★★★ A mastiff was wearing a suspiciously human-cut Nordic sweater. The air had been harsh and frosty even inside the lobby; outside it was a little painful to breathe. Only a dry salt crust remained where the playground snow had been. There was no way to wear as many clothes inside the apartment as it was necessary to wear outdoors. The sparse and mobile early morning clouds became a lid of gray, and then that in turn blew away, leaving the afternoon completely clear. Brilliant highlights flared at the tops of buildings—far away from the deep and heavy shadows in the streets. It was hard to separate the effects of the air from the dry cough developing down in the chest.

Today, the Awl short story “Meow Meow” took over the internet, with everyone discussing author Mu or Yan’s cringingly relatable depiction of human-centrism, and praising its revealing exploration of how people think they’re the most important things in the universe, as if anything they do except open a can of food makes a difference. If you liked “Meow Meow,” here are some other books to read, compiled by Awl cat pals.

Lot 1: O, Tannenbaum

Images © Alexander Historical Auctions

 ’Tis the season for tinsel and garlands and swastikas. You don’t mind, do you? It’s history! Heritage! Don’t be a snowflake.

Just in the jolly old St. Nick of time for last-minute holiday shopping, several antique glass SS Christmas tree ornaments are headed to auction in Maryland on December 19. Bid on a singular hand-painted cherry red globe featuring a black swastika brilliantly set against a silver background for about $150-200. If you have more tree to cover and a fatter wallet, a full set of seven silver glass SS-themed balls complete with 10” tree-topper—“obviously intended for those SS members and their families who celebrated the Christian family,” according to the auctioneer—is also on offer, at $800-1,000.

Your story in today’s Awl, “Meow Meow,” is both an inscrutable feline narrative and, I think, a kind of commentary on how humans have to place themselves at the center of the action in every tale. Where did the idea for the story come from?

meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow, meow meow meow “meow meow,” meow meow meow meow

There’s little more satisfying than eavesdropping on a conversation between two people speaking a language who think that nobody around them can understand—and being able to understand them. It’s especially fun when these people start talking about you, like in that classic David Sedaris essay where some loud American tourists start discussing Sedaris’s body odor in English on the Paris Metro.

That’s essentially how the entire country of Germany operates when they talk about us—loud, open mockery. Because let’s face it: Aside from constant inquiries as to whether there is a single German word that encapsulates an entire subtweet—and despite the fact that more Americans claim German ancestry than any other single nationality or ethnicity—most of those 50 million or so alleged German-Americans don’t speak German (unless you count “Schnitzelbank”), even though English is basically German that got lazy and dropped its endings. (I’m always suggesting university German departments use that as their major’s motto, but nobody’s taken me up on it yet, because university German departments hate great ideas.)

The result is that millennials of color are even more exposed to disaster than their peers. Many white millennials have an iceberg of accumulated wealth from their parents and grandparents that they can draw on for help with tuition, rent or a place to stay during an unpaid internship. According to the Institute on Assets and Social Policy, white Americans are five times more likely to receive an inheritance than black Americans—which can be enough to make a down payment on a house or pay off student loans. By contrast, 67 percent of black families and 71 percent of Latino families don’t have enough money saved to cover three months of living expenses.

And so, instead of receiving help from their families, millennials of color are more likely to be called on to provide it. Any extra income from a new job or a raise tends to get swallowed by bills or debts that many white millennials had help with. Four years after graduation, black college graduates have, on average, nearly twice as much student debt as their white counterparts and are three times more likely to be behind on payments. This financial undertow is captured in one staggering statistic: Every extra dollar of income earned by a middle-class white family generates $5.19 in new wealth. For black families, it’s 69 cents.

—Don’t let the 8-bit scrolly business fool you; just let it into your heart. This is so very well done.

The Golden Bowl / Felix Gonzalez-Torres

There was no other
consideration except

I wanted to make
art work that could

disappear that never
existed and it was a

metaphor for when
Ross was dying it

was a metaphor that
I would abandon

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meow meow meow meow

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Music, here it is. May it meet with your approval.

★★ The first of the rain had passed, and the morning was damp and, for the moment, mild. Pigeons fluffed up and pressed close to the wall as the day darkened toward the next rain. Puffy coats were out against where the day was going. The ground got dry and then wet again. Bright, glossy leaves lay with their curl still intact.