Memorable Stuff I Read This Week

Yellow rain. Biological warfare. The Hmong. Erasure of a people’s history, negation of trauma. Shadows and truth.

First came the wars that led to other wars that led to the Secret War that became a proxy war in 1960s Laos, led by the Central Intelligence Agency. The white foreigner arrived bearing guns and bombs to lead his surrogate cause, to quell communism and use Hmong men to do his work of war. In breach of Laos’ neutral state and a deepening of secrets.

— Mai Der Vang / Yellow Rain

Nearly half the world’s countries endured at least two months of high-risk temperatures. Even in the least affected places, such as the UK, US and Australia, the carbon pollution from fossil fuel burning has led to an extra three weeks of elevated temperatures.

— Damian Carrington / “Climate crisis exposed people to extra six weeks of dangerous heat in 2024” / The Guardian

never forget
you are a breathing
accident of chance
ample with reverberations
of the impossible

— Maria Popova / An Almanac of Birds: 100 Divinations for Uncertain Days

Yellow rain came in the midst of exodus, poison landed on the Hmong in the middle of escape. Specks descending from aircraft overhead, falling onto trees, into water, and onto skin. Specks of a mysterious substance ranging in color: red, black, white, green, and yellow above all. Specks of illness and death.

— Mai Der Vang / Yellow Rain

Every war is a dirty war.
Nothing epic, no glory: only misery.

— Igort / How War Begins: Dispatches from the Ukrainian Invasion

The end of the world looks exactly the way you remember. Don’t try to picture the apocalypse. Everything is the same.

— Anne de Marcken / It Lasts Forever and Then It’s Over

… Here is the talk: biological
weapon, yellow spots,

apiary blame, for decades
to wane and cold
filed. Believe me as a

torch of this wandering
that I have been digging
within the origins of

redaction. Believe where
I am sending you. I have
been shoveling upside

down.

— Mai Der Vang / “Guide for Channeling” / Yellow Rain

What I’m Listening To:

Bigger slump and bigger wars
And a smaller recovery
Huger slump and greater wars
And a shallower recovery
Don’t worry, be happy
Things will get better naturally
Don’t worry, shut up, sit down
Go with it and be happy
Dum-dum-dum-de-dum-dum-de-da-de-da-de-dum-dum-dum-ah-ah

— Stereolab / “Ping Pong”