Memorable Stuff I Read This Week

I was having a moment,
so I went home
and covered myself in princess stickers.

— Matt Broaddus / “Emotional Rescue”

“The message we keep hearing is that the nuclear risk is over, that that’s an old risk from the cold war,” says physicist Daniel Holz, who is one of the stewards of the iconic ‘Doomsday Clock’. “But when you talk to experts, you get the opposite message — that actually the nuclear risk is very high, and it’s increasing.” Nuclear deterrence is no longer a two-player game. And there are new risk factors: online misinformation and disinformation can influence leaders or voters in nuclear-armed nations, and artificial intelligence brings uncertainty to military decision-making. The result is a risky new nuclear age.

— Flora Graham / “Don’t get complacent about nuclear war” / Nature Briefing

What part of your life’s record is skipping?
What wound is on repeat?
Have you done everything you can
to break out of that groove?

— Andrea Gibson / “How the Worst Day of My Life Became the Best”

. . .a blank sheet of paper holds the greatest excitement there is for me—more promising than a silver cloud, prettier than a little red wagon. It holds all the hope there is, all fears. I can remember, really quite distinctly, looking a sheet of paper square in the eyes when I was seven or eight years old and thinking, ‘This is where I belong. This is it.’

— E. B. White / Letters of E. B. White

Here’s the thing: fission does not begin when a father holds a scan
speckled with the gleam of small explosions. It’s a delicate process—
the body expiring, the intricate design of it: cells chugging on their suicide vesicles
without argument, blood vessels giving up their elasticities,
or telomeres untwining in perfect obedience to the secret Latin of rot.

— Feranmi Ariyo / “Fission”

When we wake from the dream-laden phase of sleep, the brain boots up step by step. The first brain regions to rouse are those associated with executive function and decision-making, located at the front of the head. A wave of wakefulness then spreads to the back, ending with an area associated with vision. This precise understanding of how the brain transitions from slumber to alertness could help to manage sleep inertia — the grogginess that many people feel when hitting the snooze button.

— Flora Graham / “How the Brain Wakes Up” / Nature Briefing

I had a dream once,
perhaps it was a dream,
that the crab was my ignorance of God.
But who am I to believe in dreams?

— Anne Sexton / “The Poet of Ignorance”

What I’m Listening To:

I can’t hit a violin without it breaking

Can’t smash a piano without it shaking

— Mhaol / “Snare”