November 19, 2024

Slouching towards uncertainty

On tyranny, "Pedro Páramo," Joseph Beuys and Stick Tok

Rest assured, I am not here with a hot take on the election. I think we’ve had quite enough of those. Though I will highlight a couple I found intriguing:

• This essay by Michael Mechanic in Mother Jones about how income and wealth inequality may have fueled the results.

• And this one by Rozina Ali in the New York Review of Books, on how Gaza may not have lost the election for the Democrats, but revealed a party unwilling to function as a true form of opposition to the GOP.

But generally, I’m spending more time thinking about what lies ahead.

ON TYRANNY.

I recently picked up the graphic edition of Timothy Snyder’s “On Tyranny,” illustrated by the German American artist Nora Krug. I’ve enjoyed the visual experience of reading the book — Krug’s work is a gorgeous gut punch. But I’ve also appreciated Snyder’s practical approach to facing authoritarianism and the roles that individuals play in sustaining it — or, more importantly, preventing it from ever gaining traction. As the author wrote in an op-ed in the Los Angeles Times in 2021: “Tyrants draw lessons from the past and from one another, and those who oppose them must do the same.”

His book is framed as a series of 20 lessons — instructions simple enough that they could easily be committed to memory. Do not obey in advance. Defend institutions. Be kind to our language. Believe in truth. Be as courageous as you can. Woven into each of these are brief history lessons drawn from countries such as Germany and Russia. He also detours into science and literature.

If you’re feeling hopeless about the election, I recommend picking it up — in particular, the graphic edition, since Krug’s illustrations give Snyder’s words an added dynamism. It’s a simple book, but a deeply empathetic one, and it left me feeling better prepared to face what will come.

• Find “On Tyranny” via the publisher’s page here.

• The graphic edition is sold out in many places, but you can download a full-color digital version for the Nook app at Barnes & Noble.

• Read Hillary Chute’s 2021 review of the graphic edition in the New York Times.

• Plus, the New Yorker has some lovely excerpts showcasing the art.

STICK TOK.

In a recent episode of the Critics at Large podcast, hosts Alexandra Schwartz, Vinson Cunningham and Naomi Fry talked about looking for art that might bring comfort at a difficult time. They also get into whether this should be art’s role and how lost in these escapes we should allow ourselves to get, so there is plenty of debate.

But it got me thinking about Stick Tok, in which social media users post short videos about an interesting stick that they found. I find it deeply soothing to watch people talk earnestly about their appreciation of a simple stick. Although, to be certain, sticks are never as simple as they appear. Now, @officialstickreviews, an account that gathers these videos, has launched a contest for Stick of the Year. And, yes, I’ll be following.

Sort of related: Stick Tok reminds me of Michael Linares’ “Museum of the Stick,” which was presented at LACMA in 2017, as part of the group show “A Universal History of Infamy” (part of the last PST). It consisted of a funny, unironic presentation of different types of sticks.

MY WORK IN THE WORLD.

I contributed a short dispatch to the New York Review of Books on what we might expect from Trump in the arena of culture: “One can figure that Trump’s approach to the arts in his second term will likely be much like the first: a combination of willful disregard and regular attacks.”

• While you’re there, be sure to read Wesley Lowery’s dispatch on journalism’s role during this time.

Since there is no time like the present to be thinking about caudillos, I reviewed Netflix’s new “Pedro Páramo” film for “Fresh Air.” Juan Rulfo’s otherworldly novel is a difficult story to get on film, and this isn’t the first attempt at a cinematic version — but it’s the one that stays the most true to the book.

LOOKING. READING. WATCHING.

I’ll confess that I knew little about Joseph Beuys beyond his taste for grey flannel and his self-mythologizing images when I stepped into the Broad to see “Joseph Beuys: In Defense of Nature.” But I found myself really moved by his prints and drawings of animals, which are deeply felt. Absolutely worth a trip — and because it’s a collection show, it’s F-R-E-E.

I recently spent a weekend with my nose buried in Hilary Mantel’s 1988 novel “Eight Months on Ghazzah Street,” inspired by a period she spent living in Saudi Arabia with her geologist husband who was working for an international company there. (She wrote an essay about that experience for the Guardian in 2004.) My family lived in Saudi for a short period in the ‘70s and were part of that curious group of international workers who travel from one massive building project to another. (My father was a heavy construction engineer.) Mantel’s story is framed as a mystery, but she manages to capture the strange, cocoonish world of international civil engineering with wry detachment.

I devoured every second of Netflix’s Martha Stewart doc. She is pure ice queen. 🧊 The best quote (of many): “Those prosecutors should have been put in a Cuisinart turned on high.”

RANDOM CLICKS.

• If you speak Spanish, there’s a really interesting report in El País about how Spain’s heroin epidemic of the late ‘70s and ‘80s, long ignored, has reemerged in novels and memoirs. The epidemic marked a moment of rupture after the end of the Franco regime.

• A helpful essay by Kelly Hayes on preserving our energies for the battles that matter during Trump 2.0.

• It strikes me that the Elizabeth Catlett show at the Brooklyn Museum is the perfect show for right now.

• Daniel Felsenthal on the late Gary Indiana.

• 99% Invisible had an episode that explains how Spirit Halloween came to inhabit the husks of all those abandoned big box stores.

• Carlos Valladares on five cinemas in Paris.

• I’m the kind of geek who will read an entire newsletter about how people take notes.

• In 2 ½ minutes, this historian gives an explainer on propaganda and why it can be helpful to tune it the fuck out.

Thanks for reading. I’ll be back soon.