the slow and unyielding march of time
GOODNESS I hope you are all awake and alive and well as one can manage, but also if you’ve figure out a way to sleep until groundhog’s day, well, I congratulate you heartily on that achievement.
Unless you live under a rock (lucky you!), you’ll know that a gang of mostly-white folks tried to overthrow the government in a stupid, easily avoidable, and yet seemingly inevitable consequence of unchecked entitlement and tantrum acquiescence. I am very, very grateful that the deadly coup attempt was not deadlier as it easily could have been. Thank goodness for the heroics of Eugene Goodman, who will awarded the Congressional Gold Medal for diverting a mob of traitors away from the Senate chambers, and whose name is so on-the-nose that it would easily fit in a Jonathan Lethem novel.
Okay, so I could go on another rant about how capitalism and tech have intertwined to help bring us to this moment, but other smart folks have written about that in smart ways. So fuck it, let’s talk about the Chilling Adventures of Sabrina.
I started watching January 1st because I was sleepy and didn’t want to move. It is chaotic and *extremely* unrealistic. There are so many hot teens in Greendale! They have such perfect skin, even though it’s a mining town! The boyfriends talk about their feelings! Instead of calling each other, the witches just astrally project into each other’s houses. Without texting first! What if someone was on the toilet?
Sabrina is fun in a mindless way, so, perfect for this fucked up 2021 we’ve had thus far. I just finished the third season and honestly, saying this as someone who loves Riverdale (a show that slow-burned an organ-stealing cult for multiple seasons!), there may be too much plot going on. However, it’s given me my current daily gratitude:
It is a blessed morning, considering none of us had our throats slit by malevolencies in the night.
— Auntie Zelda
There are a lot of problems with Sabrina, but the biggest problem I think, is that Sabrina sucks. Like Harry Potter, she isn’t smart or interesting or studious; her special-ness is because of her parents, or rather, her parent, and as a consequence she doesn’t try very hard or think very deeply about the consequences of her actions. She’s entitled to her specialness, you see, and so never bothers to check in with her smarter and more experienced witch family-members, who could probably tell her things like “the universe won’t be fooled if you sacrifice someone to resurrect your boyfriend’s brother, but then also resurrect the sacrifice.” (I wish there was a shorter way to say that.)
Rarely are there real long-term consequences for Sabrina that hurt for more than an episode; sure, Harvey broke up with her because (SPOILER ALERT) he then had to shoot the soul-less creature that looked like but wasn’t his brother, but that just paved the way for her to date sexy warlock Nick! Does she feel bad? Sure, but not so bad that she’ll ask for consent the next time she forces some magic onto Harvey’s family.
In short, Sabrina barrels forward, often without getting consent from the people that she’s pulling into her schemes, not talking to people who might know more about what she’s doing or who are affected by her actions, doing things because she *can* and not thinking about possible ramifications or ethics breaches, often making things worse, and then leaving others to clean up the mess. OH WAIT AM I TALKING ABOUT TECH AGAIN. Fucking hell.
I hope you all have a chill week in which absolutely nothing exciting happens
Debris
My reaction to all this world shit was to immediately delete my instagram and migrate off my gmail account. I’m tired of being the product. If you would like my new cool email, please respond and I shall give it to you!
Welcome to my substack! I moved to this because tinyletter just gives your email address out for free to the world, and I only want people I know to have it. Hopefully you still want to receive this newsletter, even though it’s not through substack and not tinyletter. Also, I half-wrote this in tinyletter, and copy/pasted it over to the substack editor, and it looks like it added some double spaces in places, so sorry if that bothers you! The next one will be cleaner, probably.
I’ve been struggling with how to feel about QAnon-ers, people who have fallen prey to a series of interconnected delusions. I want to have empathy for people who don’t have the media and tech literacy not to be sucked in by algorithms. The QAnon conspiracy is a perfect conspiracy board, with every “clue” pointing to wherever an individual wants it to. It’s so satisfying to solve a puzzle, feeling each piece lock into place — it triggers something in our brains. But, as Helen Rosner pointed out on Twitter, you have to feed yourself a steady diet of white supremacy for this stuff to really take hold.
The Biden relief plan is … good? Am I … hopeful?
My parents have both gotten their first vaccination shot. My 94-year-old grandma is getting it soon, and my siblings (who both work with the public) should be getting appointments soon. I’m so relieved and grateful! (I’m basically last in line, so I won’t be getting it until summer, probably, but I feel so grateful my family will be safer.)
I ate a couple bites of a mysterious giant yellow citrus that came in my CSA that made my tongue tingle for a half hour. Did someone poison me??? Am I allergic to pomelos?
What I've Been Reading:
Currently:
Where Do We Go From Here: Chaos or Community by Martin Luther King:
MLK day is tomorrow and I am lucky enough to work at a place where there were a couple meetings where folks considered and reflected upon MLK’s work and what it means during this particular moment in history; this work was referenced over and recommended, so I’m reading it! It was written in 1967, but is extremely resonant today, with his sweeping ideas that tie together economic and social justice, and his assertions and reminders that equality means equality — not a slightly improved situation for historically oppressed communities.
Finished:
The Thief by Megan Whalen Turner:
Sometimes I get into a certain kind of literary mood and I queue a ton of books in a flurry from the library and then when they start trickling in I'm like, "What is this?" and can't remember why I wanted it. Anyway, the thief is about a thief! (It's a male protagonist which for some reason really surprised me! I spent the first twenty pages assuming it was a woman. The world is now a matriarchy.) The thief is … very good at his job! It was cute and fun and pretty short, and there were some twists I guessed and a couple I didn’t! It was absolutely just fine.
