Memorable Stuff I Read This Week

“I don’t believe in the therapeutic effects of writing … I really think that the only healing possible will be through justice … “

— Cristina Rivera Garza, to Lillian Perlmutter / “‘The only healing will be through justice’: Pulitzer winner Cristina Rivera Garza on femicide in Mexico” / The Guardian

How can I feel lonely when I am submerged
in catastrophe? In the constant reminder that someday
this island could be gone.
But that’s not the official messaging—is it?
Instead, we say we will exist
indefinitely. Rooted against the tides,
rooted against trillion-dollar industries. We will,
we will. Exist. Exist.

— Kathy Jetñil-Kijiner / “Kaōnōn”

… around 390 years ago, B. germanica began to spread east from South Asia, with the rise of European colonialism and the emergence of international trading companies such as the Dutch and British East India Companies. Around a century later, the German cockroach hitched a ride into Europe, and conquered the world from there.

— Nature / “How cockroaches took over the world”

It is not that we’ll have to stop flying, or planes will start falling out of the sky . . . I’m just saying that for every 10 minutes you’ve spent in severe turbulence in the past, it could be 20 or 30 minutes in the future.

— Paul Williams / “Singapore Airlines turbulence: why climate change is making flights rougher” / Nature

No matter where I went, even if I went somewhere I felt I could stay forever, it would be only one stop on my journey, a journey with its own specific and predetermined chronology, which would override my individual choices, even if I wished my life and the various forces orchestrating it to be otherwise.

— Maya Binyam / Hangman

To love myself in patriarchy, I’ve often had to put a lot of distance between myself and men . . . But when men are socialized to identify their humanness as masculinity and to associate masculinity with power, we get some real problems. These are the problems of patriarchy. 

— Laura Killingbeck / “A Woman Who Left Society to Live with Bears Weighs in on ‘Man or Bear’” / Bikepacking.com

We are not speaking of gender violence as something extraordinary that happens for unknown reasons. We’re talking about a violence that is structural, that we can identify … And of course, the powers that be are not going to be welcoming of this language.

— Cristina Rivera Garza, to Lillian Perlmutter / “‘The only healing will be through justice’: Pulitzer winner Cristina Rivera Garza on femicide in Mexico” / The Guardian

What I’m Listening To:

Something here isn’t right
Something feels out of place
Who’s that man there in the mirror
‘Cause I don’t recognize his face

— pigbaby / “Meep Meep Said the Rat”