The Best Stuff I Read This Week

“Some people believe that if they were to join the climate movement now, they would be among the last. But that is very far from true. In fact, if you do decide to take action now, you would still be a pioneer.”

— Greta Thunberg / The Climate Book

“The waves roared.
I stood alone in the darkness.
Light does not illuminate.
It only looks for things to illuminate.
And I had never been found by the light.
I would always be in darkness—“

— Yu Miri / Tokyo Ueno Station

“On the one hand, capitalism has generated immense wealth, significantly raised living standards and generally made life more comfortable and secure to varying degrees for most of those living in capitalist countries. On the other hand, it has exacted an excruciating toll in human toil and treasure. It has wrought immense suffering, systematic oppression and exploitation, and debilitating social alienation. Capitalism rewards, indeed depends upon, selfish, aggressive behavior. It values profits over people, promotes material values over spiritual values, dispenses power without social responsibility, and treats people as commodities to be discarded.”

— Obery M. Hendricks, Jr. / “The Uncompromising Anti-Capitalism of Martin Luther King Jr.”

“They say they miss the soup their grandmother used to make, the sleepiness
after eating it, the magic. When I ask what’s home for them, they say home
is a fist that dreams.”

— Ae Hee Lee / “A Study through Homes”

“we hear your last words:
     america
     if you see me as your enemy
     you have no
     friends.”

— Haki R. Madhubuti / “Gwendolyn Brooks: America in the Wintertime”

“We must rapidly begin the shift from a “thing oriented society to a “person”-oriented society. When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, materialism and militarism are incapable of being conquered. A civilization can flounder as readily in the face of moral and spiritual bankruptcy as it can through financial bankruptcy.”

— Martin Luther King, Jr. / Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community?

“Light, I salute thee with wounded nerves.”

— Jean Garrigue / “Jazz Bit”

What I’m Listening To:

“Aselestine
Where are you? The drugs don’t do
What you said they do”

— Yo La Tengo / “Aselestine”