> 199: I am building what I cannot break
Boy, I don’t know.
Here’s some art, ideas, and internet for you:
“It was hard for painters to resist, even when they knew it would render their works mortal. To use verdigris was to accept that your lovingly rendered scene would one day sour. The bright cloaks would turn dark, the soft grass would fade, the foliage turn. But such is the nature of cloth and plants and paint. Such is the nature of beauty.” On verdigris in the Paris Review. I had forgotten that the Statue of Liberty was, upon installation, brown.
We don’t have to celebrate our failures or, worse still, confuse them with our successes. This is one valuable function of shame: it reminds us of who we want to be when we fall short, a goalpost that is necessarily anchored to the lofty height that our conduct fell beneath. Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò on why shame is essential.
This month’s “Science, goddamn” round-up: Huntington’s disease treated successfully for the first time. There’s a new single-dose rabies vaccine that doesn’t need to be refrigerated. An over-the-counter nasal spray that cuts COVID cases by two-thirds. Science people, you are the coolest.
A look at David Lynch’s house, designed by successive generations of Frank Lloyd Wright’s family and currently for sale.
New Robyn imminent. They’re making more Woke Superman, thank God. There are so many amazing-looking movies out this fall; I’m especially excited for the new “Knives Out,” the film adaptation of Hamnet, new PTA, and a new art heist movie because art heist movies are the best movies of all (how is Josh O’Connor in every movie being made though?).
New favorite blog: Craigslist Horses. “I track Craigslisthorses tag. If you're easily offended this blog isn't for you.”
I am so busy. I am practicing
my new hobby of watching me
become someone else. There is
so much violence in reconstruction.
Each minute is grisly, but I have
to participate. I am building
what I cannot break.—Jennifer Willoughby, from “The Sun Is Still A Part of Me”
Laura
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