> 194: I believe my courage will expand like a sponge cowboy in water
If you’re getting into composting, as is now mandatory in New York City, listen to me. This is important. You’re going to think you want the compost bin that you keep on your counter to be cute. Maybe a shiny stainless steel one, or another one with a tight-fitting lid and odor filters you change out every so often. NO. Listen to me. LISTEN. You actually want an incredibly aesthetically mid one that, crucially, you can open with just one hand. Picture this: you are baking and you’ve just cracked some eggs. You didn’t have the foresight to open the compost bin already because we’re all imperfect and no one can tell the future. Do you really want to put those eggshells with their residual goop down somewhere, rinse off and dry your hands of the goop, open your stupid fucking compost bin, pick up the goopy eggshells again and put them in the compost bin, then—I guess—wash and dry your hands again in order to get the compost bin closed without getting goop on the lid? Madness. NO. Listen. Get the dorky plastic bin you can open with just the joint of your index finger (we have this one) and just commit to regularly emptying it into your large outside bin (which you line and keep fastened shut). Just trust me on this.
Here’s some art, ideas, and internet for you:
“There are only three possible explanations as to why Americans voted for this man: they wanted what he promised; they didn’t believe what he promised; or they didn’t understand what he promised. Pick whichever rationale you want, because it doesn’t matter. Whatever the reason was, it exposed half of the electorate—the 77 million people who voted for Trump—as either fundamentally unserious, decadent, or weak. And no empire can survive the degeneration of its people.”
One of the key ways I personally understand the new administration and recent American history these days is through the concept of “the criminal interview.” The basic premise: the interview is where a criminal decides whether you are safe to attack. "‘Can I get away with it?’ is a major motivation for what people decide to do—or not do. Hence, the interview. This is one interview you want to fail. If you fail, the assailant decides that he cannot successfully, or easily, attack you. Then if he is a criminal, he will proceed to seek easier prey.” This thread, which Jason Kottke amplified into my feed a few months ago, applies the criminal interview concept to the last 30 years or so of American life. The last two months have only borne out its premises further. To the extent possible, become unsafe to attack.
I think When We’re In Charge, from my friend Amanda “Run for Something” Litman, will be this spring’s must-read action and hope manifesto.
Do you think Walton Goggins would let us all move in with him?
Picture all of the big movie posters from the '80s. The ones with a mountainous collage of all the characters that tells you a tiny bit about each of them but not enough to spoil anything? And still persists today as a style for franchises like Star Wars? Here's the story of the guy who came up with them.
This piece on the age of the double sell-out reminded me of this classic from Dave Eggers: “You actually asked me the question: ‘Are you taking any steps to keep shit real?’ I want you always to look back on this time as being a time when those words came out of your mouth.”
Join a game of telephone. (via the delightful, sometimes overwhelming Web Curios)
“okay but if you ever see a male creative who had a string of great work and then everything else he did was dogshit, go to the ‘personal life’ part of his wikipedia and look at his relationships.”
New York City’s new Vignelli-inspired subway map and Rebecca Solnit’s “City of Women” map.
Mapping the disappeared.
Japanese tree jackets to keep damaging pests away.
Looking forward to: the new season of Hacks, which is back TODAY and apparently, thank God, very good; a new cookbook from Samin Nosrat; new Mission Impossible and Wes Anderson (what is it actually about? who cares?).
Holy father I can’t pretend
I’m not afraid to see you again
but I’ll say that when the time
comes I believe my courage
will expand like a sponge
cowboy in water. My earth-
father was far braver than me —
coming to America he knew
no English save Rolling Stones
lyrics and how to say thanks
God. Will his goodness roll
over to my tab and if yes, how
soon? I’m sorry for neglecting
your myriad signs, which seem
obvious now as a hawk’s head
on an empty plate. I keep waking
up at the bottom of swimming
pools, the water reflecting
whatever I miss most: whiskey-
glass, pill bottles, my mother’s
oleander, which was sweet
and evergreen but toxic in all
its parts. I know it was silly
to keep what I kept from you;
you’ve always been so charmed
by my weaknesses. I just figured
you were becoming fed up with
all your making, like a virtuoso
trying not to smash apart her
flute onstage. Plus, my sins
were practically devotional:
two peaches stolen from
a bodega, which were so sweet
I savored even the bits I flossed
out my teeth. I know it’s
no excuse, but even thinking
about them now I’m drooling.
Consider the night I spent reading
another man’s lover the Dream
Songs in bed — we made it to
“a green living / drops
limply” before we were
tangled into each other, cat
still sleeping at our feet. Allow
me these treasures, Lord.
Time will break what doesn’t
bend — even time. Even you.
—”Despite My Efforts Even My Prayers Have Turned into Threats,” Kaveh Akbar
Bro doesn’t even know what the plan is,
Laura
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