The Best Stuff I Read This Week

“We have a narrow window for change … and the projections from our research suggest that the window is closing fast.”

— Climate Scientists at the SCAR Biology Symposium / “Antarctica’s heatwaves are a warning to humanity—and we have only a narrow window to save the planet” / The Guardian

“Such beauty that for a minute
death and ambition, even love,
doesn’t enter into this.
Happiness. It comes on
unexpectedly. And goes beyond, really,
any early morning talk about it.”

— Raymond Carver / “Happiness”

“Waste body / garbaged / while I was anaesthetically asleep / naked under medical fluorescence / — intubated dead bits cut off / — dead bits deemed / “biohazard”: / waste / feet / ankles / fingers / Uterus / biohazardbodyparts / all go into their fucking garbage can”

— Therese Estacion / Phantompains

“I can’t explain it. She broke something loose in me and swept away the splinters. I didn’t blush or bat my eyes or do anything as I spoke. I was saying things I’d never said before, and yet I felt nothing. That was Elizabeth’s power. That was her magic. I felt absolutely nothing around her.”

— Ottessa Moshfegh / “When Stars Collide”

“She just turned fifty. I tell her wait ten years—you
won’t know more, but you will get closer to forgiving,
because it is all happening on a wheel that spins
so fast.”

— Sheila Black / “The Earth”

“We’re in a mess, but together we have some chance of working our way out of it.”

— Bill McKibben / “Where Should I Live?” / Substack newsletter

“This is a critical moment, impacting our well-being, future generations and ecosystems globally. Confronted by this evidence, we urgently call on nations to intensify and exceed their current commitments to greenhouse gas emissions reductions. An immediate increase in ambition is required to reach net zero and to go beyond it. Pledges are not enough.”

— Climate Scientists at the SCAR Biology Symposium / “Antarctica’s heatwaves are a warning to humanity – and we have only a narrow window to save the planet” / The Guardian

What I’m Listening To:

“Zun’s a feeble lamp
O’er leery land
Stares a’chat in code
Lark a meagre note”

—PJ Harvey / “I Inside the Old Year Dying”