The Office of Historical Corrections by Danielle Evans:
Thanks for the suggestion Shadae! This book punched me in the face over and over again; Evans' moody and emotionally resonant short stories are full of characters just trying to figure out who they are and what the fuck is going on. The titual story, which is really a novella, follows Cassandra, a Black woman who quits her desirable professorship to work at a federal agency trying to correct public misinformation campaigns mostly by ... correcting tourists and local signage. She gets assigned to a sensitive case that her old coworker (and oldest frenemy) opened, she is pulled into the story of a multi-generational murder that's not what it seems. Like a perfect tragedy, the end is inevitable at every step of the way but it's still absolutely gutting. A quick, extremely good and engaging read.
The Wedding Party by Jasmine Guillory:
Jasmine Guillory's cinematic universe is way better than Marvel's. I've been reading these books "out of order," meaning out of chronologically-written order, which made this one very fun because there are some scenes where I get to see all my old friends from the other books that I've read! This one centers Maddie (whose mom stars in Royal Holiday), a bad-ass self-employed stylist who accidentally bangs Theo, her best friend's other best friend, a man that she has historically found snotty and pretentious as hell! They agree it's a one-off thing, but then Alexa, their mutual bestie, gets engaged and they both have to spend toooooo much time with each other cuz they're both in the wedding party. Listen; focus is basically impossible these days. I highly recommend fun, sexy, low-stakes romances because it's nice to remember that you can feel good.
Scarlet by Melissa Meyer:
This is the second book in the lunar chronicles, which are steampunk retellings of fairy tales. Extremely my jam! This one is Little Red Riding Hood, complete with a missing granny, and a street fighter named Wolf. Cinder intersects with Scarlet, Ms Hood herself, as she searches for understanding about her identity as the missing lunar princess. Also the moon queen attacks earth! The romance between Scarlet and Wolf is not as well defined as Cinder and the prince's (and also makes less sense in the context of the fairy tales, but also at least there's no woodsman) but whatever, I'm hooked. I can't wait for the next installment to come from the library; I think it's gonna be Rapunzel as a space-hacker. (There are some narrative teasers!)
SLAY by Brittney Morris:
FIRST BOOK OF 2021! Kiera's a really lovely protagonist -- an honors high-school senior, trying to get into Spelman, the school of her dreams so that she and her boyfriend Malcolm can go to HBCUs in Atlanta together, navigating the majority-White hallways of her suburban high-school in Bellevue, Washington. But Kiera also loves video games, and three years ago, after too-many encounters with racist gamers, she decided to create a game that celebrates Black excellence. SLAY now has 300k active users, and being a developer and moderator is taking up more and more time, especially as she doesn't feel like she can tell any of her friends or family about it. Kiera constantly is questioning herself, her own beliefs, and those of the folks around her, sometimes in a way rooted in insecurity, but usually in a way that's kind. It explores some pretty intense themes, but well worth a read. (And it's quick, since it's YA!)
The Searcher by Tana French:
I know I've mentioned Tana French a number of times in these newsletters, and I have somewhat mixed feelings about that; her protagonists are always cops, and I think cops shouldn't really exist. I go back and forth about whether French's books get a pass for two reasons; 1. the location is Ireland, where there are some key differences, like (typically) a lack of hand guns. 2. Her cops are portrayed as political, conniving, corrupt fuckers. The protagonists are broken humans. Anyways, this one stars Cal, an American cop, but he's retired and moved from Chicago to Ireland and he meets a kid whose brother has disappeared. The kid persuades him to look into the disappearance, and he's soon wandering in a dark cave (metaphorically) of secrets, feeling his way through relationships that have long ago ossified into almost indecipherable shapes.
The Coldest Girl in Coldtown by Holly Black:
Look at this pretty book trailer! I always forget that these exist, sometimes. Anyway, I finished it and while I don't think it's the best written book I've read this year, it's got a good balance of really good world-building and also not getting too tangled up in telling you about the world, and just letting you experience it. It's interesting to read a dystopic kind of novel that doesn't follow the Hunger Games formula, too; it's just a girl, trying to live her life and work through her trauma, who gets interrupted and has to go try to save some friends. She's not particularly special, she's just kind.
The Bellwether Revivals by Benjamin Wood:
Maybe a decade or so ago, I read The Secret History by Donna Tartt and was so enthralled by it. I've been chasing the feeling of reading it ever since. I don't remember much about the plot, or even if it's very good but I remember being compelled and repelled in equal measure. Oscar, a care-taker at a local assistant living home, happens to meet Iris and her brother Eden one evening after work when he is taken by the choir and the organ music at the college's church; Iris is there to listen to the music; Eden is the master behind the organ. Oscar and Iris began dating, and he is integrated into their tight-knit group of friends, all intelligent, too-pretentious students. Eden is the leader of the group, and soon questions about religion, science, and the possibility of musical healing are introduced; is there madness in the air, or fanaticism, or transcendence? It didn't draw me as much as I remember The Secret History did, but perhaps that's just a memory of a thing I'll never quite get back.
Wow, you can get a lot of reading done when you take social media off your phone. Okay everyone. Stay safe this week. Drink water, eat food that makes you feel good, maybe stretch if you have the energy. I hope the next time I write to you, the republic still stands strong against the enemies of the state. I love you all so much.
love,
davida