That I’m trying to figure out why Pablo Fanques Fair was such a scene?
That the scree and other debris that gets in my shoes is really comforting?
No.
I’ve run away from home on a fast ferry!
I’m picking off a dozen deer ticks before I get the Lyme bullseye rash.
I don’t want the Lyme. I don’t want the Covid.
I left my neighborhood for another neighborhood—pictures tomorrow.
Stay tuned—more news at 11.
What I’m Reading:
“I am here not only to evade for a while the clamor and filth and confusion of the cultural apparatus but also to confront, immediately and directly if it’s possible, the bare bones of existence, the elemental and fundamental, the bedrock which sustains us.”
The fable persuader The deep pocket pusher of dreams Fine line sharpener of fancy and flight Scrimper and scavenger of marrow-bone pithy and white Nails plastic lobsters onto dead sycamores Inscribes chalk circles in the middle of the street Loves Luci Dead Limb Cries at the wax of the moon
What I’m Reading:
“Darkness starts inside of things but keeps on going when the things are gone.”
“I stole the yellow bird That lives in the devil’s sex He will teach me how to seduce”
— Joyce Mansour / “I stole the yellow bird …”
“on Sunday after church I took a walk so I could discuss your nipples with the friendly woodpecker who visits the birch tree”
— Wayne Koestenbaum / “David’s Nipples”
“It’s called Cyclone Mocha, but it might as well be called Cyclone Exxon or Cyclone Chevron—they were among the companies that ignored the clear evidence of pending climate crisis and kept pushing their product till the Bay of Bengal was a hot tub. And it’s oil companies that are currently mounting a drive in California to overturn a law that would simply prevent them from drilling directly next to schools, hospitals, and homes. Rage is not an answer, but it is the thing that comes before an answer.”
— Bill McKibben / “Thoughts, Prayers, Rage, Resistance”
“Consider: the verbal dearth that is always a main ripple of extinction.”
— RK Fauth / “Playing with Bees”
“I’m feeling excited about writing, but it’s only because I’m not doing it. When I’m doing it, I feel miserable. When I’m not doing it, I can’t wait to do it again. It’s so frustrating to write, and I get so depressed when I’m writing. Right now, I’m not writing and I feel great about writing.”
— Anelise Chen / The Creative Independent interview
“Tender Is the Flesh is a meditation on what capitalism is – it teaches us to naturalise cruelty … Capitalism is a system into which we are all born, we have it inside of us, and patriarchy is part of that system. I tried to work with this idea that we eat each other in a symbolic way. With women it’s so obvious, because you can talk about human trafficking, war and the way women are made invisible in different spheres. Here in Argentina, they kill women every day. Capitalism and cannibalism are almost the same, you know?”
— Agustina Bazterrica / “Bookmarks” / The Guardian
“… the world is violent. Why should fiction pretend it’s not?”
another year dead another dread come to pass another dashed hope as you drift to sleep you wretch—
make lemonade tomorrow
What I’m Reading:
“But those were good days … and now like everything else, the cigarettes and the wine and the cock-eyed sparrows in the half-moon, it’s all gone. A sorrow heavier than tar. Goodbye, goodbye.”
Strangely situated in plaid—both real and unreal—the quip ornithologist unfolds clothes (sometimes) and seems like an exile in detriment or, perhaps, emotional involvement in obstructions that compel abstractions.
The calumnies. The culminating fraternity. The serenity, unpredictability, humor, restlessness, and occasional sentimentality of artisanal lies—as well as the mysterious, contradictory praises of the ivory billed woodpecker (really extinct or a ruse?) captured and framed; it is a beautiful beaky beastie!
I pray you debit my impertinence. Forbear nothing. Forgive me nothing. My penetrating trademarks lay listless around my ankles.
What I’m Reading:
“There are so many different people to hate, so I keep things simple and hate everyone.”
“I have the habit of negative thinking which greatly troubles my writing. As a response to the anxiety caused by my negative thinking I soothe myself through distraction so I also have the habit of enjoying myself too much. I prioritize joyful things instead of writing. I have the habit of not waking up as early as I want to, and I have the habit of social media, which troubles my writing..”
— Anelise Chen / The Creative Independent interview
“If I feel helpless living a baffling existence on an unfathomable planet in an indifferent universe, my being cries out for redemption, for purpose, for hope, but climate change just compounds the uncertainty and existential misery of day-to-day life lived in this deteriorating shell of an animal body. If that seems grim, well, so it is. But I take great joy in creation …”
— T.C. Boyle / “T.C. Boyle on Surviving and Satirizing the Climate Crisis”
thee istsfor manity reader 