The Best Stuff I Read This Week

“I sometimes fear that we shall never wake till we are jerked out of it by the roar of bombs.”

— George Orwell / Homage to Catalonia

“Apathy and delirium sun themselves on the porch.
All the old dragons loll along the beach.”

— James Broughtin / “Tristan at the Seashore”

“Groups of animal species are vanishing at a rate 35 times higher than average due to human activity, according to researchers, who say it is further evidence that a sixth mass extinction in Earth’s history is under way and accelerating.”

— Patrick Greenfield / “Mutilating the tree of life: Wildlife loss accelerating, scientists warn” / The Guardian

“we’re
going to need
new tactics                         strategies for endurance don’t ruminate
on sinkholes water
supplies toxins massive unknowable truly undivinable fractures
in the brittle
tectonic masses”

— Caryl Pagel / “Saturday”

“Across the whole of the Americas, the introduction of infectious diseases from Europe resulted in a 90 percent fall in the population, from about 60.5 million in 1500 to 6 million a century later.”

— Jonathan Kennedy / Pathogenesis: A History of the World in Eight Plagues

“we cannot explain the world, named the same as marrow beaten to glue
            bones circling the belly of the Earth
            our voices shattering the glass windows
of unrelenting, heated houses: mother describes the world: a tumour. yes.”

— Canisia Lubrin / “The World After Rain”

“All the war-propaganda, all the screaming and lies and hatred, comes invariably from people who are not fighting”

— George Orwell / Homage to Catalonia

What I’m Listening To:

“Most of me is out of sight
Hollow honeycomb
I’m tired when the day breaks
I’m tired when the day ends”

— Wilco / “Ten Dead”