I used to collage all the time as a kid, especially during my years of making zines. I’ve picked it up again recently, in an effort to bring more analog, tactile projects into my life, instead of always looking at a screen.

I’m finding it soothing to create something that has no purpose. I like the form constriction of only being able to use whatever you randomly find in magazines or catalogs.

There’s something that feels restorative about making art only out of what you can find, when you could just command chatGPT to grant you the illustration of your wishes.

What I’ve been reading

Ezra Klein is wrong about abortion, by Jessica Valenti. In this house, we continue to dunk on centrists like Ezra. Look, I understand the importance of building a coalition with some of your enemies in order to defeat a greater enemy. I just also think it’s very interesting that when a certain political class starts floating that strategy, they almost always suggest reproductive rights or LGBTQ rights as the issues we should sacrifice. Kinda telling on themselves by revealing which issues are “meat and potatoes” to them and which ones are just icing.

All Fours is a western in disguise by Tembe Denton-Hurst. This one’s only relevant if you’ve read Miranda July’s room-splitter of a midlife crisis novel. I liked All Fours, the first half at least, but I also think Denton-Hurst is spot on in this analysis.

Let’s talk about the Irish music in Sinners by Leah Schnelbach. Right after I watched Sinners I sought out all the thinkpieces I could find about Why The Main Vampire Is Irish™ because I suspected this story choice was deliberate.

Large Language Muddle by the editors of N+1. REQUIRED READING FOR MY FELLOW ANTI-CHATGPT AVENGERS! Also required reading for people who think ChatGPT is cool! A brainy, erudite polemic against the misanthropic pressure to resign ourselves to AI simply because “it’s here.” In other words, “The way out of AI hell is not to regroup around our treasured flaws and beautiful frailties, but to launch a frontal assault. AI, not the human mind, is the weak, narrow, crude machine.”

Resistance is respect for life by Shira Erlichman. I’m always humbled and inspired by Shira’s principled anti-Zionism, her commitment to radical solidarity. I cannot recommend her newsletter enough. Subscribe to be lifted!

A message to Alligator Alcatraz Detainees from a Guantanamo survivor by Mansoor Adayfi. “You are not trash. You are not numbers on a cold spreadsheet. You are human. Do not let them erase you. Do not let them turn your life into data. Make them remember what it means to be human. Fight. They only understand force. Weaponize your pain. Starve. Let your suffering be a weapon aimed at their cruelty.”

This is happening to human beings like yourself by Chanda Prescod-Weinstein. Chanda is another writer whose continued opposition to genocide I am grateful for. Every time there is pressure to feel embarrassed or ashamed for speaking about Gaza “too much,” Chanda’s writing reminds me how important it is to loudly oppose genocide. Here, she interviews Gazan physicist Wasim Said about his forthcoming book. A physicist herself, in this post she points out how genocide destroys intellectual exploration: “These are the conditions that have been imposed on Palestinians by people who are ideologically and politically committed to Zionism: reducing curious physicists to people who can only be curious about where their next meal will come from, desperate to feed their little cousins and siblings.”

From the Gaza Flotilla: I’m here because my Jewish heritage demands it by David Adler. “As a mere adolescent, my grandfather Jacques Adler joined the Parisian resistance against the Nazis, putting his life on the line to sabotage their operations even as his friends and family were sent to their deaths in concentration camps.”

One more thing

Two weeks ago, I wrote about Mona, the young poet in Gaza who wrote “Between two bombardments, we write a song.” Today, October 3, Is Mona’s 19th birthday. She and her family have been displaced from Gaza City by the IOF and are now living in a tent in the south. She has been working hard to raise money to keep her family alive, more than any 19-year old should have to do.

Though they want to remain in Gaza, their homeland, they are now looking at the possibility of evacuating to Turkey, in order to treat her father’s heart condition. My own father had a heart condition, and I remember how scared I was every time he had to go to the hospital. I cannot imagine the fear and anxiety I would have felt if we were also displaced from our home during those times, living in a tent with little access to food, clean water, or medicine. No one should have to go through this.

I’m asking everyone to help Mona today. Surviving ethnic cleansing is expensive and burdensome. If you can’t donate, you can share her fundraiser, or send her a message on Instagram.