The Best Stuff I Read This Week

Words float up the stairs like so many childhood letter magnets. Endgame, civilization, catastrophe, humanitarian.

— Megan Hunter / The End We Start From

Those who witness extreme social collapse at first hand seldom describe any deep revelation about the truths of human existence. What they do mention, if asked, is their surprise at how easy it is to die.

— Paul Kingsnorth / The Dark Mountain Manifesto

Throughout the year we exist in dazzling drought.
When the rare cloudburst occurs, we complain
about getting caught and drenched in the rain.

— Harryette Mullen / Urban Tumbleweed

Evidence from long-lived marine sponges suggests that the planet has already passed 1.5 °C — a milestone of global warming that nations pledged to avoid in the 2015 Paris climate agreement . . . and is on track to surpass 2 °C in the next few years.”

— Bianca Nogrady / “The world has warmed 1.5 °C, according to 300-year-old sponges” / Nature

A farcical and inhuman history turned us into “brown” people and “Hispanics” and “illegal aliens” and “spics.” But when we spend time living inside that history, and untangling the roots of the racist ideas about us, we can feel stronger and more centered. We can see that the insults directed at us have increased the more dependent the country has become on our labor.

— Hector Tobar / Our Migrant Souls

Makeshift sign. Uncle Sam
white as the lines on the flag in hand mouths
love it or leave it. You must admire
the gall of white men in carjacked country …
… How does one undrown
from the incivility of this world?

— Niki Herd / “The Stuff of Hollywood”

I have read that, when someone knows they are going to die, the world becomes acutely itself.

— Megan Hunter / The End We Start From

What I’m Listening To:

This is all a hallway to another empty room but you can’t go without me
Who will save you from the darkness in me?

— Birthmark / “Snowflake in My Palm (Not for Long)”