Just eight days out. Incumbent Donald Trump wants reelection. He’s the one who a quarter-century ago reportedly posed as his own publicist (a fictional person) to brag about himself on a call with a magazine interviewer, masquerading like one does. This is gonna be a wild week, so let’s do eight Recharges today, clear the mind. Starting with a war dance:
1. Behold a dancer who embodies the power, poise, balance, and beauty to show that swords can be mightier than the pen (artistically). Ava DuVernay applauds her mesmerizing moves: “Wish I had a movie with some sword-fighting in it, I’d cast @TheSamurider in a heartbeat.”
2. Congratulations to Irina Krush, who, after recovering from COVID-19, won the US women’s chess championship last week for the eighth time. We toasted her recovery from the virus in the spring. Let the celebration continue.
3. Hip Hop for Change is a grassroots group that educates students in Oakland and nationwide about music as a mobilizing force. Khafre Jay and his staff are on a hot streak, pulling in the 2020 Zellerbach Award for Social Justice and the Ellen Magnin Newman Award for Outstanding Arts Organization from the San Francisco Symphony. Check out our first salute, and if any other symphonies show this level of funding and love to hip-hop for coalition-building across genres and communities, let us know.
4. Also on the dance-and-music front, a drum line of voters marching in formation to the polls in Texas, and why it resonates historically.
5. Peaceful Cuisine is the soul-soothing channel of the minimalistic, mood-lifting Ryoya Takashima, a Kyoto-based chef who builds his own furniture, wastes next to nothing, spares animals, pounds mochi blissfully, and, in camerawork alone, is instantly rejuvenating.
6. Happy birthday to Mahalia Jackson, “gospel queen” of New Orleans, who today would turn 109.
7. There’s the high road and then there’s the occasional (worthy) low road that serves up a Recharge just fine. Here’s that video, thanks to a reader’s tip, dipping into the mudslinging magic of campaign combat.
8. Who knows what suspended hyphenation is and why it matters factually and grammatically? Many do. Nice correction, Guardian copy team.
