The Best Stuff I Read This Week

“my name is zero,

my name is nonce, my name is nobody, who the hell are you.”

— Nora Claire Miller / “Rumor”

“How do you get through this miasma of complacency and make people listen? How do we break through it and slap people’s faces—metaphorically—and say, ‘The world’s collapsing around you, and all you’re worried about is how many ‘likes’ you’ve got on your social media accounts. For fuck’s sake, wake up!”

— Genesis P-Orridge / Nonbinary: A Memoir

“As the dead increased,
the world of objects seemed more dense,
different from when our child-days dragged
or a sunflower’s face, which, once arrived,
was heaviness itself.”

— Kathleen Pierce / “Datura”

“Now, it’s fully embraced by a major political party in the United States, and by authoritarian regimes in other countries such as Hungary and, previously, Brazil. It’s sanctioned by elected leaders in the US Congress. It’s reached a new level of organization and aggression — it’s starting to resemble the 1930s, when Joseph Stalin’s regime in the Soviet Union portrayed scientists as enemies of the state.”

— Julian Nowogrodzki / “Vaccine specialist Peter Hotez: scientists are ‘under attack for someone else’s political gain’” / Nature

“A muster of peacocks show off their
tails, but instead of feathers,
knives. And smoke where their
voices should be.”

— Suzi F. Garcia / “A Future History”

“Human activity is turning Earth into a world that may no longer adequately support the societies we’ve built, scientists warn in a new study charting whether and by how much we have surpassed nine planetary boundaries.”

— Meghan Bartels / “Humans Have Crossed 6 of 9 Planetary Boundaries” / The Guardian

“But the Devil is also the scarecrow that runs across the fields when everyone is asleep.”

— Liliana Colanzi / “The Narrow Way” / The New Yorker

What I’m Listening To:

“I object to you
Our deal’s un-struck
Oh, what a time to be brave
Walking ‘round an empty grave”

— Wilco / “Cousin”