Memorable Stuff I Read This Week

“The thing is, May,” the hum said, “the goal of advertising is to rip a hole in your heart so it can then fill that hole with plastic, or with any other materials that can be yanked out of the earth and, after brief sojourns as objects of desire, be converted to waste.”

— Hellen Phillips / Hum

betelgeuse is turning on and off
like your love—everybody knows
it’s dying

— Julian Talamantez Brolanski / “hasten slowly and you shall soon arrive”

The world is changing because it must. If seeds can germinate in the inferno, so can revolution.

— Mohammed El-Kurd / Perfect Victims and the Politics of Appeal

I hear the hush of sheet iron being cut,
The tear of frost where pear trees
Lean in a wind white with your breath.

— Nancy Ryan / “Poem”

YOU WILL KNOW THAT YOU’RE DONE WITH something when you can’t imagine making it better. For some writers that’s a state of exhilaration: They’ve done everything they can. This beautiful accomplishment! Nothing can improve it. Others of us arrive at the same place, despondent: This ramshackle thing. I’ve reached the end of my powers. Nothing can improve it. 

— Elizabeth McCracken / A Long Game: Notes on Writing Fiction

I heard my voice from below:
It called me by my name.

I ran downstairs.
When I arrived, I was dead.

— Ulalume González de León / “The Stairs”

“We are all villains,” the hum said. “The system only gives us villainous options.”

— Hellen Phillips / Hum

What I’m Listening To:

Sisters and brothers, our struggles
mirror each others’
Recognize you recognize me
Mutual, support, unite

— Stereolab / “Cloud Land”