> 195: If I stand very still, I do no further harm.
I can’t remember where I heard this tip, but I saw someone share recently that you can simply cut off the top of a bag of chips you’re well on the way to finishing so that your hand has less bag to travel through to access the last of the chips. I’ve done this ever since reading that advice and it’s great. We may live in hell but at least there’s chips, and chip tips?
Here’s some art, ideas, and internet for you:
“Every crisis is in part a storytelling crisis. This is as true of climate chaos as anything else. We are hemmed in by stories that prevent us from seeing, or believing in, or acting on the possibilities for change. Some are habits of mind, some are industry propaganda. Sometimes, the situation has changed but the stories haven’t, and people follow the old versions, like outdated maps, into dead ends.”
It becomes, in fact, great sport to find the spoons in the wood.
My household had a brief phase this spring where we watched all of the Bridget Jones movies in a row (it turns out there are four total; our overall ranking was 1, 4, 3, 2). I found the latest one, Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy, to be surprisingly affecting and something my thoughts keep turning to. It’s not really about Renee Zellweger and that boy from the second season of White Lotus. Not a spoiler because it's in the trailer: Mark Darcy has died (heroic human rights lawyer accident) and the movie is about how to find your way back to joy when you're left to keep living after someone you adore has died. Also: Hugh Grant is briefly in it, the fact of which I found touching in itself, and as usual he's one of the best things about it even with limited screen time (the glasses/hair combo alone).
You Forgot It In People covers album (including a Maggie Rogers/Sylvan Esso cover of "Anthems for a Seventeen-Year-Old Girl”).
Erin Kissane of the COVID Tracking Project is among a team that will document how the administration is "breaking the government, and what that means for all of us."
Weilikia is a project to visualize block by block “the ecosystems, geologic foundations, and stewards of the land before New York.” Relatedly, this New York Hall of Science exhibit on NYC infrastructure looks amazing.
I believe this too: “In a world of AI slop, something hand-crafted and made with care stands out like a sore thumb. It’s like seeing a home-cooked meal on the McDonald’s menu. It might actually be easier to stand out in that world.”
Why rich people don't cover their windows.
I am not nearly friendly or charismatic enough to pull off Stoop Coffee, but maybe you are.
No shit? “Which types of people aren’t big fans of ‘impartial’ news? People who don’t have power.”
Looking forward to: Ryan Coogler's take on The X Files; Ayo Edibiri in a show about former child prodigies (with yet another man from White Lotus).
Some people collect dirt from significant places.
Or spoonfuls of cloudy ocean inside jars.
Like amateur naturalists, they keep
these treasures permanently on a shelf.
Of course an amateur is simply a person
who loves, who brings love to bear
on a particular subject.
Returning from one trip I failed to bring back
a jar of anything. I stood outside my house
where white stitches of snow were dissolving
into the ground beneath the evergreens.
An unset moon floated over the trees.
If I stand very still, I do no further harm.
Lam a tiny theater of non-harming. My breath
watches raptly. See how everything is still alive.—Orpheus in Spring, Jenny George
Laura
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