Memorable Stuff I Read This Week

Everything is fine: a means to endure
news cycles, historic cycles, menstrual

cycles. This is walking home after work,
crawling into bed naked. Night, quiet with

snow. I am an empty bank account.
I am a pylon glowing in the dark. I am
a primal scream. I am not here.

— Amy M. Alvarez / “Burn Out”

The fossil fuel industry is essentially running the United States government from the inside. It’s a desperate industry. They know that clean renewable energy is cheaper. They know that they only compete by virtue of massive subsidies from being allowed to pollute for free, which nobody should be allowed to do. And they prop all of that up with enormous amounts of political corruption and leverage and a huge climate denial fraud campaign.

— Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, to Akshat Rathi, Oscar Boyd, and Jennifer A Dlouhy / “Sheldon Whitehouse on How to Confront ‘Fossil Fuel Monsters’ in the US” / Bloomberg News

She sings “America the Beautiful.” 
She sings: From sea to every goddamn American sea. 
I walk away but her song follows me, 
carried on by some aura I can’t outrun. 

— Natalie Scenters-Zapico / “Aura”

Last year has been confirmed as the third-warmest year on record by the European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service and US research organization Berkeley Earth — despite the return of cooling La Niña weather phenomenon. “The warming spike observed from 2023-2025 has been extreme, and suggests an acceleration in the rate of the Earth’s warming,” said Berkeley Earth in its report. Burning fossil fuels remains the main cause, but the situation is probably being made worse by hot seas and changes in cloud patterns caused by warming, and (ironically) the cleaning up of sun-shading air pollution.

— Jacob Smith / “ 2025 shows Earth is getting hotter, faster” / Nature Briefing

On the road home the tide is rising.

Riding the road-tide is dangerous 

but it’s not safe to stand still. 

Hang on the verge & you drown.

— Marie Ponsot / “ Rain All Night, Paris”

But research increasingly suggests that reading may be more powerful than we realize. In fact, doing so regularly has been linked to lower stress, stronger memory, protection against cognitive decline and dementia, and even a longer life.

— Daryl Austin / “Reading books can help you live longer—here’s how” / National Geographic

A California of snow and the surprise
Of illness. I throned myself in the white
Noise of its silence and watched as the world
Fell away. All the silver flickerings of possibility
Going out like the sound of horse hooves
Clicking into the distance. It is almost the end
Of the world.

— Cynthia Cruz / “January”

What I’m Listening To:

Hate speech
Climate change
They/them
Tile drainage
Trauma
Privilege
Uterus

— Kim Gordon / “ByeBye25!”