thee istsfor manity reader

What I’m Reading:

“I gravitate toward fiction that some might call strange. I like stories that are free from the logic that governs our reality.”

— Rebekah Bergman / “When Cause Doesn’t Follow Effect: How to Structure the Strange” / lithub.com

The Best Stuff I Read This Week

“We have a narrow window for change … and the projections from our research suggest that the window is closing fast.”

— Climate Scientists at the SCAR Biology Symposium / “Antarctica’s heatwaves are a warning to humanity—and we have only a narrow window to save the planet” / The Guardian

“Such beauty that for a minute
death and ambition, even love,
doesn’t enter into this.
Happiness. It comes on
unexpectedly. And goes beyond, really,
any early morning talk about it.”

— Raymond Carver / “Happiness”

“Waste body / garbaged / while I was anaesthetically asleep / naked under medical fluorescence / — intubated dead bits cut off / — dead bits deemed / “biohazard”: / waste / feet / ankles / fingers / Uterus / biohazardbodyparts / all go into their fucking garbage can”

— Therese Estacion / Phantompains

“I can’t explain it. She broke something loose in me and swept away the splinters. I didn’t blush or bat my eyes or do anything as I spoke. I was saying things I’d never said before, and yet I felt nothing. That was Elizabeth’s power. That was her magic. I felt absolutely nothing around her.”

— Ottessa Moshfegh / “When Stars Collide”

“She just turned fifty. I tell her wait ten years—you
won’t know more, but you will get closer to forgiving,
because it is all happening on a wheel that spins
so fast.”

— Sheila Black / “The Earth”

“We’re in a mess, but together we have some chance of working our way out of it.”

— Bill McKibben / “Where Should I Live?” / Substack newsletter

“This is a critical moment, impacting our well-being, future generations and ecosystems globally. Confronted by this evidence, we urgently call on nations to intensify and exceed their current commitments to greenhouse gas emissions reductions. An immediate increase in ambition is required to reach net zero and to go beyond it. Pledges are not enough.”

— Climate Scientists at the SCAR Biology Symposium / “Antarctica’s heatwaves are a warning to humanity – and we have only a narrow window to save the planet” / The Guardian

What I’m Listening To:

“Zun’s a feeble lamp
O’er leery land
Stares a’chat in code
Lark a meagre note”

—PJ Harvey / “I Inside the Old Year Dying”

eye see

eye can see with new vision

eye can see the division lines
in the atmosphere
the elemental lines that divide
this particle from that
the swirls in space
those lines which order
the world + universe
our perspective—mine
anyway

eye see the invisible bullseye
the lineations in the hawk’s current
the particulate pixels streaming
from it’s red tail
the rust to brown eddies
in the convection
the wake diluting
to hiss

eye see the sharp arrow
of declination as it strikes
the mourning
dove

What I’m Reading:

“The time for critical action is right now. What we do today will determine our future for centuries.”

— Climate Scientists at the SCAR Biology Symposium / “Antarctica’s heatwaves are a warning to humanity — and we have only a narrow window to save the planet” / The Guardian

What I’m Reading:

“The darker picture is always the correct one. When you read the history of the world you are reading a saga of bloodshed and greed and folly the import of which is impossible to ignore. And yet we imagine that the future will somehow be different. I’ve no idea why we are even still here but in all probability we will not be here much longer.”

— Cormac McCarthy / The Sunset Limited

/ + (soy yo autoretrato)

I am the day’s encryption /
I am nylon whir on fetid skronk /
I am must + disequilibrium /
I am growth opportunity /
I am terror in the grass /
I am green bastion in silence /
I am the shock of slice before
sanguinary /
I am bloodlust /
I am carnivore.
I am chaos +
confusion.
I am /
eye.

What I’m Reading:

“In the end we all come to be cured of our sentiments. Those whom life does not cure, death will. The world is quite ruthless in selecting between the dream and the reality even where we will not. Between the wish and the thing, the world lies waiting.”

— Cormac McCarthy / All the Pretty Horses

The Best Stuff I Read Last Week

“The sourball of every revolution: after the revolution, who’s going to pick up the garbage on Monday morning?”

— Mierle Laderman Ukeles / Manifesto for Maintenance Art

“Everything I need to know grows wings / and lands on my skin. / A thousand tiny plovers / cover the skies, and shine / like moonlight on us both…”

— Farnaz Fatemi / “Heretic”

“Out of sight, I’m merely an annoyance,
one slim, obstinate wrinkle in night’s
deepening trance.”

— Rita Dove / “Postlude”

“We lie on the beach. Gray waves 
advance, retreat. The blue wind, salt scrub, 
scours my skin. Sharks troll for toddlers. 
Patrol planes hum below the cloudy scrim.”

— Pia Täavila-Borsheim / “My Friend, Her Grandson”

“I don’t know the names of the women in my family / past my great grandmother. How will I call upon them / when it’s time? Will I call them Mary or Venus / or Yemaya?”

— Diannely Antigua / “We Never Stop Talking About Our Mothers”

“I promise touch. I promise my voice. I promise a willingness to dream.
I promise your face hewn into lost history

— Tala Khanmalek / “Louise”

“Solitary bloom / of wild rocambole / day of departure nears.”

— Yuko Fujikawa / “Solitary bloom”

What I’m Listening To:

“El mundo de las luciérnagas
ha invadido mis recuerdos
Y un corazón diminuto
va brotándome en los dedos”

(“The world of fireflies
Has invaded my memories
And a tiny heart
Is sprouting in my fingers”)

— Tarta Relena & Manuel Oltra / “Las Alamedas”