Let's Change Things Up!

Running, boxing, starving, and bad healthcare

It’s been a minute. Sorry for my absence.

What’s the point?

The other day I went for a run for the first time in two months. I used to run a lot. When I run I’m able to lose my mind in a way I can never do when I’m not running. It wanders. I have nice thoughts. I work things out. Sometimes I can remember my thoughts after a run. Sometimes I can’t. All this is to say running is a mental exercise as well as physical.

The other day when I ran for the first time in two months my mind wandered to this newsletter. For the last year or so every newsletter has had some sort of apology for being infrequent and irregular. Something like, “this newsletter has slowed down for a number of reasons.” On my run the other day I realized one of those reasons is that I don’t run anymore. Running was when I’d think about books. I’d figure out what I wanted to say about each book. Without running, without losing my mind on a run it's hard to think of things to write.

So now without running I get bored writing about books because I’m just bullshitting. I don’t have a perspective. I just dump shit into a template and send it out. So I avoid writing it. I thought trying to read the complete discography of one writer might give me some energy and motivation. Turns out I hated it.

The other day when I ran for the first time in two months I thought about how I’ve replaced running with boxing. I box at least three times a week. When I am boxing I cannot lose my mind like when I’m running. While boxing I have to think very hard about where my hands and feet are and where someone else’s hands and feet are. Every thought is in service of not getting hit. I think that someday I might be able to box and I won’t have to think so hard about it. Maybe someday I’ll be able to box and think about books. Not yet though. So I’m going to change the structure of this newsletter.

I’m going to write less about more books. I’m not going to try to tie the books together at all (the connections were pretty tenuous anyways). I might still include dumb anecdotes from life because I’m obsessed with myself, but sometimes I might not.

Each review is a three minute round. In and out. Bob and weave. Slip and pull. Jab, cross, hook. Float and sting. Rope-a-dope. Ding! Ding! Ding!

The new format will start next time. Soon. But before that I’ve got one orphan review that I’m gonna post below.

Sound good? Any questions?

Also, thank you so much for reading this dumb thing. Feel free to talk about what you’re reading (or whatever) in the comments. Or make recommendations. I’ll read your suggestions.

Starvation Heights: A True Story of Murder and Malice in the Woods of the Pacific Northwest by Gregg Olson. Published by Crown in 2005.

In 1973 Dolorous and Marian Price were arrested for their part in the "Old Bailey Bombing" in London, where a group of IRA operatives detonated car bombs outside the Old Bailey Courthouse. Almost immediately the Price sisters went on hunger strike. Not long into the hunger strike prison authorities began force feeding the sisters. After 200 days the sisters were moved to a prison in Northern Ireland and their hunger strike ended. Sometimes starving is political.

French philosopher and mystic Simone Weil has a concept called "decreation" in her own words it means "to make something created pass into the uncreated." Elsewhere she writes about the need to empty oneself in order to create space for god to fill. Any void is filled by god, so we must turn ourselves into voids to be filled by god. For Weil emptying oneself can mean different things. Philosophically it means to rid oneself of ego. Humility. Materially it means don't eat. In 1943 while living in England as a Jewish refugee, she refused to eat larger portions of food than the people suffering in Nazi occupied France. An act of solidarity. An act of spiritual and material decreation. In August of that year Weil died from "refusing to eat." Sometimes starving is political and also mystical.

In 1911 sisters Claire and Dora Williamson moved to Olalla, Washington, outside Seattle, to take residence in a fasting sanitarium. Neither had any diagnosed illness but felt bad generally and jumped from health fad to health fad hoping something would cure them. They stumbled on a book by Dr. Laura Burfield Hazzard. Fasting for the Cure of Disease hypothesized that every disease resulted from diet. Any ailment could be addressed by starving the body of impurities and slowly rebuilding through proper nutrition. In practice, Hazzard's patients ate nothing but broth made from boiling canned tomatoes and straining out the tomatoes. The diet was complimented by enemas lasting several hours and beatings masked as massages.

Not long into their stay at the "Starvation Heights" sanitarium the Williamson sisters knew they'd made a mistake. Hazzard took their jewelry and kept it in a safe. She manipulated the young women into giving her access to their bank accounts. As they grew weaker and weaker from starvation they handed her power of attorney. Claire died. Sometimes starving is murder.

Before her death Claire sent a telegram for their childhood nurse, Margaret Conway. Conway was able to get Dora out of Hazzard's care. The two women took Hazzard to court and after a lengthy trial Linda Burfield Hazzard was sentence to prison in Walla Walla, Washington. Two years into her sentence she was released. In 1938 she died practicing her own starvation cure.

There’s little difference between Linda Burfield Hazzard and wellness influences accruing followers on instagram and tiktok. The Williamson sisters come across as well meaning young women with too much time and money on their hands. If alive today they would likely be susceptible to faulty and dangerous medical information provided through social media. They were wealthy heiresses. Their parents died when they were young. They traveled the world following their whims. The starving cure was a tragic whim. Today they'd be drinking raw milk, avoiding seed oils, and eating raw organ meat.

Throughout Starvation Heights Olsen refers to "believers" of the starvation cure and "followers" of Linda Burfield Hazzard as though she is a religious leader. The starvation cure is called a movement. I have very little judgement and a great deal of sympathy for people who succumb to charismatic figures spouting nonsense like Hazzard but I can't help but notice the difference in language. Someone receiving chemotherapy isn’t a “follower” of chemotherapy. There is no charismatic figure claiming chemotherapy can cure any illness. With the starvation cure and wellness influencers alike, it's the person not the cure people are subscribing to.

The most interesting thing about Starvation Heights is how closely it adheres to current narratives around medicine and trust. As a child Linda Burfield Hazzard's father had all his children see a doctor regularly. None were sick. It was preventative. The doctor gave everyone an unknown medication that prevented an unknown illness. They all became very, very sick. After that Hazzard never trusted doctors. She dedicated her life to alternative medicines. The mainstream could not be trusted.

Having a bad experience with medicine and looking for alternatives is recognizable. From the Williamsons' perspective, constantly feeling bad but no one being able to tell you why or how to feel better is discouraging. It is also something people, especially women, talk about when discussing medical care. When someone comes along claiming they can help, of course they're going to listen. For the first time they feel like someone is taking them and their bad feelings seriously. Validation and help are hard to come by navigating the healthcare system. Also hard to come by outside the healthcare system.