gilbert’s blistering, sobering book “Girl on Girl” that challenged my selective nostalgia, making me wince. If you too came of age around the late 1990s and early aughts, prepare to have the balloon string of sentimentality pried from your grip. The party’s over. It’s been over.
This piece on how the Trump administration’s is losing its war on democracy:
While their approach broadly resembled foreign authoritarians’, it was a poor copy at every level — a strategically unsound campaign, with poorly thought-out tactics that were executed incompetently.
“We should thank [our] lucky stars that Trump chose to do this in the most stupid way possible,” says Lucan Way, a political scientist at the University of Toronto who studies democratic backsliding.
What I’m thinking about
How incredibly proud I am of my good friend and fellow Daily Trojan alum Jordyn Holman, who is bringing back The New York Times’s “Corner Office” column as its lead writer! If you aren’t already following her work, now is the time to start.
Until next time,
Yasmeen