The Best Stuff I Read This Week

“The world reveals itself to those who travel on foot.”

— Werner Herzog / “I Rant Against The Jungle: Werner Herzog Interviewed” / The Quietus

“where there once was prairie / a few remaining fireflies abstract / themselves / over roads and concrete paths / prairie wants to stretch full out again and sigh—“

— Camille T. Dungy / “let grow more winter fat / wine-cup / western wild rose”

“Never did I think so much, exist so vividly, and experience so much, never have I been so much myself—if I may use that expression as in the journeys I have taken alone and on foot. There is something about walking which stimulates and enlivens my thoughts. When I stay in one place I can hardly think at all; my body has to be on the move to set my mind going.”

— Jean-Jacques Rousseau / Confessions

“The universe is filled with Nothing, it is the Yawning Black Void. Systems of the Milky Ways have condensed into Un-stars. Utter blissfulness is spreading, and out of utter blissfulness now springs Absurdity. This is the situation.”

— Werner Herzog / Of Walking In Ice

“The problem of the twenty-first century remains the color line. Yes, we are mired in overlapping societal struggles and challenges. But white supremacy and its many manifestations—some of them sly and cloaked, some of them clear as a Confederate flag flown by marauders in the US Capitol—has been a fundamental problem for every generation in this country since Black people first came to this land.”

— Elizabeth Alexander / The Trayvon Generation

“… we have an inherent urge to wander that we seldom think about but that we are reminded of every time we follow a path.”

— Torbjørn Ekelund / In Praise of Paths

“Why is walking so full of woe? Since no one else encourages me, I encourage myself.”

— Werner Herzog / Of Walking In Ice

What I’m Listening To:

“Pilgrim out of mind, out of depths
Depths does not exist
Hittie man emerges, from sands
(Sands)”

— The Fall / “Hittite Man”