Diary 51

CULTURAL AUDIT

Videos: Bjork attacking a reporter circa 1996
Chelsea Wolfe, Deranged for Rock & Roll
Podcasts: Criminal, Mr. Apology
This American Life, 24 Hours at the Golden Apple
Miranda July and Esther Perel on The Rebirth of Desire
Books: Sobotka Literary Magazine, Issue 10
Films: ZEF: The Story of Die Antwoord

11.01.24

I have no grasp on time anymore. The days all dissolve into each other and the wind blows gradually colder and more work gets finished as more work piles up. Think this is just the result of a busy life.

11.06.24

Tension today
between, across
whole sky of
hot / pressure / vessel
a collective pulse
felt in our teeth,
and all of us
beaming
beautiful, idiots.

What else / other than being
alive, surviving, dying.
Always something.
Never nothing.

11.09.24

”are you also melting in impending doom, or chillin?"

11.18.24

My little sister came to stay with me this week and I was reminded of just how out-of-touch I am as it relates to TikTok references. More than once I thought to myself, do I even know how to interact with this 13 year old? Are we speaking the same language? And then the thought would dissipate as quickly as it spawned. This is my sister, after all. Someone who’s perceived all the complicated nuances of our family dynamic. She may not be able to understand the full scope of things until she’s older, but, in this way, we share an unspoken language. One that’s felt, experienced, without needing to be articulated. I came to this conclusion at 2 am, when I woke up and realized we were lying face to face, our foreheads pressed together, her warm, steady breath grazing my cheek.

11.19.24

David French, "It's Time to Admit America Has Changed," The New York Times, 11/6/2024.

You know, I was speaking at a college a few days ago and someone asked, “What will be your mindset if Donald Trump wins?” And I think of it as having two real components: Protect the vulnerable and speak the truth.

When you think about Trump’s declaration of vengeance, he wants to pursue his political enemies. He wants to pursue deportations at a scale that would be terrifying. So you can already see that there are vulnerable populations that will need protection. That includes political dissidents, political opponents that might be vulnerable to a vengeful Department of Justice. That includes immigrants and others who—you know, think about it this way, you’re talking about people who have said, “Hey, look, if there’s a person who is an illegal immigrant, but they have children who are citizens, well, so what? So what? Just sweep them out.” Right?

So there’s going to be this real need to protect vulnerable populations, protect vulnerable people. And then the other thing is, if there’s one thing that we’ve learned, it is very, very difficult to combat large-scale lying and defamation from people who have an immense amount of power and privilege. That is just very difficult because people who come into politics sort of more casually don’t know much about it—they don’t know if someone says yes and another person says no, if one person says up and another person says down—they don’t know how to adjudicate these disputes. And so I think about it in these two ways: protect the vulnerable, speak the truth, and I think of it in this moment as this is a real clarion call moment. At some point we’re going to have to sort of continue to put aside many of the differences that have divided sort of the different elements of the anti-Trump coalition.

I think it’s totally fine to grieve this. It’s totally fine to lament that this has occurred and to grieve that this is where we are as a country. But that’s got to be short, because if we care about justice in this country, there’s going to be a lot of work to do.

Miron Zownir

Nineteenth-century escort card found via The Paris Review

Karl Blossfeldt, Art Forms in Nature, 1928.