Welcome to The Platypus!
This is a reboot of what some of you know as Reading Journal, an occasional email we started sending to friends in February 2020 with links to articles we found useful in making sense of the then-novel coronavirus pandemic and the country’s ongoing political and economic crisis. Our list has since grown dramatically and outgrown the email format. The Platypus will come out roughly once a week (no commitments!), and any given week will include some mix of opinion, links to books and articles we like, reflections on things we’ve read, a “delights and provocations” section for art and film, and a “savvy corner” featuring cool interventions, campaigns, or events. It’s free, but you can subscribe for $5 per month if you want to contribute to the “crowded out of their apartment by too many books” fund. We’ll be announcing subscriber-only content in the near future. We don’t promise to be topical or relevant, only to follow our many curiosities about politics, ideas, organizing, movements, art, and spirituality. Our basic editorial rule is to include things that make us think in new ways, bring us joy, or both. Please subscribe and spread the word.
You may ask, “Why the platypus?”
Once thought to be a hoax, the platypus is a most improbable critter — an egg-laying mammal, with a snout like a duck’s, a tail like a beaver’s, and a mole’s prodigious ability to burrow. It glows; finds prey with electrolocation, like a shark; and can take down much larger predators with its hind feet, which are equipped with venomous spikes. This swiss army knife of animals perfectly symbolizes what our newsletter aspires to be: eclectic and surprising, wondrous yet formidable.
We, Deepak Bhargava and Harry Hanbury, have been together for 25 years, and The Platypus is our new, shared adventure. Deepak is a lifelong activist and organizer who ran Community Change for 16 years and now teaches at CUNY’s School of Labor and Urban Studies. In April of 2021, the New Press published his anthology Immigration Matters: Visions, Movements, and Strategies for a Progressive Future, co-edited with Ruth Milkman and Penny Lewis. Harry is a documentary filmmaker and former high school history teacher. You can see his work at https://www.linkedin.com/in/harryhanbury/.
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