thee istsfor manity reader

What I’m Reading:

. . . for in Mumbai, as in Miami and many other coastal cities, these are often the very areas in which expensive new construction projects are located. Property values would almost certainly decline if residents were to be warned of possible risks which is why builders and developers are sure to resist efforts to disseminate disaster-related information.

— Amitav Ghosh / The Great Derangement

Phosphene Dream (redux)

He produced phosphenes that smelled of mandarin oranges — a strange synesthetic effect that followed the orange-rimmed yellow spots that exploded in his closed-eye vision.

He thought this was an improvement on the phosphenes of his youth that smelt of rotting meats and animal carcasses, and filled his nights with monstrous nightmares.

He finally felt like an adult. He thought he’d arrived at the happiest point of his life, but he felt his brand was in peril. Only the whip smartest YouTubers and TikTok’ers could make the scene, and his phosphenes were falling behind.

So he really pressed down hard on his eyes this time and they fell into the center of his head, down his sinuses, and mysteriously into his esophagus, and through his digestive tract.

His vision was something spectacular now — 12K Supreme! It was like a Haight Ashbury psychedelic oil light show at a Grateful Dead concert, c. 1966 — every time another enzyme, bile, or gastric acid washed over his eyes making their way through this world of gastrointestinal wonder — phosphenes like he’d never seen before exploded through his eyeless head — sending bright yellow sparks out of his vacant eyeholes.

Man, it blew him away.

And when the peristalsis finally evacuated his eyes into the depths of his own rectum— the time was now! Now he knew he’d be the supreme influencer to all mankind.

He tapped out a telegraph to his mother: “Success, Mother! I’m finally in my own rectum and about to be born again!

What I’m Reading:

Synapses are electrical messages, didn’t they say. Crackling colours like northern lights or deep-sea creatures, floating miles below and right inside us.

— Megan Hunter / The End We Start From

The Best Stuff I Read This Week

Words float up the stairs like so many childhood letter magnets. Endgame, civilization, catastrophe, humanitarian.

— Megan Hunter / The End We Start From

Those who witness extreme social collapse at first hand seldom describe any deep revelation about the truths of human existence. What they do mention, if asked, is their surprise at how easy it is to die.

— Paul Kingsnorth / The Dark Mountain Manifesto

Throughout the year we exist in dazzling drought.
When the rare cloudburst occurs, we complain
about getting caught and drenched in the rain.

— Harryette Mullen / Urban Tumbleweed

Evidence from long-lived marine sponges suggests that the planet has already passed 1.5 °C — a milestone of global warming that nations pledged to avoid in the 2015 Paris climate agreement . . . and is on track to surpass 2 °C in the next few years.”

— Bianca Nogrady / “The world has warmed 1.5 °C, according to 300-year-old sponges” / Nature

A farcical and inhuman history turned us into “brown” people and “Hispanics” and “illegal aliens” and “spics.” But when we spend time living inside that history, and untangling the roots of the racist ideas about us, we can feel stronger and more centered. We can see that the insults directed at us have increased the more dependent the country has become on our labor.

— Hector Tobar / Our Migrant Souls

Makeshift sign. Uncle Sam
white as the lines on the flag in hand mouths
love it or leave it. You must admire
the gall of white men in carjacked country …
… How does one undrown
from the incivility of this world?

— Niki Herd / “The Stuff of Hollywood”

I have read that, when someone knows they are going to die, the world becomes acutely itself.

— Megan Hunter / The End We Start From

What I’m Listening To:

This is all a hallway to another empty room but you can’t go without me
Who will save you from the darkness in me?

— Birthmark / “Snowflake in My Palm (Not for Long)”