The Best Stuff I Read This Week

“Someone calls me by the skin
I did not know I had
and to this I think—language, …”

— Mathem Shiferraw / “Beginnings”

“The greatest challenge the Anthropocene poses isn’t how the Department of Defense should plan for resource wars, whether we should put up sea walls to protect Manhattan, or when we should abandon Miami. It won’t be addressed by buying a Prius, turning off the air conditioning, or signing a treaty. The greatest challenge we face is a philosophical one: understanding that this civilization is already dead. The sooner we confront our situation and realize that there is nothing we can do to save ourselves, the sooner we can get down to the difficult task of adapting, with mortal humility, to our new reality.”

— Roy Scranton / Learning to Die in the Anthropocene

“We carry a pinch behind each eyeball”

— Lisel Mueller / “Love Like Salt”

“The story of human civilization has been steady expansion. Out of Africa into the surrounding continents. Out along the river corridors and ocean coasts as trade grew. Into new territory as we cut down forests or filled in swamps. But that steady expansion has now turned into a contraction. There are places it’s getting harder and harder to live, because it burns or floods. Or because the threat of fire and water is enough to drive up the price of insurance past the point where people can afford it.”

— Bill McKibben / “An Ever-Smaller Board” / Substack newsletter

“The sky is / blue-gold: / the freedom of possibility. … Today, I broke your solar system. / Oops. My bad.”

— Fatimah Ashgar / “Pluto Shits on the Universe”

“Carbon-fueled capitalism is a zombie system, voracious but sterile. This aggressive human monoculture has proven astoundingly virulent but also toxic, cannibalistic, and self-destructive. It is unsustainable, both in itself and as a response to catastrophic climate change. Thankfully, carbon-fueled capitalism is not the only way humans can organize their lives together.”

— Roy Scranton / Learning to Die in the Anthropocene

“Signs that the end of summer is nigh / The skies will darken, / Pumpkin spice shall rain down upon the land and the rivers will run red with cider…”

— Gemma Correll / “End of Days” / The Nib

What I’m Listening To:

“T.V.O.D.
I don’t need a TV screen
I just stick the aerial into my skin
Let the signal run through my veins
T.V.O.D.”

The Normal / “T.V.O.D.”